Get your gear........ (Career Psychology)

Member Name: pontecaille

Product:	Career Psychology
Date:	25/06/02 (134 review reads)
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I hope I didn't put this review into the wrong category but as it is about team work in general I couldn't find a better place than this one. I am sure I'll be told off if it is not the case..........

Now why would I want to write about Team Leading and Team Building? Because I attended a 3-day training course for a job once and I would have never thought to enjoy myself so much. It was also very interesting to see people coming from different social classes and therefore reacting to things exposed to them in a different environment than their own and being under pressure surrounded by other individuals. (It was actually more rewarding than the job at the end. And I wanted to know more so I went ahead to the College and asked for related courses involving this Team thing. I knew something would come up with Sport (because it is the field I would like to get involved with) but I didn’t know where to stand really. There are so many different options to choose from so I needed guidance.)

///// To come to the subject, Team Leading and Team Building is present in any organisations (companies, firms, sports clubs, schools, political organisations…). And is considered as a very good approach to increase the nature of results and relations within a human group. It is quite hard to become the leader of a team because it requires personal and general competence such as excellent communication skills, sense of humour (I mean by that to keep things in proportion and get things done), criticising effectively, showing enthusiasm, not being afraid of taking risks, trying to learn from mistakes and this discipline consequently improves all that or at least gets you introduced to them and have the chance to get more familiar to them too.
Team Building on the other side will boost your chances to get a better response as a team leader and will help you determine your role by:

*Organising games such as >>>>>Storyt
elling sentence:
The idea is to attempt an overall storyline: each member, in turn, has to add a word in a sentence to carry the story along. The other members should listen to the storyline because they will have to repeat the whole story since the first member started it.

>>>>>Hi Harry:
It is supposed to be a simple exchange of words around the group but it gets tricky at the end. You need a make-up pen or sticky tabs.
The first person says “Hi Harry” to the second, the second answers “Yes Harry”, and the first speaker responds back “Tell Harry”. Then the second person turns towards the third one and starts again with “Hi Harry”…
The exchange continues until a person hesitates on the line to say or says it wrong. If this happens, the person gets a tab on the forehead and becomes “one spot”. And it goes on. So if speaker one has one spot and speaker two none and speaker three two, here is the game:
Speaker one: “Hi Harry”
Speaker two: “Yes one spot”
Speaker three: “Tell two spots”

>>>>>Dodge ball:
One person starts as “it”. “It” chases the other players and tries to hit them below the knees with a soft ball. If someone gets hit, he becomes “it” and must attempt to hit someone else. You can set a time for this game.

>>>>>Stick in the mud:
Similar to Dodge ball but if the person is hit below the knee, he must stand still with feet apart and someone has to go underneath the legs to free him.

>>>>>Fruit bowl:
Players sit in a circle and each person is given a name of a fruit selected by the leader: apple, banana, orange…the leader will then call out one of the fruits and every person who was given the name of the fruit selected must get up and change places with the others. The last one to sit down or who fails to sit in
a different chair is out. If the leader says “Fruit Bowl”, it means every one stands up and must get another seat.

///// And the list of games goes on. Those are the games we played during the training and you see why now it was fun. You must have amuse yourself with some of them at school and you may think you are too old for these now but they are excellent to get to know each person of the team and it makes social contacts easier.

*Selecting participants
*Choosing methods of working and evaluation.

///// Motivation, expectations, needs and evaluation are all important aspects to consider.
You must be aware of the emotional life of the group, rules, safety, boundaries, conflicts, feelings, individuals and their places in the group.
To enhance your role, you can clarify the tasks to be completed, give positive regards and constructive comments to acknowledge the group success, bring out hidden feelings, suggest ways of finding out more about the task problem, encourages them, suggests alternatives, arrange to take out needed equipment, provides feedback, …
Face up problems right away, hold regular meetings (it keeps team members up-to-date and share opinions), walk the job often in observing their work, progress, commitment, …and do not be afraid of paying compliments or reprimanding fairly when necessary.

///// Team development is an opened process and is always needed in any circumstances. Unexpected problems always emerge and you must be ready to face them. I remember when I used to swim, whatever the results we had to work on our team development. It helps to maintain the trust and support between the swimmers and it was a way to minimize conflicts. I especially have in mind one of the girls who was in constant competition with the rest of the group. She was always moody and never wanted to do the training with the rest of the team or participate in outdoor activities. F
air enough it is her own personal character and she might not enjoy socialising at all but she chose to be part of a team and participating in team competitions involves a lot more than just competing against opponents.
We used to do medleys very often and she was running for herself and not for the team. She was better maybe than some others but she had the bad habit to rub it into faces and put people down by commenting on their performances or technical sides. She wasn’t supportive at all and she enhanced lots of problems between the members. Each one of them was worried because she could jeopardised the chance of winning by misbehaving and wanting to do her things in her way.
We all had to work out to avoid such differences mainly by understanding what was the source of the problem and why she wouldn’t fit into the team. We had to pull together and made her understand she was part of a team. And as a matter of fact every one of the swimmers had actually something to say to the girl and about her behaviour but nobody brought it up before because she scared them and they didn’t want to get into troubles. We finally got to the conclusion she wasn’t bound to be part of the team in medleys but her sole objective was to try to be the best. We advised her to take individual championships but still within the swimming club so if she felt she wanted to join us for socialising she was more than welcome. Of course a bit of inner competition is good and can improve the team records but the hard thing is to balance the degree of competitivity. It is just a shame she had to leave the team but she became closer to us and showed less animosity because we were not anymore in her way. However I complain her opponents…

///// This is why Teamwork involves a number of things mainly:
-Working to the same goals
-Following what other people are doing within the team
-Making the most of people’s skills
-P
assing on information to other members of the team
-Give enough support to help finishing a task.
As a team leader you must be sure you know the goals of your team, focus on the overall goals and not your personal tasks, be flexible, ask your supervisor if you are unsure about something, suggest new ideas but don’t get into negative talk or criticism, don’t avoid working or communicating with other members you don’t like.
One way to become an effective team member I especially learned through being a swimmer is by understanding the different people in our team and how to help the differences between people to turn into an advantage. Stereotypes and clichés must be put aside and shouldn’t interfere in team building. Of course every one doesn’t come in an ideal package and I suppose there is always something you won’t like about someone but forget about it and put your team forward instead of your prejudice or feelings. You go through rough patches but it is important to point them out rather than remaining silent and witnessing the worse to happen.

Well I suppose that is it for today. I can’t tell how much I am looking forward to get back into a professional activity involving not only a team but also that will help me boosting my mind as a potential Team Leader.

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