So far in almost every graduate level class I have taken, except 1 or 2, we have done the majority of the work in teams. I am not sure why this is a trend in school now, I don't remember this much emphasis on team work when I got my under-graduate degree, but it seems to be the thing to do. I hear it said it is because that is the way we will work in jobs, but I am not sure all jobs are like that. While I do work with others in my office and work on some projects as a team, I don't do all my activity as a team, nor are we expected to, we still have individual roles and assignments and our performance is rated separately. So it was not unexpected to be on a team for this class, just a waiting game to see what kind of team it would be.
Over the years I have taken a number of personality assessments and most of them rated me low on the team building scale, in that I preferred to work alone rather than on a team. I always rejected this pronouncement and insisted that I enjoyed working on teams and always considered myself to be a good team player. After starting on my journey to my MBA and having so many team experiences thrown at me, I realized all the assessments were right...I was not a good team player.
I know many things about myself, some are; I am a little (ok, a lot) OCD, I like for things to be done right, and I don't suffer fools or incompetence well. I realized that these things that I know about myself are the main contributors to my aversion to teams, I have a hard time following some else's plan, I have to speak up when something is wrong, and if someone can't perform, I want to do it myself to make sure the job is done right.
Given all those considerations, I was very happy to learn that we would be able to pick our own team for this class. Of everyone in our group, Mike was the only new member to me, I have had class or been on a previous team with everyone else. That gave me confidence that we would be a good team from a work product perspective, but I wasn't sure how all our personalities would mesh. After our fist meeting together and working on our team formation activities, I realized I wouldn't have anything to worry about. While we had some friction a couple times, it wasn't usually about us, but an idea or way of going forward. Sometimes we had a communication mis-understanding, but that too usually was able to be resolved quickly and we moved on better understanding each other.
I love Dr. Gower's first phrase she shared with us - PAW - people are weird. I know people are weird and I think the best way to work with someone is to embrace their weirdness, because usually that is their strength. So we shared our weirdness and embraced each others strengths, and relied on each other in our weaknesses, and grew as people. From my perspective, the hardest part of working on this team was figuring out the logistics of meetings, as some team members had harder work schedules to meet. But we overcame that challenge and were all dedicated to the group and the class, so the rest came easy. I appreciate everything my team mates taught me about themselves, how to approach a problem a different way, and even about myself. I know my weirdness and OCD can be off-putting, but working in teams shows me the value I can bring and I know that it is ok to embrace that as well.
I really enjoyed this group and the work we did in this class. I hope as I continue on my journey at UMW or in life, I get to work with these fine folks again in some way.
No comments:
Post a Comment