Industrial Expertise

Annotated Bibliography

Team :

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VERSION HISTORY

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PowerTech

 

 

 

 

Belbin Roles

 

Our team comprises of 8 members, and 7 have actively participated in the group work for the Industrial expertise module. The first task involved working on a business start-up simulation; everyone agreed on experimenting with the simulation individually to comprehend the dynamics of the simulation and record observations. The task for the simulation was extended as a group activity the next day; this is where the team might have exhibited some of the roles defined by Belbin (2012).

We have a good mix from the Belbin standpoint, however, each team member would have the ability to project more than 1 defined roles. One of the team leaders organically assumed leadership, which was a fair decision as the member had extensive experience in the working environment and was work as a resource investigator, complete finisher and a monitor evaluator. The flipside of being a monitor evaluator wasn’t easily accepted by the other members of the team as they felt that their suggestions were not evaluated rationally before being completely dismissed. This minor conflict was overcome by another member who played team worker who discussed with the leader the potential effects of inflicting the decisions on the team without duly considering theirs. Thereafter, other members contributed as  team workers with their other roles and discussed the next moves in the simulation after a debatable discussion of the pros and cons and how they would affect the business. Others in the team have demonstrated roles of a plant, Coordinator and Implementer. However, we didn’t as a team possess a specialist. Some of the shortcomings of the roles have been manifested, however for most roles played by the team members we wouldn’t agree with the shortcomings such as provoking others or hurting people’s feelings or indecisive in crunch situations.

2. Six Thinking Hats – Edward De Bono

 

Group projects are imperative into producing outcomes in any modern working environment. Identifying how a group thinks during these tasks is vital into measuring the overall performance of the team. Without implementing an effective strategy, it will be difficult to understand how each team member interprets the tasks and project collectively. For our team, utilising the 6 thinking hats technique supplied by deBono, provided an insight into how each member approached their daily jobs. (de Bono, 2019)

It was apparent that the most adopted hat was blue. From the beginning we all were focused on what the next steps were and the methods in which to get there. This thinking process was often then combined with other hats such as the black and yellow as analysing these next steps allowed us to realise if it was beneficial to our strategy. Throughout the project, we were required to handle raw data that enabled us to make informed decisions. This predominantly included facts and figures that aided us into making these next steps possible therefore it was clear that there was a consistent underpinning thinking process using the white hat. However, at times the information needed to make a decision wasn’t always available thus merging the white and green hat was often necessary. The green hat thinking process allowed us to focus on alternative solutions and possibilities which was essential due to the lack of known data.

As a team, we approached each task with a calm and efficient mentality. This permitted us to accurately justify each decision made individually. If we were to adopt the red hat, this would have affected our team working dynamics. There were traces of members being blinded by emotions however suppressing our feelings allowed us to produce an effective outcome. This also allowed us to avoid potential impacts that would have been induced by adopting McKenna’s emotional intelligence. (McKenna, 2006)

For the duration of the project, the team adopted the characteristics of one particular hat however some members developed their own thinking process over time. This would have been persuaded by their Belbin role as the definitions often overlap. (Belbin, 2012)

3. Groupthink phenomenon

 

Author Janis, I. (1972) described different types of phenomena that lead to a specific decision making concept ‘groupthink’. In particular, this concept explains poor decisions that can be made by groups under different circumstances. Researchers Parks and Sanna (1999) proposed to split the phenomena into three categories: (1) “structural faults”, (2) “group cohesiveness” and (3) “external stress”.

Some components of ‘groupthink’ concept from the first category were observed in the initial stage of the group work. Specifically, these were “tolerance of decisions that have not been methodically analysed” and leader “failed to be impartial” (Parks, C., & Sanna, L. (1999), p. 55). An active member of the group showing leadership character was initiating decisions without critical discussion and potential alternative solutions. Attempts to propose different views on the problem were suppressed and the leader was advocating a self-proposed solution.  After a few failed attempts to discuss group decisions, other members of the group accepted the leader choices and observed the developing situation. This resulted in poor choices and had a negative effect on teamwork. However, the group later escaped the ‘groupthink’ phenomenon. This was largely due to improvements made within the group who collectively decided to bring the issue to the leader’s notice. Specifically, our group improved communication between team members and they were able to involve in the decision making the process. The poor choices were reviewed by all of the group members and alternative strategy was considered.

