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Explain the features of an effective team
An essay about online teaching and learning
Explain the features of an effective team
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Online Team Communication
Online learning is now a reality, with distributed learning and blended learning becoming more widely used in Higher Education (Whatley, 1999). Online learning has many advantages and disadvantages. Teamwork in online environments is becoming a widely used tool, whether it is in business or education. A team working together has more and better input than individuals working alone. This results in better ideas and decisions and higher quality output. Virtual teams are a good way to enable teamwork in situations where people are not sitting in the same physical office at the same time. The effective team-building requires the combination of clear team goals, empowerment, atmosphere of trust within the team, authentic participation of every member of team, innovative approach to work and ability to manage risks, proper leadership and ability to make the constructive changes.
Clearly defined goals and objectives are essential so that everyone understands the purpose and vision of the team. A team leader might be surprised at how many people do not know the reason they are doing the tasks that make up their jobs, much less what their team is doing. Everyone must be pulling in the same direction and be aware of the end goals. Empowerment in terms of team building is clear definition of roles and especially of leader's role and functions (Krell, 2007).
This case study tells us that the varied perceptions of every individual in a team will give rise to communication barriers (perceptual barriers). Fear, opportunism and mistrust also stops us from communicating effectively with our co-workers (emotional barriers). Knowlton Roberts is collaborative team leader and hardworking man. He is insecure and he generally don’t reveal those insecurities with his boss or team. Dr. Harold is the Director of research and supervisor of Roberts’s team. He has very high expectations of his group and he is not attentive to his team. Rankle is a new comer who is brilliant, aggressive, opportunist and not a team player.
The goal is to increase the empowerment, motivation and make the goal look attractive to achieve the goals. Therefore, the Path-Goal Theory can seen as a process to the leader select the specific behaviors that are most suitable to their employees’ need and wants, in order to have the best guide through their path to achieve the goals (Northouse, 2013). There are three basic steps include in Path-Goal Theory, the first one is to determine the employee and environment characteristic. Second, to select a leadership style. The third is need to focuses on the motivational factors, in order to help the employee succeed. An example of this style is ‘’ I have a vision and I try to make it clear to staff that we are in together, all going the same way towards one goal’’ (Case Study: 2). Kirsty is aiming to let everyone understand and know this statement that there is a path and target to everyone they are in together as a team not individual or
The process of forming virtual teams is very crucial and plays a significant role in the success of a virtual team, since the team members can be formed from virtually anywhere. As such, the management of the particular organizations needs to take significant care in the formation of virtual teams. Lerner (2008), did say that the leaders of distributed teams should have a heightened sense of awareness of the various subgroup formations and their weaknesses”. Thus the formation of virtual teams is critical to ensuring the objectives for a given project are met and the chemistry of the team is proper to achieve given goals. Karayaz (2006) did define thr...
“The team is faced with creating cohesion and unity, differentiating roles, identifying expectations for members, and enhancing commitment. Providing supportive feedback and fostering commitment to a vision are needed from the team leaders (Developing Management Skills).” ... ... middle of paper ... ...
Throughout humankind, communication has been used from sending firer signals to the pony express; communication is a very important part of our world today. Team Leader and member should always know their audience. Managers have all the tools necessaries to get their message across from meeting, email, office bulletin board, using FedEx. No matter how they chose to get the message across effective communication is important.
Working on a virtual team, or as Daim, et al. (2012) described it, "culturally diverse, geographically dispersed, electronically-connected workgroups" (p. 202) moves the team members away from the traditional, face to face communication. As Daim, et al. (2012) continues, "team members struggle to effectively communicate and work with one another" (p. 202) as traditional communication channels are replaced with an assortment of tools.
The purpose is increasingly clear but there are still many doubts. Groups and factions are formed and there may be power struggles. The team needs to focus on its goals to avoid being distracted from relationships and emotional issues. If they want to progress they have to find a solutions as it is needed.
