Making An Effective Team Analysis

Throughout our personal and professional lives we are part of many groups and teams. How we navigate and participate in them directly affects the success or failure of each. The purpose of this section is to discuss key knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to facilitate the best possible outcomes for teams working in a professional capacity as a classmate, co-worker, or community member. Three basic areas will be examined; how to function effectively as a team, personal skills conducive to being a productive member, and how to evaluate information to ensure good decision making.
Functioning as an Effective Team
The effectiveness of a team, in part, depends upon establishing clear objectives, defining responsibilities for all members, …show more content…
We have received a lot of information about how to create a successful team. We ask, does the information come from credible sources? Is the evidence presented factual and current? We have determined the information given to us, through lectures, power points, online articles and textbook readings, is reliable, empirical, unbiased and true. This information tells us teams who utilize the tools described make better decisions, thus making them more successful than teams who do not. Using logical reasoning, we can conclude that if our team employs these tools, we are more likely to make good decisions and therefore be successful. In evaluating information, it is also important to look for illogical reasoning, also known as reasoning fallacies. If the information we received simply stated, “Team A communicated a lot and they were successful, therefore all teams who communicate a lot will be successful,” we could determine that a hasty generalization has been made. There is not enough evidence to support the conclusion. Lastly, due to the diverse nature of teams, whether cultural, socio-economic, age, gender, sexual orientation or simply differences in experience, being open minded is imperative because it helps teams avoid misunderstandings. One member may not see value in questioning information (seeing it as being from an authority figure) because they were taught never to question authority. If team members are open minded they can avoid misunderstanding the lack of questioning as a lack of participation. Communication, critical analytic thinking, and open mindedness are central to good decision