management organizational behavior
Personal Application:
Improving the Teamwork Experience
Please write in essay style, i.e., complete sentences. Format your answer as two separate paragraphs, labeled Parts One and Two. If we were meeting face-to-face, this would be a
20-minute in-class writing assignment. Therefore, two well-written paragraphs (in total) should be sufficient to complete it.
Like it or not, most of us will be involved with committees, task forces, working groups, etc. throughout our careers, and most of the time, we won’t get to choose the other members. Given that these team experiences aren’t going to end at graduation, it’s worthwhile to spend some time considering ways to make teamwork both more productive and more enjoyable.
Part One
• Consider your last major team experience, one in which the team’s lifespan was more than a couple of weeks. This could be from any context – class project, student organization, sports, work, etc. Overall, would you evaluate it as a success, both in terms of your group’s performance and your satisfaction with the experience? Why or why not?
• What are sometypical problems you’ve encountered in the past with teamwork? You don’t need to limit your thoughts to the single experience you described above.
Part Two
Assume that on a future job you are appointed leader of a work team or committee. How can you avoid having your team repeat the same problems you’ve experienced in the past? Applying the material about teams that you’ve learned in the chapter and video lectures, develop some specific, actionable ideas for how you, as team leader, can improve the teamwork experience for everyone involved.
