Introduction
Teamwork is an integral part of human cooperation at different levels: in the classroom, in work teams, or even in groups of friends. The interaction between members of the same team is dynamic and impermanent; it is a living environment in which interpersonal structures are subject to transformation. In other words, it cannot be said that the same characteristics always describe work in a particular team. The complexity of teamwork is a subject of study in organizational psychology. In this context, the leader, who manages, motivates, and coordinates the team, plays an important role. The leader is the binding link that brings meaning to the team’s work and helps the team progress toward its goal.
This reflective essay seeks to examine my own experience in an organizational psychology course in terms of teamwork. This includes a critical analysis of my experiences and impressions, an assessment of the emotions that accompanied me throughout my teamwork, and an exploration of the weaknesses and strengths identified. In addition, the reflective essay includes identifying the lessons and knowledge that have been learned as a result of studying the module. Thus, this paper is a helpful summary of personal reflection, which has relevance for covering academic goals and objectives.
Teamwork
One of the main organizational psychology tools that we used in the present course of the same name was teamwork. Generally speaking, it is worth saying that the term “teamwork” hardly has a specific academic definition since it is a somewhat subjective concept. The main point that I understood during all the lessons was that teamwork is a coordinated and conscious activity of the participants of one group, which corresponds to cohesion and purposefulness. In this definition, I particularly highlight for myself coherence, which is a condition in which all participants of a group have shared connections, and not necessarily positive ones. For example, during the course, we had teams in which the participants did not have a good relationship with each other and had an apparent interpersonal conflict. The reasons for this confrontation could be severe or situational, such as when people had different opinions on a particular issue. The most crucial information about such teams was that even in the presence of conflict, they remained coherent, which means that the group members had common bonds among themselves.
In addition, the second feature of teamwork, according to my definition, is awareness. In my total time working with others, I have learned that you can only truly achieve something if everyone on the team understands exactly what he or she is doing and why they are there. Awareness is an integral part of personal skills for teamwork in which the participant can reflect on himself or herself and give an account of what he or she is doing and what the result of it is. If, however, the individual within the group cannot be critical of himself or herself, this is a common problem for the team. In this case, additional work is usually required to communicate with this individual, which makes teamwork more difficult.
Academic Attitudes
The academic community has different views on the interpretation of teamwork, but for the most part, all authors agree that such work interaction of individuals is significant. For example, Wilk, Arrigo, and Andrews (2021) pointed out that teamwork is a critical factor in organizational success. An interesting view can be found in the work of J. Driskell, Salas, and T. Driskel (2018): the authors believed that teamwork is a natural, even biological, part of human life. If you think about it, this might make sense, since back in primitive times, when people did not have current socioeconomic goods, survival depended solely on how successfully people worked as a team. Obviously, with progressive civilizational development, the need to work for survival has disappeared, but people still see the need to get together in groups and achieve results together. The reason for this phenomenon is that teamwork is a social construct embedded in the “genome” that allows for faster and more accessible results.
Synergy Effect
When discussing the reason why teamwork is a predictor of success, it is impossible not to mention the synergistic effect. When a person works alone, the maximum number of results he or she can get can be conventionally designated as “1. Then two-person teamwork allows for synergy, in which the outcome scheme becomes “1+1=3”: “Team-working provides a mechanism to bring together different employees’ expertise and skills that are required to complete increasingly complex work tasks in ever shorter time frames” (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2019, p. 418). This is an essential property of interpersonal interaction because, in this case, individuals reinforce each other’s best qualities and thus improve output (Schulz-Hardt and Mojzisch, 2012). However, interpersonal communication can also bring out the worst qualities, especially if the relationship is of a toxic, destructive nature. No synergistic effect will then be observed, and the results of such teamwork are likely to be extremely bad. Consequently, awareness and coherence are essential synergistic factors for organizational psychology.
