GROUP WORK

 
 
PRESENTED TO: TEJINDER SINGH
 
 
PRESENTED BY: DIANA IBANEZ
 
 
 
PRESENTED ON: 6TH JUNE 2003
 

 
  

CONTENTS
 

1. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES   .           .           .           .           .           .          

.           PG 3
 

2. GROUP PROGRESS     .           .           .           .           .           .           .          

.           PG 8

3. GROUP EFFECTIVENESS      .           .           .           .           .           .          

.           PG 11

5. BIBLIOGRAPHY .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .           PG

13

 
 

1. On my teamwork good attribute, I have continued to be a vital component in all group

work.  I continually motivate fellow group members, and ensure that all deadlines are met
regardless.  In many group work projects my fellow group members have all commented on
how important my contribution has been.  I still enjoy taking leadership of the group, as this
is my “comfort blanket” in knowing that every task will be completed, either by delegation or
by taking on the added responsibility, and doing outstanding tasks myself.

From the time when I joined the HND Business and Finance course in February, I
particularly recall a group work during my Legal & Regulatory Framework lectures,
the assignment was to be conducted in groups of threes’ alphabetically appointed by
the lecturer, and she purposely did this to help break the ice between the new term
comers and the other classmates.

Since it was my first semester and our first assignment, I was rather disappointed at
the fact that I had to work with people I had never seen or known them before, also
taking into account that I am not much of a group worker – I rather be left alone to do
my work. Regardless of how I felt, I knew things were not going to change and I had
to make the best of it, so I decided to give it my best attempt.

The given task by the lecturer was to discuss “The Management of a Company” it
had to be done in PowerPoint and presented to the whole class.

It was required to carry out an agenda and minutes for each of the meetings, each
member had to have a role to play in each meeting (Chairman, Secretary, and Co-
ordinator) these roles had to circulate between the members so that everybody could
have an equal share on the input, contributing to discuss and summarise for the
presentation.

The individual difference(s) in terms of personality attitude and perception had an

overall affect on the presentation. “The Personality of each individual is the pattern
of relatively enduring ways, in which a person feels, thinks and behaves this, can be
seen through our attitudes” (and this is how we are judged). We also have different
perception, meaning we all see things differently, this makes as behave/response in
particular ways, it is our own opinion (not as it really is) that differentiates our
personalities. For example a team member, made a personal comment, to him it was
a “bit of a laugh” but to me it was offensive.

When the group work started and we had to swap numbers and arrange for our first
meeting, I was quite exited; to my pity that excitement wasn’t going to last long as
from the first meeting my team members failed to turn up, from this point onwards I
could see that it was going to be tricky to conduct proper meetings. Therefore I
decided to take decisions as the “Chairman” seeing that they had failed to work as
a team, do the research and summarise together, I concluded that it would be best to
set individual tasks to the members including my self in order to get the work done,
so that each member had the responsibility of doing their own bit and not depend on
others research and work which seemed unfair to me and so they agreed.

Because no one was ready to take additional responsibilities, as the “Secretary” I

had to do the agenda for the few meetings we had and draw the minutes, the others
would not co-operate so it was my responsibility to make sure it was done –
otherwise it could have had an adverse affect on my grade if I had not done so.

“Co-ordinator” being the group leader I saw it was my responsibility to make sure
things were running smoothly and make sure everyone was doing what they were
suppose to be doing, in order to do this I had to spent a lot of my leisure hours with
them on the phone or individually whenever they agreed to meet, which adversely
affected my personal life.

In order to manage people (team) you need to understand them, I tried

understanding their problems but I did not know how to encourage or change their
behaviour, to make them work more effective and to contribute to our final goal
which was to get a “Distinction”

The heredity (nature) and environment (nurture) both affect my personality coming
from a family “nomothetic approach” that works in the exportation industry, have
business and also have a home to run, has taught me that one has to be serious
about projects that could affect ones life in the future and also my own experiences
“Idiographic approach” have developed my personality, being the only parent in the
team I felt I was accountable for making everything work – harmonisation within the
team, so I wanted to have full control of the situation and my previous experiences I
think helped towards this.

I tend to behave according with my self-image trying to enjoy live to the maximum,
having major responsibilities and expect to be treated respectfully.

Not knowing the group members before, made it harder to socialise and get on with
them and work immediately, even though the tasks were shared out equally; From
my perspective my team colleagues were not bother about the presentation and did
not care what grade they were going to get but it mattered to me, so I guess that is
why I had that bossy attitude from the beginning, to make sure the work was done.

When it comes to examining my colleague’s behaviour, I have reached the

conclusion that no personality is perfect; personality is an individual process of the
human life. I can see that each one of us possess different personalities, I might not
like them but it doesn’t change the fact that each person reacts to situations
according to their individual “persona”

Member 2: To me this member appeared to be unsociable and inhibited, but with a

lot of social interaction and I found that he was intensely stressed, he was facing
numerous problems at the time of the assignment, may be this is the reason he
failed to perform well, but he also refused to comment on his cause of stress even to
the lecturer. Regardless, he did not make an attempt, to make the group work
experience the most enjoyable one and he was unreliable with the work and failed to
turn up to seven (-1) meetings.

