Teamwork and Group Dynamics Reflection

This assignment encourages students to reflect on their experiences working in a team for an organizational behavior course. It prompts them to analyze both the positive and negative aspects of teamwork, including advantages like diverse perspectives and collaboration, as well as challenges like conflict resolution and time management. The reflection also delves into the roles of leadership, individual contributions, and how group dynamics influenced the overall success of the team project.

Running Head: Organizational Behavior
Organizational Behavior
Reflective Assessment on teamwork

Organizational Behavior 1
Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Group maintenance..........................................................................................................................2
Advantages...................................................................................................................................2
Challenges....................................................................................................................................2
Task performance............................................................................................................................3
Advantages...................................................................................................................................3
Challenges....................................................................................................................................3
Nature of group discussions.........................................................................................................3
Effect of leadership and decision making....................................................................................4
Contributions of group members.................................................................................................4
Effect of Assessment 2....................................................................................................................4
Recommendations and Conclusion..................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

Organizational Behavior 2
Introduction
Team work is an important aspect that everyone faces. It involves a set of two or more people
working towards a common goal. In Assessment 2 of this course, we worked in small groups of
people in class. The entire experience was that of immense learning personally as well as
professionally. There are various advantages and disadvantages of working in a group. This
report throws light on my personal reflection about out group work conducted in assessment 2
and aims to cover various pros and cons that we faced as a group while working together on this
project.
Group maintenance
It requires immense coordination and collaboration for a team to work together. Everyone has
similar goals, but individuals have a different working style and hence it is often tedious to
maintain the group.
Advantages
There are various advantages to working in a team including enhanced knowledge, effectiveness
of work and improved creativity (Levi, 2015). Our group was fairly well coordinated and
everyone spoke to each other with respect. The interactions were a learning experience as
everyone had new opinions. The best part was that the group members supported each other and
everyone worked with the shared goal.
Challenges
The biggest challenge faced in the process was ensuring that meetings happen at a fixed time. It
was difficult to coordinate time with other people of the group. Some of the people were
frequently late and this led to a lot of wastage of time.
Another problem faced was the face that some people were natural more dominating than others
and their personality often intimidated others.

Organizational Behavior 3
Task performance
The most crucial aspect of a team work is the efficiency and effectiveness with which the task is
performed. The advantages and challenges of the task performance were as below:
Advantages
Working in a group led to more effective and creative ideas being presented. This helped us
present a much better assignment than either of us would have done alone. The performance was
largely impacted as everyone has a different competency and we were able to utilize it to achieve
the goal. The division of task within the group was effectively conducted and that not only led to
effective completion of organizational goals but also led to improved learning of individuals.
Challenges
Working in a group is not always easy and often leads to conflicts and slower decision making
(Turner, 2014). The biggest challenge in the task performance was delayed decision making. As
a group as well as individual, we are all very assertive and therefore it was difficult for us to
reach conclusions and make decisions quickly. The small decisions of the project also took a
longer time than anticipated.
Nature of group discussions
The nature of discussions were open and communicative. In order to communicate better, we all
had connected with each other via a Whatsapp group. This meant that all of us were always
connected to each other. We all would mutually decide the team leader for a particular span of
time. Post that, a new leader would be decided. The group leaders tried to allow fair participation
from everyone in the discussions. It was clear from the group discussions that everyone has a
shared goal and are putting efforts in achieving the same.
There were certain times, when there were conflicts in the group discussion. This was owing to
the assertive nature of everyone in the group. However, such conflicts were often resolved by
intervention and collaboration of the whole group.

Organizational Behavior 4
Effect of leadership and decision making
Leaders of the team play a very crucial role in the fulfillment of team objectives (Ceil, 2016).
The leadership of the group was very effective. The appointed leader ensured that discussions
went about in a positive manner. The leaders made sure that the entire group is coordinated and
has as a shared agenda. In the group discussions, it is often important to ensure that people are
not getting diverted from the main agenda but continue to discuss issues of importance. The team
leaders ensured the effectiveness of the decision.
One important role fulfilled by the team leader was that of providing genuine, transparent and
honest feedback to team members regarding their work as well as team behavior at large. Such
review meetings assisted individuals in their personal growth as well as helped in faster
fulfillment of organizational goals.
Contributions of group members
The group members were contributing fairly to the group. This was accomplished as we had
established very honest communication within the team. We had ensured that every time any
group member faces an issue, it will be immediately and transparently addressed. We also had a
system of a 360 degree feedback in place. In such a system, every individual of the group,
receives feedback from every person in the team and not just the leader.
Every group member had a different field of expertise which largely helped us in dividing the
work and accomplishing focus towards the goals. This division was established in the early
stages of the project which helped us ensure that all the members are equally contribution. This
is important because unfair contributions can lead to frustration among team members and leads
to divided learning (Katzenbach & Smith, 2015).
Effect of Assessment 2
Performing assignment 2 largely helped in learning various organizational behavior theories
which we were able to successfully apply in our group activity. We applied Herzberg’s two
factor theory and tried to understand which group member belonged in which category. We
understood the importance of motivation and how it works differently for different people. Some

Organizational Behavior 5
people performed best while they were leading as their need for power was being fulfilled while
some people performed well solely owing to the fact they were a part of the group and their need
for affiliation was satisfied (Miner, 2015).
All of us had mutually decided psychological contract of effectiveness and honest in efforts as
well as transparency of communication in the group. We were able to achieve this only due to
our learnings from assessment 2.
Recommendations and Conclusion
Working with this group has been an immense motivating factor. The learning from different
people is sure to help me in my personal and professional growth. The following
recommendations would be advised for similar activities to be conducted in the future:
1. Conflict resolution in a team could be made a lot more effective. Every team member
could adopt tools like Thomas-Kilmann’s conflict instrument which helps people in
assessing their attitudes towards conflict resolutions (Trippe & Baumoel, 2015).
2. Time management in a team is the most difficult yet the most important aspect of any
team work. Effective time management helps the group be efficient. Therefore it is
important that everyone in the group is punctual for team meetings as well as adheres to
deadlines while completing work.

Organizational Behavior 6
References
Ceil, C. (2016). Leadership and Teamwork.
Katzenbach, J. R., & Smith, D. K. (2015). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance
organization. Harvard Business Review Press.
Levi, D. (2015). Group dynamics for teams. Sage Publications.
Miner, J. B. (2015). Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership.
Routledge.
Trippe, B., & Baumoel, D. (2015). Beyond the Thomas–Kilmann model: Into extreme
conflict. Negotiation Journal, 31(2), 89-103.
Turner, M. E. (2014). Groups at work: Theory and research. Psychology Press.