Reflections on Team Simulation
One of the significant works of this course was teamwork in the Everest V3 simulation. In a general sense, Everest V3 is an organizational psychology role-playing tool that allows you to explore your teamwork skills, identify weaknesses and strengths, and further explore your leadership competencies in a psychological game of climbing Everest (Roberto and Edmondson, 2017). This is a type of group game, which means that the active participation of each individual is necessary to “climb the mountain. In addition, it is clear that real mountaineering is quite a risky activity, and many people do not survive trying to conquer the highest mountain on the planet. Extrapolating these facts to organizational role-playing, no one will indeed die in the process, but the risks of interpersonal communication remain relevant. I have never been to Everest, and hiking up the mountain is an unknown pastime for me. Nevertheless, thanks to Everest V3, I think I have been able to sufficiently understand that communication and team interaction issues are universal to any activity, whether climbing Everest or interacting with my classmates in the study room.
Leadership
The first and perhaps most important point I was able to find out for myself in the organizational game was that, for me, there is an inherent claim to leadership within the team. We do not know enough of our classmates to know precisely which of us is a confident leader. For this reason, when critical decisions had to be made during Everest V3 and obstacles had to be dealt with during the game, I always tried to take the lead. From the theories I learned in this course, I would call myself a situational leader because I did not — and still do not — have a formal, single style of managing people but instead used an intuitive understanding of the situation. For example, when I could confidently and firmly tell my peers my opinion to solve one problem and convince them of its correctness, at other times, I had to be a little more emotional to overpower the resulting argument.
In terms of leadership, it is also fair to say that I was not managing the people on the team: I was not telling them what to do, how to do it right, or what decisions to make. In fact, in Everest V3, this made no sense since we were, one might say, equals in the beginning. Instead of management, I was trying to inspire and motivate so that team members would make their own decisions and “be themselves” rather than my “tools” for climbing Everest. In organizational psychology, the fundamental differences between a leader and a manager are constantly emphasized (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2019). A leader is always the individual who has sufficient skills and competencies, sees the team path and understands the goals, and most importantly, can inspire people to accomplish something.
Sharing Information
Another important lesson I learned myself is the need for uninterrupted communication. When climbing a mountain, information is the most important element that protects us from outside threats, be they avalanches, chasms, or slippery patches. Information is equally valuable to the classroom, where all students are very different individuals with unique experiences and cultural backgrounds. To achieve interpersonal success in such a case, it is important to keep sharing information and experiences rather than concentrating on oneself. In fact, at one point in our game, we wanted to divide into mini-groups within the overall team to develop individual solutions. This approach was supposed to solve several problems at once: it was supposed to eliminate conflict and increase the variety of solutions offered. However, my peers and I quickly realized that using such a method would prove destructive in the end since it would create rigid interpersonal boundaries between us, and we would be unlikely to be able to return to regular communication with each other afterward.
In addition, the very essence of the psychological simulation was built on the need to share the unique information that each of us possessed. The timeliness and completeness of the information shared were crucial to the successful ascent of the mountain. In this context, it is clear that if we refused to share information or did not want to participate in the discussion actively, it would be a loss for our organizational simulation. In life, it works the same way: each of us is a bearer of our unique information, and how timely and competently it is presented, and whether it is presented at all, determines the outcome of teamwork.
Another critical aspect of information sharing was feelings, or, more precisely, their concealment. During a heated discussion of critical decisions, some of us were silent, giving the initiative to others. When I clarified why they were not participating in the discussion and offering their solutions, they said they were upset that their opinions had been ignored earlier. Such episodes for low-impact teamwork are not uncommon because the initiative is always a dynamic state, and it is usually taken by the most responsible enthusiasts. In this case, introverted individuals may hide behind others, hiding their real feelings. In our simulation, a classmate opened up to us about his experiences, but not everyone can do so, which sets the stage for the formation of deep interpersonal resentments and conflicts.
Conflicts and Tension
The physical challenge of one’s body releases large amounts of aggressive energy that can be projected onto others. This is a well-known fact, the management of which is part of personal psychology and anger management skills (Choi, Park, and Kim, 2019). In the case of teamwork, overexertion and aggression are not uncommon, as there is always a conflict of interest between participants. In Everest V3, we were each united by the common goal of climbing the mountain. However, it is also true that each of us had individual goals and pursued them. The presence of these conflicts of interest created interpersonal conflict, resulting in a sense of tension and competitiveness in our interactions. Such states are what happens in real teamwork, such as in a work environment. Individuals within a group always have personal goals, and thus their confrontations are inevitable.