Form analysing this member I can tell he is an Abstract Conceptualisation learner he

likes to analyse situations, he uses logic ideas and concepts and likes to be left
alones to plan his own work, he is calm, doesn’t talk much, when he has an idea he
doesn’t jump to conclusions he meditates on it and concludes a discipline organised
answer.

I think this member has the aptitude and the capacity to learn and develop abilities
and skills; he just needs to focus properly.

Member 3: I could gather from the little time I spent with this member that he hated
to be controlled (when arranging meetings) but when it came to do the work he was
very dependent (this could have been because it was also his first semester and he
had been out of schooling for many years) he wanted his work supervised at all
times, but he did not contribute any of his time to group work or even produced work
when he was asked to. This fellow student has a strong desire to succeed but has a
laid-back mentality which has resulted in him dropping out of the course. This
member like my self is an Active Experimentation learner; who wants to get out there
and learn from experiences. He can influence people quite easily and change
situations, he also has an open minded approach to life (Concrete Experience)
wants to live, life to the fullest– he is bubbly, outgoing, into the latest clubs and so on
(wild) not ready to settle his mind into college work and discipline himself.

With this member I showed him a lot of support, I made him see that
college/work/leisure can be combined and there was no need to panic about the
work. I believe he has the ability to study business and achieve high grades.

The team members might have a different perception of the team work or even me;
also it has to be taken into account that I am only judging them from my own
perception, giving credit to their individual issues, although it could have helped if
each members perception had been communicated at the time.
 

Having done the learning style inventory survey which demonstrates how I learn, I
found out I am an accommodator, my greatest strength rely in doing things, carrying
out plans and tasks and in getting involved in new experiences, I found this to be
particularly truth the fact that I like things to be done quickly, perfect and in an
organised manner, resulted in my team members to see me as impatient and pushy,
in fact one of the team members made a comment to the teacher saying that I was
too bossy and wanted to control everything. Nevertheless being able to carry out
tasks in an organised manner I tend to find my self court in situations were I rely on
other people for information rather than on my own analytical ability; so I have to
admit that not seeing the team members interest worried me and resulted in relying
on my own ability which has really helped me for my other assignments.

Attitudes on race and culture could also have affected the willingness to co-operate
in the work situation even though we “got along” the reality is that all of us have
different backgrounds and they had only been in the UK for a short-time, I think that
had a strong influence on the attitude to work because all three of us were used to
different things and coming together out of the blue was a big impact.

The lifestyle and interest of the individuals also affected the interpersonal relations,
one of the members always failed to turn up, the other one was too busy handling his
personal issues and I have a family to take care of. We can see how all of these
attitudes have an adverse affect on a group work, voicing out our individual
personalities.

In light of what I have said about individual personalities, the way we react to
situations can vary we might think in one way but react differently to different
situations. Our personality traits demand us to score high on desirable traits. But in
reality we may behave rather differently, this could well be what happened to our
group, I could see that we all had a positive attitude towards the work, but the
situations surrounding us made us act in different ways.

The behaviour, attitude and perception of the individual team members did not affect
our presentation, overall we had a good grade and it just shows that work can be
done regardless of each persona’s individual behaviour.

2. When the group was formed, all of the members were shocked – not knowing
each other made it worst, we were nervous and there was a lot anxiety, the lecturer
gave us the assignment at the end of the lesson, there was no time to ask any
questions regarding the task; so when we got together, the work seemed vague and
I think that had an adverse affect on the group, we were discouraged and so the
group process hindered to be effective as my team members refused to be involved
in decision taking, I was not challenge and non of my decisions were questioned and
from then they refused to take roles and attend meetings, I had to assume all the
responsibility as “chairman, secretary & co-ordinator”. My decisions could have
possibly been wrong, every individuals knowledge was required to make the work
more effective, being left to assume all the responsibility shocked and annoyed me it
was suppose to be a team work not an individual work – on the last day I had to
summarise the three pieces of work, their lack of responsibility and my lack of
knowledge on encouraging them to work hindered the whole process.

Mr. Belbin’s theory suggest that an effective team is made up of people who fill,
between them different roles, conducting his survey on characteristic group roles – I
found out that my strengths lie in being a “Company worker” I have practical
common sense, hard working and self discipline, I can sense what is realistic and
likely to work – it was at this point I drew conclusions of my team and was
disappointed but tried taking on the role as the chairman which is not what I am
really good at. I am inflexible and unresponsive to unproven ideas I want things done
now and the proper way, also as a “Completer finisher” I have the capacity for
perfectionism and this tends to worry me about small things “I am not at ease unless
meetings are well structured and controlled and generally well conducted”, I cannot
“let-go” when things are not going as planned. I am always ready to back a good
suggestion in the common interest and make relevant comments, but I am not very
original on contributing fresh ideas and influence people without pressurising them. I
am the person who brings a touch of perfectionism to any job undertaken.

