Outdoor Management Development - Coursework Example

INDIVIDUAL REFLECTIVE PROJECT Contents Introduction 3 Scope of Work 3 Behaviour Change and the Project 4 Forming stage 4 Storming 5 Norming 6 Performing 7 Conclusion 7 References 9 Introduction The purpose of this reflective essay is to examine important and significant events that occurred during the team exercise tasks that were conducted during the residential weekend. The analysis will be based on a critical event that is comprehensively elucidated in my personal reflective log. The emphasis is on the ability to show experience and knowledge acquired in terms of leadership, teamwork and change management. The narrative of a personal experience will be critiqued and complemented by academic theories from authoritative sources and journals. It will outline the individual and collective effort that was made to achieve the group’s task and objectives. Thus, popular models and groundbreaking definitions will be employed to present the pointers that relate to leadership and change management in the context of group and teamwork interactions Scope of Work Outdoor management development is meant to provide experiential learning through outdoor activities that facilitate behaviour change and promote leadership competencies[McE97]. Therefore leadership and change management were the fundamental ends I sought to achieve through the whole project. According to Armstrong, leadership involves “providing direction, facilitating change and achieving results through efficient, creative and responsible use of resources”[Arm14]. Therefore, I viewed the project as a way I could gain important leadership qualities and develop it further by observing how teams and groups are formed and utilised for the attainment of the best results. One central theme of this entire study was to examine how leadership and personality change could occur and be managed in the group dynamics. This is encapsulated in Tuckman’s views of the stages of team development which include forming, storming, norming, performing and dorming[Bla091]. This project was therefore an opportunity to consciously view how it occurs and how it affects the working cycle and integrate it to my learning competency. Behaviour Change and the Project Learning and making changes as a result of some situation or circumstance is quite difficult. Learning goes through various phases and this includes challenging an individual’s original views and understanding of a given situation or phenomenon[Mac131]. Therefore, a leader will have to unfreeze and refreeze ideas and concepts that exists in the minds and thoughts of his followers[Mur132]. Therefore, as a member of the team, I made it a point to try to understand the level of acceptance and perceptions of the members of the team before I took any active part in trying to persuade or dissuade anyone on any issue or matter. This is in sync with the idea of transformational leadership which is based on the understanding and desires of the members of a team[Bas94]. Based on my philosophy of promoting change through the unfreezing and refreezing of thoughts, I was very passive and less interactive on the first day of the residential activity. This is because I needed to understand other people before making any move. It was apparent that other members of the group were also holding things to themselves. Therefore, they were not so opened. So the group’s activities were somewhat slow and less active. Forming stage When we were introduced to the team, I realized that there was a challenge in defining who will be a leader of the whole group and which people will take what roles. Therefore, the most vocal member of the group who is of a British origin naturally took the position of leader since he was the one to break the silence and coordinate affairs. Therefore, that individual became what Belbin will describe as a coordinator[Bel11]. An extroverted person of the team who is an extremely intelligent person of Asian origins became the resource investigator because never was there a moment she allowed anything to happen without questioning it with sceptical ideas. Thus, at the initial stages, only these two individuals came out and showed their real nature. The rest of us were somewhat passive and we did not really show off our true nature or views until much later, when the projects commenced. Storming When the instructions were read out by the coordinator, we had to come up with what we were going to do throughout the project and how we were going to do it. The coordinator was exceptional and showed leadership competencies because he threw the entire process to us and allowed us to have a discussion on how best we could benefit from the project. The main ideas and desires we had were somewhat different. The coordinator wanted us to do things within the British culture and the English view of how things should be done because that was his origin. However, Hofstede identifies that culture is the software of the mind and it determines the way things ought to be done and how it should be done[Hof131]. Therefore, based on this premise, there was bound to be some degree of conflict and this was meant to help to define the way we could adjust and complete the group tasks. Conflicts are caused by differences in views and perceptions of people who are supposed to work together to achieve a given end[Wil111]. From this project, I identified that conflicts are somewhat inevitable because from the onset, we had a difficulty in the ways and means through which we could carry out activities and ensure that all cultural views and groupings were appropriately represented. The Indian resource investigator always found issues with the approach used by the coordinator and we sought to find ways of dealing with these matters. One of the issues was the type of language. One of the team members had to translate everything to his native language in order to participate actively. Sometimes, the translation software used was somewhat problematic and he had problems. Theories of communication indicate that a message is encoded by the sender and the receiver must decode it and act on it[Rod131]. Many analysts identify that communication problem is the main issue and the main cause of conflicts in group activities. Therefore, the coordinator assigned a member of the group who spoke a mutually intelligible language to this individual and afterwards, the individual began to contribute appropriately. As the early stages occurred, we were all unsure of how the project would proceed. Therefore, we started doing our bits and we formed a few tentative task distribution activities. This caused us to share work. And after the first few tasks and activities, we found that some people who volunteered were not right for the jobs and activities they worked in. Norming When we realised that the original duty of assigning tasks without knowing each other was not right, we began to use a system of checking each other’s backgrounds and asking people to volunteer for particular tasks they legitimately enjoyed and were fit at doing. This was akin to job specification which is based on the identification of job tasks[Tay12] and the utilisation of recruitment and selection to make it known to the most qualified persons and getting them to apply for it in order to select the best candidates[Tan08]. Therefore, when we reassigned our roles and we got to become more comfortable and we sought to complete our tasks and roles appropriately. This enabled us to carry out various activities that led to change and things were done in a faster way and manner as we got to know each other better. Performing As we got comfortable with each other, we were able to complement each other and the idea of parallel working could be introduced in the whole process[Ehn14]. This includes a synergistic system through which all the workers of the group could work to cover up for each other and attain synergy which is the collective strength of a group of people working together[Hus95]. This was the final point of the entire leadership-related project. However, some analysts present the concept of groupthink which includes the situation where the members of the group get so used to each other that they take decisions without taking time to critically assess the variables and issues relating to the facts of the situation[Sch11]. Conclusion I learnt from this project that leadership and team dynamics are somewhat complementary. The theory of Kotter’s eight-step model is somewhat similar to Tuckman’s theory of group dynamics and this was evident in the project because the leader of the project sought to use various techniques to bring us together and get us to move from one point to the other by way of completing a given task. In the process, there was a formation stage where we got to outline our ends and fundamental aims. Our differences came to bare and this related to culture and results oriented matters. However, we were able to overcome them when we got a system of dealing with cultural conflicts and communication issues. Afterwards, we used a job specification and recruitment and selection approach to change our roles. After that we were able to work together to actively refreeze a new system of working and through that we were able to achieve the fundamental ends of the project we had to complete. References McE97: , (McEvoy & Buller, 1997), Arm14: , (Armstrong, 2014, p. 4), Bla091: , (Blanchard & Parisi-Carew, 2009), Mac131: , (MacKeracher, 2013), Mur132: , (Murray, et al., 2013), Bas94: , (Bass & Avolio, 1994), Bel11: , (Belbin, 2011), Hof131: , (Hofstede, 2013), Wil111: , (Wilton, 2011), Rod131: , (Rodriques, 2013), Tay12: , (Taylor & Woodhams, 2012), Tan08: , (Tansley, 2008), Ehn14: , (Ehnert, et al., 2014), Hus95: , (Huselid, 1995), Sch11: , (Schermerhorn, 2011), Read More