A virtual team is a group of people working interdependently via various types of electronic media across organizational and geographical boundaries for a shared purpose (D’Souza & Colarelli, 2010). Research indicates virtual teams are becoming increasingly popular in organizations across the United States and the world (D’Souza & Colarelli, 2010; Rusman, van Bruggen, Sloep, & Koper, 2010). These teams vary in size, degree of geographic dispersion, prior shared work experience, nature of assignment, and expectations of a common future (Rusman et al., 2010). Although virtual teams have potential advantages like the removal of physical boundaries, the ability to form new partnerships, and optimization of competencies (Chinowsky & Rojas, 2003), they also introduce many challenges that may not be as prevalent in traditional teams.
The successful passing of information creates an important bond between virtual team members. “Without creating the connections, a virtual team can’t do what it needs to; function as a cohesive unit” (Thompson, n.d., Introduction section, ¶2). Information should be specific to the task at hand with a common goal in mind. Complete and accurate information not only helps a team reach its goal, but it also avoids problems and conflicts that arise between members. The importance of clear, concise information in a virtual team can not be stressed enough; however, timing should also be considered when sharing information. Information not received in a timely fashion also jeopardizes the cohesiveness of the team.
On a few occasions, our group opted not to meet up on a Wednesday afternoon and instead we individually contributed our allocation of the work to a google doc and communicated mostly online. It has been found that ‘virtual’ team work has benefits such as flexibility over time, increased contribution from all members, better idea generation and convenience (Levi, 2013). Although these benefits were observed to some extent, I personally also felt like virtual interactions did not provide the same motivation and group synergy as a physical meeting and this has been observed in other studies (Kirkman, Rosen, Gibson, Tesluk, & McPherson, 2002). I also felt that because everyone was doing their own work separately, the end product was less cohesive than if we had just collaborated and communicated as we progressed through steps together. This would also have enabled all group members to have the same level of understanding of the concepts (Rebori, 2000) to make presentations and future activities easier to coordinate. A particular example of where I found communication via virtual mediums to be detrimental to our groups’ progression was during the report write up for assignment 2, where one of our members contributed their delegated sections to the online document, however because English isn’t their first language, there was confusion over what they were trying to convey. They could have
There are many different benefits to having diverse dynamics within a team. Communication seems to be the key to making the dynamics of a team work. A team is very much an interpersonal relationship with many potential benefits as well as pitfalls. The dynamics can often cause conflict within that team which can negatively affect the team's performance. It is common for people on a team to try to ignore or bury problems due to a desire to not create a scene. This can be very destructive because the issues do not get resolved. There are some specific steps that can be taken to resolve that conflict. When it comes to resolving an issue, the methods of doing so can be as dynamic as the team itself.
Lipnack, J., & Stamps, J. (1997). Virtual teams: Reaching across space, time, and organizations with technology (p. 262). New York, NY: Wiley.
A shared goal has a major impact on the success of a team. For such a common goal or vision to be understood and sustained, interdependence and mutual understanding must be developed. For this to happen, there must be support of the team must be present. Trust must be present and must be recognized (Loo & Loewen, 2003).
When establishing goals, leaders must impart a notable strategy to succeed and delineate their motive and core values in essence that is notable and attainable. A powerful vision summons and encourages people to situate their vitality in a common ground. By establishing goals, the organization will expand its capability to fulfill goals, construct employee’s reliance and confidence, ameliorate team’s connection and increase all-inclusive fulfillment and gratification. Creating a vision can be a venture or a challenge, however following the six steps Clark (2014) mentioned – “vision, goals, objectives, tasks, timeless and follow up” can be justly straightforward.
As a leader it is important to have a vision and a goal, but it is even more crucial to have followers who trust in your vision and goals. Trust is developed by displaying positive energy and attitude. Having a goal and a vision helps an organization move into the future. Without a goal or a vision an organization is going nowhere. It is bound to fail. The six steps of goal setting are vision, goals, objective, tasks, timeliness, and follow-up. Creating a mental picture of how the organization will look like in the future is the vision. When an organization has a vision, it is looking for change, growth, and improvement for the future. This vision of the future is challenging the present processes at an organization. This challenge is the first step in the process of great leadership. Leadership starts with a vision. Even Thomas Edison had a vision, a theory that gave us the light bulb. When setting goals, it is important to make sure that they are realistic, attainable, improving the organization, and having as many people involved as possible. Goal difficulty, goal spe...