The other two categories describing the ‘groupthink’ phenomenon had little relevance to the group decision making process on the initial stage. The group had no common history and, as a result, absence of  “cohesiveness”. On the other hand, the initial group exercise was not formally assessed that reduced the effect of “stress” on the group decision process.

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4. Emotional intelligence

 

Emotional intelligence can have a major impact on business decisions. When we look at “emotional awareness” (McKenna, 2006), all the members of the team were emotionally aware of themselves and others around them. We tried to be objective in our decision making without hindering it by bringing heightened emotions to the group work. The team managed to scale through some of the minor conflicts with a positive approach and worked together. Although, the team understood that the conflict was because one of the team members wanted to drive the decisions based purely on data, rationale and subjective to the simulation and may have come across as inconsiderate towards others. However, the team realised that it was in the best interest of the simulation and worked in a positive way.

In the case of social awareness, in the beginning, we were not aware of the task that was given to us. We started performing our class simulation based on the knowledge we acquired from the individual practice trials. The group decided collectively that it would good to learn about the simulation individually and bring important points to everyone’s notice for the group simulation.

The first attempt of the group simulation was not a success. We realised that we had to change our strategy and work and make logical decisions together without any emotional barriers.

Finally, we are in the stage where we managed our relationship by sharing our thoughts freely within our team. Also, “Inspirational leadership” (Mortiboys, 2005:7) were the building bond in conflict management and developing our teamwork and collaboration among the group. We influenced each other so that the leader of the team could take the right and an informed decision which is in the interest of the task and the group. Hence, our group Emotional Quotient strength is emotional management which we demonstrated by not getting our own emotion in the way of a group decision. On the other hand, emotional awareness was the weakest EQ domain in our group initially which we overcame as discussed above. Since the group allocation was random, we first found it challenging to connect relate with each other even though some of us were from the same course. However, as we started working together, we found a way to make connections and bond with the team; manage conflicts and work objectively towards the success of the business.

 

5. Tuckman

 

According to Tuckman’s theory, there are five stages of group development: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. At the start of the week, the team is at the forming stage as teams were just announced. At this stage, team members are unaware of what each other’s strengths and weaknesses are, what kind of working methods would work well with this particular group of people. An introduction of each team member was made, sharing each other’s professional background as well as skill and qualities they could bring to the team. As a result, there was some clarification on teams’ capabilities. However, team roles are yet to be defined  and the purpose of the task was still unclear.

Day one, all team members were familiarising ourselves with the simulation to formulate a plan to tackle the task. However, at this stage, the team was lacking good communication and did not make much progress. By the end of that session, the team came together to discuss and analyse what strategy worked well, decisions that obtained the best outcome and decisions the team should avoid progressing onto the next stage.

All team members had strong opinions and different ways of approaching the task ahead. Therefore, at the start of day two, it took longer than expected to make decides and advance to the next quarter. There was no big issues or conflicts within the group. The team took a democratic approach, we decided to vote for some difficult decisions with a strong difference of opinions. As a result, the group sped through the storming stage of group development. Taking a democratic approach increased the engagement within the group, this also meant that all team members were empowered and motivated, which led to everyone taking ownership of the tasks they were delegated with.

Towards the completion of the simulation task, the team was working in the norming stage of the group development model. At this stage, the team learnt each other’s strengths and weaknesses, had a clear strategy for completing each task. The team overcame any issues and had communication in practise. At this stage decisions were made much quicker, delegations of tasks became much easier and progressed as a team.

