ground rules analysis

Working as a Team

Working as a team brings challenges as well as a variety of learning opportunities, which can both be used to succeed in the task at hand. One thing to keep in mind is that the team is made up of individuals with varied backgrounds. The group’s progress can be aided by the members’ diverse skill sets, which, when used well, can be employed. This information came from the group I was a part of earlier this year. For the employees at my company, the third month of 2017 was both tough and thrilling. Being the manager, it was my responsibility to help the staff adopt online marketing. Most workers aged above 45 are not tech savvy, and this meant starting up with training activities.

The Art of Combining Advocacy and Inquiry

I collaborated with the HR and other leaders to establish a team that would help the workers learn best and appreciate the new changes. Among the established guiding principles that enhanced the success of the exercise includes the art of combining advocacy and inquiry. In this way, the leaders engaged the workers intently during the coaching to improve a focused conversation. The trainees in return shared their views and opinions while they utilized the chance to make inquiries. It was also essential to use examples given that technology is new to the trainees. According to Schwarz (2002), the use of models and an encouraged role-playing ensures that the group gets the most critical concepts. Finally, the activity adopted consistency to obtain a series. In this way, the practice established commitment and kept the learners motivated.

Successful Teamwork

Evidently, the team was successful. At the end of the task, 85% of the workers were in an excellent position to start online marketing while the rest were still catching up. The reason for such success is how the leaders adhered to the ground rules and actively involved the employees in every step of the way. It revealed that every member’s contribution was vital as it helped the team reach the goal of the task.

Leadership Training

Recently, I held a leadership training at the organization to enhance the performance of the organization’s leaders. Being the trainer, I invited an external leadership model who would help make the exercise worthwhile. However, there were no prior plans or negotiations made on how to go about the practice. It was an impromptu event that the leaders received a short notice during a lunch break. Although the training took more than an hour, it was not successful. Among the reasons for the failure is how there was no specific strategy on how to carry out the mission. As a result, the team members were not focused, and most of them were disrupted by the thought of their next tasks. There was also no active engagement for the members. I felt like the exercise took a monologue process resulting in boredom among the members (Schwarz, 2002). I also did not get enough time to discuss with my colleague on the crucial topics to handle. As a consequent, we addressed issues from a random perspective affecting the learning process of the trainees.

Importance of Engagement and Preparation

Ideally, the members of the second team did not feel engaged. They also had no time to prepare, and their minds were unsettled. Prior establishment of ground rules would have helped the team perform better due to a well-structured strategy to effectuate coaching. The teamwork succeeds from the contribution of all members. Therefore, the involvement of each of them improves the outcome of the team extensively.

References

Schwarz, R. (2002). Ground Rules for Effective Groups. In R. Schwarz, The Skilled Facilitator. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.