Empowerment creates senses of personal competence, personal choice, having impact, value in activity, and security (W&C, 368). A survey was used to assess the levels of empowerment members of the team experienced during team assignments. Members of the team reported an absence of a sense of security almost universally. Three of the prescriptions for empowerment are related to the sense of security: modeling, providing support, and creating confidence (W&C, 373). Since the team did not have an officially designated leader or manager it is logical that team member’s sense of security was low. Each of the prescriptions for security are related to a central authoritative figurehead who provides the example, support, and/or confidence …show more content…
Some people are oriented toward very short time horizons where they think in terms of minutes and hours- a short time horizon (W&C, 53). Other people think in terms of months and years – a long horizon (W&C, 53). These differences were solved through proper planning, congruent communication, and clearly defining roles and responsibilities. The team also incorporated both task facilitating roles and relationship building roles in order to meet goals (W&C, 423). By being both supportive of each other and displaying task facilitating behaviors the team was able to produce quality work and work within all prescribed time …show more content…
The unit discussions were a good way for us to continue communication with each other and get to know and understand each other a bit more on a personal level, thereby building positive interpersonal relationships (W&C, 190). Whetten and Cameron noted that closely-knit groups also tend to have lower overall stress levels (W&C, 101). Knowing each other a bit more could help us with our miscommunication and ambiguity issues. Our group experienced role-based sources of stress including role conflict and role ambiguity (Butterfield, M1, U3). Discussing responsibilities and expectations for group assignments well ahead of time through congruent communication could help eliminate those areas of stress (W&C, 197). Although our group did not have any free-riders, defining roles will also ensure that there is no social loafing in future projects (Butterfield, M3, U11). The application of Whetten and Cameron’s Short-Term Planning and Goal Setting Model could help organize and solidify the group’s thoughts and decisions, while also alleviating the anxiety associated with the uncertainty (W&C, 104-105). Having the group’s thoughts and decisions organized and understood by all will also help the group know if and when another group member needs to be coached or counseled (W&C, 196). In hindsight, it seems that our group performance was primarily