6. Leadership

 

In the process of building the business strategy, we have undergone several leadership styles in order to make the strategy simple. According to “Leadership that get results” by Goleman (2000),  there are six different styles of leadership. These styles are undertaken by the team to have a unique and direct impact on working as a team to improve the financial performance of the company.

In order to get a good leadership impact, emotional intelligence has to be linked with leadership to get good business results and our team is successful in maintaining good emotional intelligence.

In the initial stages, we used the affiliative style of leadership in order to strengthen the harmony of the team and build an emotional bond. It helps in building the self-confidence and communication within the team.

We set a vision and went through several judgments to undertake a strategy and guided each other to understand our work and to complete the goals to make the affiliative style more as authoritative style.

We have also used the democratic style of leadership and gave each player the chance to think and liberty to say what we should do. The main aim of implementing this style is for collaboration and communication of the team. But we have mixed this style with an authoritative style to remove the drawbacks and avoid wasting time on the continuous discussions.

In our team, through the small issue that we had, we worked through the conflict and eventually there was no member that used the coercive style of leadership to enforce their ideas on others in the team.

We have successfully followed three different leadership styles and maintained good emotional intelligence to maintain a positive climate in the team and obtained better results.

7. Leadership Skills for a Changing World: Solving Social Complex Problems

 

Hackman and Walton (1986) and Tushman and Anderson (1986) observes that when groups must deal with novel problem scenarios, leadership is likely to have its greatest impact on their performance(Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2002). The diversity of human beings is associated with contexts defined by complexity, conflict, and dynamism(Mumford et al., 2002). Under these conditions, end goals and route to its attainment are at best uncertain. To survive and prosper, organizations must control conflict, position themselves to adjust to change, and choose the best paths to goal attainment. The experience and processes carried out in achieving our goal clearly aligns with the outcome of these  research work. Team members at different times expressed varying decision to be taken in advancing to a new action plan. We had listened to the rationale behind their suggestions and opted for the superior argument. Leaders solve problems where time is short, demands are many and do not have the luxury of analytically working through all options attached to a problem (Lord & Maher, 1990). This implies that it is often far more important to have a workable solution at the right time than one truly best solution. Our team experienced situations where we have suggestions with equal arguments and to make decision, we opted for a majority decision. Our leadership style was built upon consensus of team members which gives us the opportunity to provide a solution with broader view to our challenges.

8. References

 

Belbin, R. M. (2012). Team roles at work. Routledge.

 

de Bono, E. (2019). The de Bono Group – Six Thinking Hats. Retrieved from http://www.debonogroup.com/six_thinking_hats.php

DRUCKER, P. F., 1993. Managing for the Future. Oxford. Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd

 

Goleman, D. (2000). Leadership that gets results. Harvard business review, 78(2), 4-17. Hollingsworth

Janis, I. L. (1972). Victims of groupthink: a psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes.

 

Knights, D., & Willmott, H. (2007). Introducing organizational behaviour and management.

Cengage Learning EMEA. Levi, D. (2011). Group dynamics for teams. Sage Publications.

 

McKenna, E., 2006.Business Psychology and Organisational Behaviour, 4th Edition.

Mortiboys, A., 2005. Teaching with Emotional Intelligence. Routledge

Murray, A. S. (2010). The Wall Street journal essential guide to management: lasting lessons from the best leadership minds of our time. Harper Business.

 

Mumford, M. D., Zaccaro, S. J., Harding, F. D., Jacobs, T. O., & Fleishman, E. A. (2002). Leadership skills for a changing world. The Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), 11–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1048-9843(99)00041-7

 

Parks, C., & Sanna, L. (1999). Group Performance and interaction. Boulder, CO: Westview.

 

Thomas, K. W. (1992). Conflict and conflict management: Reflections and update. Journal of organizational behavior, 13(3), 265-274.

Tuckman, B. W., & Jensen, M. A. C. (1977). Stages of small-group development revisited. Group & Organization Studies, 2(4), 419-427.