Team Dynamics

Challenges in business are a given, but it’s our response to them that defines our trajectory. Looking beyond the immediate obstacle, there lies a realm of opportunity and learning.

As a teacher, I have plenty of experience fostering teams both as a member of Professional Learning Community (PLC) and with my students.

PLCs

PLCs are a fancy term for a group of teachers who plan units and lessons, develop assessments, calibrate scoring, and use data to drive future plans. Working on a team of teachers with a variety of experience levels and differing personalities is a challenge.

Student Groups

Students groups have given me a wealth of experience in how not to use groups and teams. My unfortunate guinea pigs have done their fair share of disastrous group work. Those failures have taught me some tried and true methods to form and run effective teams which have helped me in my own teamwork with my fellow teachers.

Allow time for the team to adjust to their new working conditions. As much as I’d want to jump right into the assignment, everyone needs a chance to get to know each other.
Have defined roles or jobs. On a team of adults, they could self-select these roles. It doesn’t work if everyone’s job is to “research” with ill-defined boundaries on what to research and where.
Let them make mistakes. The advantage of a team is the creative input from multiple sources. Sometimes, this leads to errors. Both the team and the manager need to be willing to take risks that sometimes don’t pan out. A team that always agrees and follows the rules may seem advantageous, but groupthink and complacency soon become the main output of such teams.
Keep effective teams together, if possible. This was hard to do as a teacher. It’s jarring to realize that a team who works so well together wouldn’t produce the same results with others. As long as the team isn’t devolving into the complacency I discussed above, they can continue to produce excellent results on future projects.