Team and Small Group Experience Recalling my early days of being athletically gifted, I was a member of my high school basketball team. The team consisted of ten members. To acknowledge taking part in a group, I will have to recall working in the Army as Flight Operations Specialist. The intent of this essay, I will examine the relationship of communication among the members as taking part in a group or team, and to analyze the collaboration factors of how information is processed between each individual.
Formation of Team and Group The first phase of development in teams is membership. It is the first phase because until members psychologically join, there is no team but just a collection of individuals who have been grouped together. For a team to develop, its members must want to belong to the team and come to identify with the team” (Bushe & Coetzer, 2007, para. 10). How the basketball team was formed were through tryouts. Numerous high school students signed up to be one of the chosen to support the school and take part in its sports program.
Just like many other teams, there are a limited number of individuals that are selected to represent the high school basketball team if the skill level agreed by the coaches will benefit team structure. I was chosen for my height and ability to adapt in certain game play positions on the court. Joining the Army has been one of the better choices I have made in my lifetime thus far. There is not much of a selection process. If an individual does not meet weight requirements and certain legalities, they would not be able to gain entry into any selective service.
I chose a job skill as a Flight Ops Specialist, and therefore grouped with others with the same selected job skill to be trained and become a productive soldier as part of a collaborative effort with other job fields servicing the Army’s mission. Roles and Norms within Team and Group Within chapter one of the text, according to Beebe & Masterson (2009), “Words and nonverbal behaviors are symbols that we use to communicate and derive meaning that makes sense to us” (p 3). The role I played as on the basketball team was the center position and rebounder.On the court communication between each member is important more nonverbally than it is verbally. Giving very little verbal input as plays are called out and not giving away the team’s strategy, our body language and body positioning is how each team member communicated as the ball was rotated between members to gain access to an open team member that was cleared to make the shot towards the basketball goal. The status roles for each individual were equal across the board because we relied on each to get the ball into the basket.
Yes there were individuals that scored more baskets than others, but it took everyone on the team for that one individual shot to be made. The team norms were that each member was to play to the best of their ability, to respect other team member’s abilities, and communicate both on and off courts as to build peer relationships. As a Flight Ops Specialist, I was grouped with nine other individuals with the same job title and skill. There were sub-tasks that make up what a Flight Ops Specialist does.
Each individual being assigned a sub-task performed his or her duties to standard.The group had weekly forums to discuss what was done within a week’s work day and foreshadowed what the missions were for the upcoming weeks. This was considered the norm of communication for how things were processed within the office. The statuses of roles were different in the group because individuals had a rank structure called chain of command. Depending on your rank, a person was either subordinate to one of a higher rank or leader of one that was lower ranked. This established minimal communication between certain rank echelons as well as how work was passed down from authoritative figures.
Differences between Team and Group “Virtual team interactions are almost always assisted by some form of computer-mediated communication technology. Computer-mediated communication is different in many ways from traditional face-to-face communication, perhaps most significantly because the communication is usually asynchronous instead of synchronous” (Berry, 2011, para 1). The difference between the basketball team and the Flight Ops group as previously stated is the flow of communication between its members.However, virtual communication did not apply to the basketball team. However, it did apply to the group forum as a Flight Ops Specialist because sensitive and classified information disseminated down from the top chief on the chain of command (which is the president) to units across the nation and Army groups stationed in other countries.
Participating in a selective service virtual communication is important because orders are sent down from the president of the United States and other high ranking persons to carry out missions.This most often included conferences via satellite, e-mail, secured telephone and video conferences. Virtual communication is and still is considered the better form of communicating because communication flow passes quicker to intended persons instead of high ranking echelons’ constantly traveling base to base to take part in sit down symposiums. Indentifying Through Maslow and Shultz In reference to the basketball team, looking at Maslow’s theory I would say my interpersonal desires were met with esteem, belongingness, and the self-actualization needs.I felt special to be picked as a representative for the school sport.
With only one parent figure in the household shared with my other siblings, I felt comfortable as if I belonged to a new family as I had something worthwhile to give back athletically. To feel included, my needs were met according to Shultz’s theory as well. As a Flight Ops Specialist, to control my destiny by studying and doing my job well (which reflected in performance reviews), I was able to move up in ranks. In doing so I increased in pay allowance and fulfilled a control need according to Shultz theory.Conclusion Taking part in a basketball team and grouped with other Flight Operation Specialists, I have gained exceptional insight as an individual role in a group or a team. The team was formed by a selection process as the group was formed by having personal legalities in order.
As the role of a team player, team members and I worked together to accomplish the basket goal. As my role in a group, I performed sub-tasks and group members convened weekly in a forum to discuss matters at hand.Indentifying my interpersonal needs with Maslow and Shultz clarified my need for social acceptance outside of i family structure. In conclusion, I would take a role as a team member any day not only for the social acceptance of peers, but the camaraderie of working with others to achieving the goal which in turn alleviates individual stress that a group environment can portray. References Beebe, S.
A. & Masterson, J. T. (2009). Communicating in small groups: Principles and practices (9th ed. ).
Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.Berry, G. R. (2011, April). Enhancing effectiveness on virtual teams.
Journal of Business Communication, 48(2), 186-206. doi:10. 1177/0021943610397270 Bushe, G. R. , & Coetzer, G. H.
(2007, June). Group development and team effectiveness: using cognitive representations to measure group development and predict task perfomance and group viability. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 43(2), 184-212. Retrieved from http://search.
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