Personal Reflection On Effective Teamwork Experience

The team consists of many employees who work together towards the attainment of the organisational goals in an effective manner.  Moreover, in today's work culture and competitive environment, various organizations and educational institutions require individuals and students to work in teams and coordinate effectively with others. When individuals work in a team,  it breaks down the complex task into smaller parts and each member is assigned specific responsibility which allows the group activities to be executed within a definite time frame.  >> Get more study resources related to effective teamwork  

Reflections on the
Teamwork Experience

Personal Reflections on Team work experience
Team consist of number of employees which works together towards the attainment of
the organisational goals in effective manner. Moreover in today's work culture and competitive
environment, various organisations and educational institutions requires individuals and students
to work in team and coordinate effectively with others. When individuals work in team, it beaks
down the complex task into smaller parts and each member is assigned specific responsibility
which allows the group activities to be executed within definite time frame. In a effective team
individuals performs their roles and responsibilities in a better way, thereby minimising conflicts
and maintains group harmony. Therefore working in group enhances my learning experience and
allows to share ideas and suggestions effectively with other. This leads to gain more insights and
deeper understanding to knowledge. The key to effective team work assist me to clearly
recognise my characteristics as well as strength and weakness which help me convert my weaker
points into strengths and leads to effective working within team. This learning experiencing can
be linked to Kolbs Learning Cycle which consist of four stages and allows me to experience
from every day basis while working in team. Therefore this is an effective learning cycle which
enhance knowledge and experiences while working in team (Smith, 2016).
Working in team has enhances my concrete experiences, it is the first stage of Kolbs
learning cycle which allows me to learn from a new experience or a situation which is
encountered for the first time. Team working experiences has updated my skills and knowledge
but the most important is that it has allowed me to learn from facing new experiences such as
how to manage and handle any new situation which arises within team and how to take effective
decision and manages conflicts within the team. Therefore learning from such experiences
enhances my skills to encounter any problem and face future challenges while working in team
and fosters my creativity (Tomkins and Ulus, 2016). Apart from this working in team provided
me the scope for conducting reflective observation in order to analyse my learning and
experience by working with a group of team members. It led me to analyse my new experience
or any inconsistency associated with it. As working with group has not increased my risk taking

abilities as to which I can not effectively take decisions and need the support of the entire group.
This is the major drawback in
me which have increased my dependability on others to take proper decisions (Kolb, 2014). This
leads to my unequal participation in the group activities and also needs to analysis that I need to
develop communication skills so as to properly communicate and interact and effectively with
team members and shares ideas and suggestions with them. Moreover working in a team has
enhanced my knowledge and fosters creativity but on the bother side it has increased my
dependence level on others to take effective decisions and has reduced risk taking abilities. From
this it is clear that I need to develop my risk taking skills and communication skills so that I can
effectively communicate and interact with other clients and achieve common results in a positive
manner. Taking effective actions against these drawbacks will enhance my involvement within
the team more efficiently. Moreover these skills are important for me to make my positive
presence within the team (Salas and Rosen, 2013).
Lessons learnt from Experience
From my experience of working in team I came to analysis that I need to develop my
communication skills and should effectively takes decision alone so as to reduce dependability
on others. It leads to abstract conceptualization which is the third stage of Kolbs learning cycle,
gives rise to the new idea and concepts regarding from which person has learned from
experience. Apart from this I also learned that it needs to have a clear goal so that so that I can
effectively contribute towards the realisation of common goals. Most importantly the best thing I
have learned from team work experience is that different team member have different
knowledge, it is necessary to concern every individual ideas and suggestions so that team work
can be completed within the set deadline. Moreover working in group makes the project
activities interesting as well as less time is required to complete the project. This provided me a
chance to work on different projects and enhances my knowledge and skills. Hence working in
team provided me a positive experience and motivated me to complete my future tasks while
working in team as well as it assist me to have proper knowledge regarding the gaols and
objectives of the organisation so that I can execute my work in a proper direction and works
towards achieving the goals in a positive manner. Therefore team work experience helped me to
develop my skills such as communication skills and will allow me to develop risk taking abilities
by adopting different methods and procedures so that I can effectively contribute while working

