Team work essay assignment
This essay is going to discuss and evaluate how understanding of group processes and
dynamics can effectively help people working in groups, both as part of their academic and
professional environment. There will be a reference in group theories and researches and
how an application of these theories can improve team work and peoples individual
performance within groups as well, as part of a global multicultural environment. Finally,
there will be a quick statement on the existence of some possible negative team work
effects and how and why they occur.
Working as part of a group is very essential nowadays in order to be successful in your
work projects or academic lessons. McGrath (1984) defined a group as ‘’ an entity that
interacts, is interdependent, mutually aware with a past and an anticipated future’’. Most of
time, people need to mix their forces and knowledge to complete their targets accurately
and within time limits. As a result, it is very important that proper communication and
cooperation between group members exist. The growing multicultural environment of
business field adds an extra obstacle because people of different mentalities and habits
have to work in the same place and take together crucial decisions that affect everybody’s
personal progress. It is commonly true, though, that group effort will provide the best
required results so, companies establish a lot of typical subgroups in their working place
and universities provide students with all the essential knowledge they need to know in
order to participate in a group team successfully. As a consequence of these, lot of theories
raised to support and analyse group process and dynamic issues with most known of them
to be Belbin’s 9 team roles model, Tuckman’s lifecycle of teams and Hofstede’s cross
cultural teamwork.
Defining team roles within a group is highly necessary for its functionality and
productiveness. As Belbin states in his book named Management Teams: Why They
Succeed or Fail ‘’management teams are commonly made up of members holding
particular appointments. They are there by virtue of the offices or responsibilities they
represent. No overall sense of design governs the composition of the group which, in
human terms is little more than a random collection of senior managers with as wide a
spread of human foibles and personality characteristics as one might expect to find in the
population at large’’ (Belbin, 2010). Belbin presented 9 team roles in his model. These are:
