So far the teamwork and dynamics that I’ve learned the most from was when we were brainstorming ideas for the Sauder open house. We went through the entire design process and came up with several ideas. I knew in my head that some of these ideas were not going to work but part of being in a team is being cohesive. Being a good teammate doesn’t mean shooting down another idea immediately.
We took all the ideas and further developed them. Giving every idea a chance to go through this process allowed us all to agree that some wouldn’t work. Because they were allowed to get to the development stage, no one felt singled out and the team dynamic remained strong.
I really feel this relates to Kelley’s article The Ten Faces of Innovation… I love how it talks about all the personas essential to a team
- The devil’s advocate
- The anthropologist – how this concept effects humans
- The experimenter – tries the idea
- The hurdler – finding a way to push obstacles and idea through
- The collaborator – bring people together willing to push forward an idea
- The director – gather the talent to make an idea succeed
- The experience architect – designs experiences to connect with a person on a deep level
- The set designer – transforms environments into tools influencing behaviour and attitude
- The caregiver – anticipates customer’s needs
- The storyteller – builds internal moral
I think all these roles are essential to a healthy team. I think at our times in Sauder we’ve all had a chance to play many of these roles. I think my favourite role to play is the storyteller but I’ve believe I’ve experienced every role in one way or another.
Relating to Katzenbach and Smith’s Discipline of Teams, I think our team waivered back and forth from a working group and a team. At times when we were moving to the next stage of the design process it took one voice to push us along and get us started. At other times we were definitely a team. We had a specific purpose, talked about everything, and collectively gave input to develop ideas together.