We did not develop a way to manage these conflicts because we were limited in time and wanted to complete the simulation as soon as possible. It is true that we ignored them and tried to move quickly to the next steps. Organizational psychology theory suggests that this method is not practical because long compromises result in hiding one’s feelings and emotions, which will affect the productivity of the workgroup in the future (Hirsch, 2018). Consequently, we needed to resolve such conflicts on the spot in order not to accumulate resentment and understatement, as this would eventually become an issue.
Strengths & Weaknesses Analysis
An essential outcome of a team simulation is to establish one’s strengths and weaknesses. By moving collectively toward a common goal, each of us was learning about ourselves and our skills, so Everest V3 could well be called a reflective psychological strategy. Among the strengths, I discovered myself were leadership, initiative, and a desire to help people. As a leader, I tried to inspire team members and manage the overall progress on the way to the top of the mountain — I did not know before that leadership in critical situations is inherent to me. I was also found to be quite proactive, as I often took responsibility for key issues or delegated responsibilities to someone who could handle the situation better than I could. Finally, there is another important discovery that is a little disturbing to me. In the simulation, I realized that I have the desire to help people and give them care. When in Everest V3, a team member was silent for a long time; I wanted to help him because I felt that he needed to speak out. The desire to help others is quite a good skill that brings individual mental well-being (MHF, 2020). However, I am alarmed that this help may become too binding for me, and as a result, I will help people even when I have to sacrifice my interests. This does not seem to be the right psychomental strategy, so I want to work on this in the coming weeks.
On the other hand, some of the manifestations of my personality could be perceived as destructive: for me, these were weaknesses. First, I used a loud tone several times to get the attention of the conflicting participants. This strategy is compassionate, as it could be perceived as excessive emotionality. Second, it is the already described desire to help, which borders on sacrifice. Third, I did not always keep track of time, and as I delved deeper into discussing a particular solution, I could forget to count down the time, resulting in a disruption of the overall plan of doing the simulation. Finally, there were times when I felt overconfident because I was acting like a leader — I liked it and focused on this self-centered feeling instead of investing effort and time in developing our group project.
Conclusion
To summarize, teamwork is an essential component of interpersonal communication among individuals to achieve a common goal. Teamwork is used everywhere because it is one of the most influential and comparably easy ways to get results. However, teamwork is associated with risks, including the potential for conflict and confrontation. In this module, we used the Everest V3 simulation, which was a reflective lesson for me. In particular, among the conclusions I drew about myself, weaknesses (sacrifice, overconfidence, emotionality, and substantial involvement) and weaknesses (initiative, leadership, and willingness to help) stood out. In addition, the lesson analysis allowed me to connect the experimental findings and observations with the theoretical concepts of organizational psychology, which was a beneficial practice for my learning.
Reference List
Buchanan, D.A. and Huczynski, A.A. (2019) Organizational behaviour. London: Pearson UK.
Choi, H., Park, J.A. and Kim, Y. (2019) ‘Decreasing aggression through team communication in collegiate athletes,’ Sustainability, 11(20), pp. 1-14.
Driskell, J.E., Salas, E. and Driskell, T. (2018) ‘Foundations of teamwork and collaboration,’ American Psychologist, 73(4), p. 334.
Hirsch, A. S. (2018) Working with people who avoid conflict.
MHF (2020)Kindness matters guide.
Roberto, M. A. and Edmondson, A. C. (2017) Leadership and team simulation: Everest V3. Boston: Harvard Business Publishing.
Schulz-Hardt, S. and Mojzisch, A. (2012) ‘How to achieve synergy in group decision making: lessons to be learned from the hidden profile paradigm,’ European Review of Social Psychology, 23(1), pp. 305-343.
Wilk, K.E., Arrigo, C.A. and Andrews, J.R. (2021) ‘Teamwork is essential to success: sports physical therapy is no exception,’ International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, 16(1), pp. 1-8.