Managing teams - What have you learned about yourself and team management?

MARC OLIVIER D.

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Managing teams - What have you learned about yourself and team management?

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Themes

Improvement, team management, learning, skills, team work, delegation, communication

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During these different lessons and the activities we carried out, I discovered a side of myself that surprised me a lot: my ability to encourage collaboration and create a work environment conducive to constructive exchanges. This is a skill that was not so obvious to me before finding myself in a situation where team dynamics played such a crucial role, because before we had very little to do with each other even in our interdisciplinary group projects. It was enough from our first course exercise - making a creative video - for me to feel an instinctive need to make sure that each member of the team felt included and especially comfortable with sharing their ideas. In fact, I was struck by the tests carried out at the beginning of the course determining our personality, which show the importance of the psychological safety that team members feel. When members feel confident, they are more likely to express themselves and bring original ideas, which contributes to the overall success of the group.

Personal Learning: Strengths and Weaknesses
1. Discovering my strengths as a team member
2. The shortcomings revealed during team management
Team Management: Keys to Success and Lessons Learned
1. Creating a Collaborative Work Environment
2. Delegation and distribution of responsibilities
Areas of development for the coming year
1. Improve proactive and targeted communication
2. Develop a culture of delegation and autonomy

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[...] Managing teams - What have you learned about yourself and team management? What areas of development still need your attention in the next year if you want to function effectively in a team and lead a team in the best possible way? Be specific. I. Personal Learning: Strengths and Weaknesses 1. Discovering my strengths as a team member During these different lessons and the activities we carried out, I discovered a side of myself that surprised me a lot: my ability to encourage collaboration and create a work environment conducive to constructive exchanges. [...]

[...] We were happy to be there and to work together, but we got carried away by ideas that, as interesting as they were, could not help us get out of the room where we were stuck. We wanted everyone to express themselves, but wanting to give everyone the opportunity to express themselves clearly led to significant digressions. And that is how we wasted precious time. I then understood that to be an effective facilitator, it is also crucial to know when to refocus discussions and bring the team back to work, therefore to the subject that matters. However, this requires a lot of tact so as not to rush each other's ideas. [...]

[...] So I took care to consult her outside the meeting, in order to give her the opportunity to share her thoughts without the pressure of the group. Through this private interaction, I was able to obtain valuable information about her reservations and I was able to assure her that the next time I would pay attention to her being able to express herself. This kind of situation showed me that my ability to foster collaboration can be improved by being more attentive to individual needs; and that it is not enough to simply encourage everyone to speak; it is also necessary to understand the internal blocks that some members may face and to demonstrate more emotional intelligence myself. [...]

[...] It was a group effort from start to finish, I am not the only one who made an effort, because we all facilitated this decision-making process; and instead of simply distributing tasks, we organized an open discussion where each member could choose the parts of the project that interested him most. This method not only favored a fairer distribution of responsibilities, but was also the central element that welded our group together, and I am happy to say that it made us a real team, with a deep commitment. Each person was able to focus on the aspects of the work that corresponded to his skills and this considerably improved the quality of the work produced. [...]

[...] Because it is not just about giving everyone the task they want, but rather the one they will be best at, so we will all benefit from the fact that each of us will progress further in our field of expertise. This can create a real feeling of ownership among the team members who will then consider the common project as their own and invest much more in it; because it is also a consequence when we give confidence to the member of a group, they take this confidence and suddenly their behavior can also change. Quite differently, it seems crucial to me to learn to let go. [...]

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