in team in future course of action. Hence abstract learning is very useful which allowed to me to
analyse my strengths and weakness by working with team members and helped me to develop
my weaker areas by adopting various methods and practices so that I can develop appropriately
towards contributing to the team in a positive manner(Doll and et.al., 2013). It also provided me
an understanding to develop and build trust on team members effectively and organise team
process in a better way so that employees contribute positively towards the success of the team.
Moreover when conflicts arises in team, it developed my skills regarding how to manage and
handle employees conflicts and thereby maintains group harmony within the team. It also
allowed me to learn new experience of working with different individuals which will help me to
perform any job related activities in a proper manner. These are the effective lessons I learned
from the working in team and has enabled to enhances my abilities and provided me with an
efficient knowledge to how to manage team situations and team work activities.
Plans for personal development
Kolb's Learning Cycle helped me to developed my learning experience while working in
team. After analysing my strengths and weakness of working in group it is necessary to plan
effective plans so as to convert weaker areas into strengths and effectively take the advantage of
working in team. This stage is concerned with the active experimentation in which there is
application of ideas into the reality so as to analyse the results of it. Active Experimentation is
the last stage of interpreting the results by applying the ideas into action. In order to enhance my
skills such as communication and risk taking abilities I need to develop effective plans so that I
can effectively work with the team members (Tseng and Yeh, 2013).
 For the enhancement of communication skill I have made plans such as I will effectively
start reading books and journals, this will enhance my communication skills and will take
part in various debates activities. This will increase my interaction skills and removes the
shy regarding public speaking. This will personally develop my skills and will allow to
gain a better experience while working in team. This skill would be achieved within a
period of 3- 4months period of time and hence can be supervised by members within the
team efficiently(Goldberg and et.al.,2015).
 In order to increase risk taking abilities and reduce dependabilities on other to take
effective decisions, I need to take some tactical decisions within the team and should
carry their strong view point in front of others. This will assist me to take risk and reduce

interdependence on others and will indirectly benefit the success of team to achieve its
results in a proper manner.
These are the effective plans made by me and will assist me to develop my skills and will allow
me to take the advantage of the working with the team and leads to effective realisation of teams.
Therefore it will help me to check the results after implementation of plans so as to analyse
whether this plans have helped me to work effectively with team members. Hence by effectively
developing the communication and risk taking abilities it will allow me to interact with other
employees effectively without any shy and leads to proper sharing of ideas and thoughts. This
way harmonious relationship is maintained between the group member and minimise the
conflicts and attains the goals in a positive manner. This is my own experience of working in
team as well as certain pitfalls that I faced, but after the development of plans it lead me to
convert my weaker areas into strengths and able to take advantage of working in team.

REFFERENCES
Books and Journals
Smith, A. (2016). Experiential learning. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.
Kolb, D. A. (2014). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and
development. FT press.
Salas, E., & Rosen, M. A. (2013). Building high reliability teams: progress and some reflections
on teamwork training. BMJ Qual Saf. 22(5), 369-373.
Doll and et.al., (2013). Reflections from an interprofessional education experience: Evidence for
the core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice. Journal of
interprofessional care. 27(2). 194-196.
Goldberg and et.al., (2015). Student reflections following exposure to a case-based
interprofessional learning experience: Preliminary findings. Journal of interprofessional
care. 29(4). 380-382.
Tseng, H. W., & Yeh, H. T. (2013). Team members' perceptions of online teamwork learning
experiences and building teamwork trust: A qualitative study. Computers & Education.
63. 1-9.
Tomkins, L., & Ulus, E. (2016). ‘Oh, was that “experiential learning”?!’Spaces, synergies and
surprises with Kolb’s learning cycle. Management Learning. 47(2). 158-178.
Sharma, G., & Kolb, D. A. (2012). The learning flexibility index: Assessing contextual
flexibility in learning style. In Style Differences in Cognition, Learning, and
Management (pp. 78-95). Routledge.