| Teamwork Observation |
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Group process deals with morale, feelings, atmosphere, participation, influence, leadership struggles, conflict, competition, cooperation, etc. Because these processes are present in all your groups, awareness of them will enhance a person's worth to your team and enable him or her to be a more effective group participant.
Observation Guidelines: Participation: One indication of involvement is verbal participation. Look for differences in the amount of participation among your team members. Influence: Some team members may speak very little, yet they capture the attention of the whole team. Other team members may talk a lot but are generally not listened to by others. Styles of Influence: How a team member attempts to influence another may be the crucial factor in determining how open or closed the others will be towards being influenced. Decision Making Procedures: Some team members try to impose their own decisions on the group, while others want all members to participate or share in the decisions that are made. Task Functions: Functions illustrate behaviours that are concerned with getting the job done, or accomplishing the task that the team has before it. Maintenance Functions: They maintain good and harmonious working relationships among the team members and create a group atmosphere, which enables each team member to contribute maximally. Group Atmosphere: Team members differ in the kind of atmosphere they like in a group. Insight may be gained into the atmosphere characteristics of a team by finding words that describe the general impressions held by team members. Membership: A major concern for team members is the degree of acceptance into the team. Different patterns of interaction may develop in the team that gives clues to the degree and kind of membership. Feelings: Feelings are often generated by the interactions among team members but seldom talked about. These may have to be guessed by tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, and many other forms of non verbal clues. Norms: Norms usually express the beliefs or desires of the majority of the team members as to what behaviours should or should not take place in the team. Some norms may facilitate team progress and some hinder it. "Without participation, you don't have a team; you have a group of bodies." |