I was having a little trouble deciding what I should blog about this week in response to the readings. Should I talk about the experiences I have had on the many teams I have been involved in? Maybe chat about the many seminars and workshops I attended in undergrad which focused on how to become a better leader and team player? I could probably go into vivid detail about the many tools I use to stay organized and my OCD tendencies with planning and organization but I don’t want to scare people. Finally I thought should blog about how while I was reading Working Smart the thought of making a digital Team handbook got me very excited? But that’s pretty weird too. So I decided just to go for it, and write whatever came to me while thinking about these readings.
I really enjoyed these readings. I have been taught these team concepts over and over again but it is always nice to go back a rediscover the basics and the foundations of a team. It helps you remember and focus on what is essential in order to become and work as a team. I think one of the most important things in order for a team to succeed is for the members of the team to know what their role is within the team. Being able to understand what your task is and its importance in facilitating the teams overall goal is imperative. With this in mind it puts pressure on the leader to be aware of his team members and communicate to each person their importance no matter how small or menial the job. One of the biggest problems I have faced while being on a teams is member indifference and a lack of interest because they believed that their task was not important because it wasn’t as involved as other members. Being able to motivate and control the groups moral and attitude across the board is often a difficult challenge. This challenge seems to be even more difficult when you remove the face-to-face interaction time. However, I can see how their might be a positive side to the virtual team as well, team participants would not be able to compare and contrast themselves to other members and they would not directly see interactions between members which may relieve this problem of indifference. I really cannot say for sure though because I have never been a part of a virtual team.
I think being a part of a team is an important aspect of my life. I have been involved different kinds of teams all of my life from athletics to service. In my experience I have felt that I have learned more and experienced more as a participant on those teams then I have in any other part of my life. After college I joined a company because I liked their focus on the team environment, and wanted to continue to have that team aspect in my life. Now as a member of the ESPN team I am interested in seeing how we will incorporate new technology and other principles that were discussed in the readings to become a more technologically advanced team. Don’t get me wrong ESPN/Disney’s virtual team is very advanced but I am interested to see the innovations that they move toward as virtual teams become more and more popular.
