Intercultural communication teamwork and leadership/CCOM103/Groups, teams and leadership/Teamwork and leadership styles

Read Chapter 19.5 in Business Communication for Success. The Chapter Introduction opens with a quote from Andrew Carnegie: “Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.” The current reading defines teams as a form of group work usually dedicated to production or problem-solving, whose strength is measured by performance productivity. It also introduces the concept of collaboration and promotes diversity of views to address creative blocks. Identified challenges, besides the work itself, include pressure to conform, groupthink, personality clashes, and competition. Recommended supports include valuing all members’ contributions, ensuring sufficient planning time for members to reflect, and respecting divergent views to invite critical thinking and open discussion. Take note that, although the term collaboration is often used to refer to all group or team work, research shows that cooperation and collaboration involve different processes that are suited to different kinds of work (Dirkx & Smith, 2004). Cooperation, characterized by division of labour, is seen as suited to solving well-defined problems. In contrast, collaboration is better suited to complex problems that call for co-construction of knowledge and consensus decision-making. As Dirkx and Smith point out, negotiating consensus requires willingness to transform our views in light of others’ perspectives, which in turn involves more self-reflection and attention to relationship building to build trust and negotiate conflict than standard cooperative tasks. Chapter 19.5 also discusses various ways individuals achieve leadership, and different leadership styles. The key message is that effective leaders facilitate and balance team sharing of talents and energy to accomplish goals. Be aware that facilitating collaborative teams will require more nurturing of participant relationships, and more time to address complex work needs (Brindley et al., 2009). When you have time, you may be interested to explore Kasl, Marsick and Dechant’s (1997) team learning model, which gives an in-depth description of interdependent team learning processes, conditions that support team learning, and team modes of functioning as a learning system. These authors observe teams might work through Tuckman’s group development stages, yet never challenge inaccurate assumptions or create new knowledge by reframing and integrating alternate perspectives. [Does this read ok? Maybe seems long, but it’s the culminating topic in the last micro-course, so should end strong. OK.] Recommended: Exercises 2 and 3. These exercises ask you to reflect on team members you would like to work with, and a team leader that you admire.

References: [Go on the same page where cited. Used APA, check against WE model] J.M. Dirkx & R.O. Smith. 2004. Thinking out of a Bowl of Spaghetti: Learning to Learn in Online Collaborative Groups. Chapter 6, p.132-159 in Online Collaborative Learning: Theory and Practice (T.S. Roberts, Ed.). Hershey, PA, USA and London, UK: Idea Group, Information Science Publishing. www.academia.edu

Jane E. Brindley, Christine Walti & Lisa M. Blaschke. 2009. Creating Effective Collaborative Learning Groups in an Online Environment. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 10 (3). http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/675/1271

Elizabeth Kasl, Victoria J. Marsick, & Kathleen Dechant. 1997. Teams as Learners: A Research-Based Model of Team Learning. The journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Jun 1997, 33, 2, ABI/INFORM Global. p. 227-246. Free pdf available at: pocketknowledge.tc.columbia.edu/home.php/viewfile/download/124996