Part 1
The most effective team I have had the pleasure of being a member of was my high school football team during my junior season (2002). The team was led by a host of proven leaders, starting with the head coach, Paul Maechtle. Coach Maechtle, who recently retired in 2014, after 41 years at Bradenton Southeast High School, has multiple state championship appearances and victories. The players that led the team included me as the offensive team captain and a returning middle linebacker on defensive team captain.
The team was made up of over forty students with different backgrounds, races, ages, and ethnicity. One factor that made this group of individuals effective was that it was made up of mostly upper- class man, which meant that the team had years of experience playing together. This allowed for the group to mature. "Mature groups can work through the necessary interpersonal, task and authority issues to achieve at high levels," (Nelson & Quick, 2013, p 320). This team was made up of several sub-groups, but displayed great group cohesion as a team, which promoted the team's productivity (Nelson & Quick, 2013).
The most important barrier that I experienced would fall under the forming stage. Early on, the team had a few members that did not agree on what their role would be. They wanted to play a specific position, but the coaches thought they would have a larger impact by playing a different position. This problem can be contributed to the lack of trust in the coach/ player relationship in the beginning stages of forming the team.
To take it a step further, the coaches did not allows agree with where a particular player should play, which demonstrates a lack of trust within the management team. In order to experience optimal mutual trust, a high level of trust between managers and team members, and high agreement on the trust between managers and team members must be present (Martinez, Garcia, Moliner, Molina, Kuster, Vila, & Ramos, 2016) .
Part 2
I feel that the most effective team I worked in would have been at my last job. All members shared the same vision and values. Each member would give their input, accept feedback, and listen to one another. Each of us brought different views and experience to the table. Each team member may have been motivated by something different, but we all shared one common motivation.
The success of our students was that motivation. According to our textbook, listening to one another, sharing ideas and feelings, and having a consensus within the group are traits of well-functioning groups (Nelson &Quick, 2013).
Another key to our team's success was our leader, she was excellent at brining everyone together. She made sure that everyone got a chance to shine, and that they were recognized for this. Of course, these are known aspects of a successful team (Sturt & Nordstrom, 2017). Of course, like any team we all followed the 5 stages. Whenever a new team member joined, we often revisited he storming stage.
There was one in particular that I recall, this individual cause a large disruption in our team.
She was not trustworthy, and often tried to turn each team member against the other. Lack of trust is a hard barrier to overcome. In addition, certain attitudes can be barriers. Attitudes like " This isn't my real job", "I'm too busy", and " it won't work" (Conlow&Watsabaugh, 2017) are all phrases that can derail teamwork. These phrases show non-commitment, negativity, and laziness. This attitude can quickly contaminate any synergy gained by a group.
The employee certainly did that. It was not until she left, that certain employees realized they had been manipulated by her. We were all able to put the differences aside, and get back to our old ways once again. This is also what made us a great team, we understood one another. In the end, we knew each other personally (Nelson &Quick, 2013). This allowed us to look past the petty issues, and look at the bigger picture.