Not much for being the Chairman of the team, the failure of the team relies on me I
did not have the knowledge and capacity to direct or motivate them to do their work
instead I frustrated and bored them, which resulted in lack of effectiveness – that’s
why I think that having the right leader in a team is one of the main reasons for the
group to function properly, but I was no way near there, and made matters worst.

Member 2: this member’s group behaviour lies in being a “plant”, he has the
knowledge and the imagination to conduct proper teamwork, but his main
weaknesses being “Mr. Day dreaming” did not allow for his intellectual capacity to
gleam.
I think he had the capacity to be the “chairman” having the typical features of one –
“Calm, Self-confidence and controlling”

Member 3: this member has an outgoing, dynamic attitude a “shaper”, he likes to

challenge ineffectiveness and has a mentality to aim high, the only problem is that he
lost interest in the work, we tried to encourage him and supported him in his work –
by offering guidance, he did take this into account, however his fascination for the
work had already passed, still he persevered to the end so he wouldn’t let the other
team members down, and I think this was a very responsible and mature attitude
from his behalf .

Tuckman’s (1965) group process is often one of the most quoted, it analysis how a
group progresses through different stages of group work.

 Forming – coming together to form a group of unknown individuals bought a lot of

anxiety; confusion reign over the group at that moment as the assignment set was
unclear to us, it was vague. The team was keen to swap numbers and arrange for
the first meeting, then our personal identities started to been known the fact that my
team members turned up an 1hr late with daft excuses, gave me the impression for
the remaining group work.

My anxiety resulted in intolerable, hesitant behaviour complaining about my team

members from the beginning did not help solve the problem.

Storming – even though this is a period of disagreement, frustration and potential

confrontation that every group must go through, our group was different every
suggestion that I made was accepted, I wanted other comments/suggestions what
then they agreed on everything I said, this resulted into a lot of frustration to me as I
felt I was being ignored and they only agreed to get rid of me, the apparent lack of
progress made me feel worst and did not help the group as a team.

“The film of Jerry Magaire, embroiled in an argument with a hot-heated football

client, sports agent, manager Jerry turns and says: “You think we’re arguing, I think
we’re finally communicating”. Our group lacked of good communication, no
arguments, no disagreement from the team members, I was frustrated and angry but
they decided not to confront that.

Norming – by this stage a clear sense of group identity, guidelines, standards,

procedures, roles and structure are established; well in our group these weren’t
established very well, having taking on board all the responsibility for the group I had
to set individual tasks so that everybody was doing an equal share of the work; it
was at this stage that individual work not team work had actually began.

Performing – the group survived through the early stages, the tasks set were
achieved, may be not as a group, but it showed that however the work was
structured it was effectively carried forward; the group at this stage was more relax
and supportive as we knew each individual was responsible for their own task. When
the presentation came the group seemed to be resourceful and effective, off course
the process was most tricky.

3. Critically analysing the scenario and reviewing each members individual

behaviour, I can sum up my valuable experience this has taken me to believe once
again that as good or bad an experience can be you can be taught from them, to me
life is a cycle of experiences (Kolb’s learning cycle) which help as achieve better in
the future and hopefully not make the same mistakes; I learnt that each member has
their own learning style, one was dependant on the team, the other wanted to get on
with it all by himself (no teamwork) and I wanted to learn from others, and indeed I
did may be not the things I wanted to learn (Management of a company) but I
learned to interact, understand and tolerate the members as a “complete finisher” I
managed to get the team to finish the deadline so from this process I can see that
working in groups is possible, it is  challenging but at the end it can be an enjoyable
experience, also taking into account how much you learn about other individuals
personalities.

The main purpose of the lecture was achieved to break “the ice”, now member 2 and
I have open conversations, help each other when needed and the presentation
helped to break the ice with the other classmates; I am happy that the work was
conducted in groups.

I can say that my group wasn’t much of a team “A team is a small number of people
with complimentary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance
goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually” we were
physiologically aware of one another and perceived that we had to be in that group, I
was concerned with what had to be done and how to achieve it, but I think our group
process could have been more effective if there had been better communication, we
lucked from exchanging information, ideas, attitudes and beliefs on the work, which
lead us to being uncooperative.

Communication is a two-way process, indicating to the sender (in this case me) that
the message had been successfully received and interpreted; both members failed
to respond causing major problems in communication at least if they had requested
more information or repetition I would have known and could have acted differently,
for example the “bossy attitude” only come out at the end of the group
work/presentation, surely there was a problem to communicate this and if I had
known this at the beginning something could have been done about it. All I kept
getting was silence and blank looks I presumed things were okay but finding out
about the individuals behaviour I can now say that this wasn’t a positive approach
and the problem derived from the communication process.

I guess I can improve the way I communicate to group members in the future by
encouraging them to exchange information, ignoring the interpersonal differences
and make them more aware of the problem/task, I also have to learn to relax, lay-
back a little this will hopefully promote team members to contribute and
communicate on the work process.

Overall I can say from my own experience that there are advantages and
disadvantages of working within a group, one thing I do have clear is that a group
should always have a leader (not a boss) to direct and control the work, but with the
support of the team.