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Module 7: Final Paper

The chapter(s) that have influenced me the most belong to Module 1. They are Chapter 1,

Chapter 5, and Chapter 12. I have been searching for the words to put into place my ideas of

what a team would look like if I had the authority to put one together. Up to this class, I have

stumbled on putting my ideas into a manner that flows and makes sense. Enough sense that it

would outline the design of the team and identify team members behaviors that could potentially

sabotage the team’s efforts.

In order to lay the foundation of a team. I feel that the story in our reading material about

The Blind Men and the Elephant represent the building blocks of a team. The goal is to create a

high-performance team. In order to do that a leader must appreciate diverse perspectives by

developing a sensitivity to diverse interpretations of issues. This is an important first step

because a leader will be dealing with individual differences, cultural differences, and

generational differences. This simply put is being able to use empathy while communicating

effectively. This groundwork includes the idea that to be an effective team, the team members

need to be committed to value and understand the perspective of other team members.

The two concepts that stand out as preeminent are self-managing and self-directing. What

a self-managing team looks like is a team that has initiative, the ability to control impulsive

feelings and behaviors, are able to manage healthy conflicts, follow through on commitments,

and adapt to changing circumstances. (Thompson, 2018, p.13). As a leader I want a self-directing

team that determines their own objectives and the methods by which to achieve them

(Thompson, 2018, p.16). I believe to achieve this I need to create self-awareness within the team.

What a team that is self-directing and has self-awareness looks like is a team that can recognize
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their emotions and how it is affecting their behavior. The team will know their strengths and

weaknesses and have self-confidence.

The expertise I needed but didn’t have at the time were conflict resolution and

communication. The team I was on was deteriorating and I couldn’t provide input to stabilize the

group for improvement. I personally don’t have much experience in conflict resolution. My

tendency is to shut down and wait for an ideal one on one to voice my opinion. I don’t want to

give the appearance of a complainer or a tattle tale. This issue that took place is that some team

members were not pulling their own weight. They would try to weasel in on the credit but

wouldn’t put forth the effort to accomplish their tasks productively. This created tension

dissolving the trust and cohesion that we had established. Management viewed the solutions as

adding more team members. This made things worse. Now, only a few were doing any real work

while the rest took up space. I now know how to identify the dynamic that took place. There are

two things, free riding and social loafing. Free riding is a result of reduction in motivation and

diminished individual self-worth in their contributions to the team. The increase in team size

allowed some team members to benefit from the efforts of others while contributing little or

nothing themselves (Thompson, 2018, pp.120-121). In my opinion, social loafing is so close to

free riding that it can’t be present without the other coming into play. The absence of motivation

helps in creating the tendency for people not to work as hard in teams as they would if they were

working individually (Thompson, 2018, pp.119-120).

Conclusion
All of this is identified, designed, and implemented to create a team with cohesion and

trust that is productive and effective. It starts with the basic foundation (appreciate diverse

perspectives by developing a sensitivity to diverse interpretations of issues). This whole team

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concept falls under the area of social awareness. Which requires you to have empathy. You must

be able understand the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people, pick up on emotional cues,

feel comfortable socially, and recognize the power dynamics in a group or organization.
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Reference

Thompson, Leigh L. Making the Team: A Guide for Managers. Pearson, 2018.