As arranged we decided to meet up as a group in the evening, as other key members of the group had other commitments throughout the day; resulting in time organisation to be of an issue.
When successfully meeting up all together, we read over the brief to ensure that everyone understood the task and that we could all communicate thoughts together equally.
I’m going to sound geeky, but I enjoyed the pitch that we had to devise. The presentation we delivered acted as us to be an In-House agency representing the Fire, Police and the Health Service. Our pitch looked at drug driving, therefore, we wanted a campaign to prevent and inform publics of the arising issue. The topic was extremely interesting, as drug driving has become a key issue featured on the news recently. With dramatic figures rising, this has caused concern for the UK.
Due to myself having to attend to a business event on the day of the presentation, I underwent various solutions in which would allow me to overcome the problem. Subsequently, this meant that I was not able to present our brief. In order to resolve this problem, I carried out extensive research about the situational analysis, looking at how drug driving was a cause of concern for the government. Furthermore, I wrote up notes which I handed over to other members in the group.
Understanding that I would not be there on the day, I knew that I needed to pull my weight and go the extra mile to help out my group and not leave them in the deep end. Being known as “Miss Pedantic”, I had to live up to my name. The next day, I looked for help from an external group member; they helped me to record my reason as to why I was not able to attend the presentation. Being a girl, to have a plan for a plan, I ensured that I carried out my delegated tasks prior to the presentation. A Strength of mine is time organisation; this helps me to keep on top of tasks and in control. My strong optimistic personality helps encourage other group members to become motivated. Being a perfectionist works in my favour as I like to complete tasks to the best of my ability, however, this could be seen as a weakness as I can feel pressured at times, making my full focus on the topic in hand.
Bringing up the conversation regarding my absence meant that, as a group we went “off topic” with conversation, this meant that group members lost focus and started talking about other unrelated topic areas. To retain focus, I re-gained direction by cutting the conversation and motivating others on the task that had been set. Furthermore, I suggested that we should delegate tasks amongst the group, from this we all decided on what key features we would like to include in the brief. From here on, this is when the creativity began, four inspirational minds worked together at planning ideas, mind mapping key thoughts and thinking outside the box.
A well known and widely used theory reflecting upon team roles is Meredith Belbin, he designed nine team roles including a test. Within the group, there was a formation of very strong personalities. Before individuals of the group assigned themselves to team, we all completed the Belbin Test. The test, asks numerous questions in which individuals answered. When tallying up the scores they would signify what your team role is.
“A team role is described as a pattern of behaviour, characteristic of the way in which one team member interacts with another whose performance serves to facilitate the progress of the team as a whole” .Mullins (2010, pg 342)
Interestingly, each of the group members scored very different scores. We found out that there were various dynamic personalities in the group. We had a Shaper, Completer, Finisher and Resource Investigator (Shrada), Team Worker and Co-Ordinator (Kirsty) and a Shaper (myself). I believe that I am a true shaper, as the definition of a shaper clearly states :“Challenging individuals, known as Shapers, provided the necessary drive to ensure that the team kept moving and did not lose focus or momentum”Belbin (2010) which is something that I did on a regular basis. I do not like to waste time, talking about irrelevant tasks. As an individual I like direction and enjoy getting stuck in with work as soon as possible.
As there were two shapers in the group, I felt that at times there was a clash of personality. Luckily there were different personalities within the group, which balanced out the clash meaning that conflict did not occur. Having three very strong personalities in the group meant that at times it was hard to voice an opinion, yet we had to contribute and make sacrifices to let others use their thoughts and ideas within the campaign. This did not affect our group work as our group’s main goal was to complete the work that had been set to a high standard. I believe that the Belbin test cannot really highlight the truth of an individual’s team role, as in some situations people can talk the talk yet not actually meet the truth when being faced with a task in reality. Meaning that, the team role you score on paper, may not be a true reflection of yourself in reality.
In the meeting key decisions were made, key points of our presentation were thought upon and we communicated when to meet up again for the next group discussion.
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