TEAMWORK

Walden Colleagues,

Over the past eight weeks I have gained a greater appreciation for the team building and collaboration process that takes place through our weekly assignments.   We each share a similar vision and commitment of obtaining our masters.  Trust was built through our discussion comments and blog posts.  We conducted research together and worked towards success.  The adjourning process is getting more difficult as we approach our final stretch.  I am thankful for each of you as you have offered me the ability to stretch my inner thinking and set new goals for success.  I appreciate each of you.  Thank you for your continued support.

<3 Erika

Team Development

This week we studied the five stage of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Abudi, 2010).  In considering the adjourning phase there are many aspects of group collaboration that make it difficult to say good-bye.  I would have to say that out of the groups I have been involved in that high-functioning and high-performing groups are harder to say good-bye to than low-performing groups.  When relationships are formed and we learn to rely on others to complete certain tasks, this can often make it harder to end the relationships.  

As a director and trainer in a large company, I am often selected to be part of planning committees for professional development days for our employees.  This would be considered the ‘forming’ stage.  I find these planning committees to be very rewarding.  As the ‘storming’ stage begins, we create a vision for the day’s training and brainstorm topic ideas.  Once topics are decided upon, we make commitments to ensure a successful day by assigning specific roles.  Throughout the process relationships and trust is built and the ‘norming’ stage is underway.  Once we are all working on attaining the same goal and commitments are made, we begin ‘performing’ stage and function at high levels in order to get the training day planned successfully.   The last stage of team development, the ‘adjourning’ stage, can again be the most difficult.  After experiencing the growth of a team, forming bonds, and working toward similar goals, it is difficult to say good-bye and watch things come to an end.  While I feel success from working together effectively I also feel sadness that our journey together has ended.

I have experience a multitude of closing rituals.  Some of which are basic and others are more in depth.  A few examples are saying good-byes and thank you in person, having a celebration dinner following the completed task, and follow up meeting to discuss the results of the training day.

Working with my colleagues through my master’s experience has been very rewarding.  I have felt support by many and bods have been created.  When the adjourning stage comes for us there are a select few friends that I would like to keep in contact with.  These are friends who I have asked for support from and they have reciprocated.  We have been encouraging to each other and celebrate our successes.  It will be a void in my life to not have daily communication and interactions with them.  I appreciate the adjourning ritual that Walden has put into place at the end of each course.  We always have the opportunity to express our gratitude to our colleagues and wish them luck in their future endeavors.  I think this is an essential stage of teamwork so that others know how important their involvement was to the success of the team. Each of us is a piece of a puzzle and together we form a completed project.

 Reference:

Abudi, G. (2010). The five stages of team development: A case study. Retrieved from http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-five-stages-of-team-development-a-case-study.html

Conflict Resolution

As I have mentioned in the past I am a center director of an early childhood learning center.   I hired a new staff member about 3 months ago that was recently transitioned into a new preschool classroom.  My assistant and I have felt that this teacher is really struggling in this particular age group and needs additional training.  On top of that, I have has a couple parent concerns brought to my attention that they feel she is not doing well and the classroom seems out of control.  In a perfect world, I would have pulled her out of the classroom and completed one on one training with her to ensure that she was comfortable with routines, curriculum and classroom management techniques.  Because our world in early childhood is not always perfect, I went with another choice.  I chose to pull her from that particular classroom and place her as a co-teacher in another classroom.  The idea is to pair her with a strong teacher with whom she can learn the routines, curriculum, and classroom management techniques and become proficient.  Once she and I both feel confident that she can lead a classroom on her own, she would then be given her own room.

The conflict arose because this teacher feels like she is doing well and was beginning to feel comfortable with the classroom.  When sitting down and having a conversation with her, I did not ask much of her opinion.  I basically told her what my decision was and provided some backup reasons to my ‘why’.  The teacher was in tears and felt she was being given a demotion.  

Due to the communication and conflict strategies I have learned this week, I am circling back around to speak to the teacher again.  Had I known these strategies earlier, I feel my conversation may have gone more smoothly.  If I would have used the knowledge of Magda Gerber’s 3 R’s, I think the conversation would have been more of a two-way conversation versus one-way.  I should have been more responsive to her individual needs and come to a compromise.  If I would have spoken more about the goal of additional training being beneficial for her and the children maybe the teacher would not have felt isolated and attacked.

I would have also used Marshall B. Rosenberg’s nonviolent communication principles.  Although I did not get violent or even raise my voice during our conversation, I feel like I did not use empathetic listening.  Listening to another during conversation is critical.  People express their observations, feelings, needs and requests during conversation and it is crucial to hear them out so that a compromise can be obtained.  

My goal is to circle back and have a follow up conversation with this teacher using Magda Gerber’s 3 R’s as well as Marshall B. Rosenberg’s nonviolent communication principles.    I would like to find a broader range of solutions that both the teacher and I are comfortable with.