Teamwork and Business Planning

This assignment explores the skills of teamwork, particularly interpersonal communication and conflict management, within a family-based team tasked with developing a business plan. It reflects on the challenges and learning outcomes experienced during each stage of team development (forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning). The student highlights their role as a team leader and collaborator, emphasizing the importance of delegating tasks, monitoring performance, and aligning actions with team goals.

Running head: TRANSFORMING PERSONAL SKILLS
Transforming Personal Skills
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Context.............................................................................................................................................3
Background Theory.........................................................................................................................5
Critical Discussion...........................................................................................................................6
Summary and Synthesis...................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Reference Lists..............................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The purpose of this report is to reflect on the subject of team-work. The critical self-
reflection of this report will help me discover personal strengths and improve areas of weakness.
I along with my five siblings decided to work in a team and generate ideas and develop a
business plan for a potential family business. Brainstorming with team members results in free
flow of innovative ideas. So working in a team with my five siblings was an incredible
experience to generate new ideas and practice skills of entrepreneurship. The experience I have
gained from this teamwork has taught me skills of time management, inter-personal
communication, ethical communication and these skills will help me in future when I decide to
enter the corporate world. In modern era, business organizations operate in a competitive global
environment. Multi-cultural teams are part of global organizations and team-work is even
prevalent in start-up organizations. Every team of an organization has its own goals, objectives
and deliverables which contribute towards the achievement of the overall organizational
objective (Belbin 2012).
Discussion
Context
The first stage of formation of our team was the forming stage (Crawford and Lepine
2013). We were anxious and uncertain during the forming stage of the team. During the forming
stage we brainstormed about ideas of a business projects. During this stage of generating ideas,
we were unbiased and avoided conflicts and controversy. My five siblings and I listed all the
ideas that came to our mind without evaluating the feasibility of any of these ideas. In the
storming stage of team formation, we analyzed the practical feasibility of each idea. This stage

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resulted in constructive conflicts among members of our team. Some of my siblings were more
dominant team members while others were less confrontational and tried to suppress their ideas.
I acted as a team leader and encouraged our team to evaluate the feasibility of each idea without
any personal bias. The authors Carl Larson and Frank LaFasto in their model of the Five
Dynamics of Team Work and Collaboration suggested that team members must share a cordial
relationship for the effectiveness of a team and to enhance the skills of problem solving among
members of a team(Wang, Waldman and Zhang 2014 ).The authors Douglas Smith and Jon
Katzenbach have proposed a triangular model of team work with personal growth, work products
and performance results at the three apexes of the triangle(West 2012). I have contemplated from
my teamwork that accountability, skills and commitment of each member of the team is
important to achieve the objectives of a team. In our team, my younger sibling played the role of
a sharper because she loves challenges and is dynamic. I as a team leader played the role of an
implementer, team-worker and coordinator. As a coordinator, I had to demonstrate listening
skills and delegate duties among members of the team. As a team-worker I gave priority to
cohesion among team members. My role as an implementer has taught me to convert ideas of a
team into actual actions. Interpersonal communication played an important role in the storming
stage of our team. It was essential to adopt an open model of communication among members of
our team to minimize the conflicts that resulted in the process of evaluation of the business ideas.
I could contemplate on the role of communication within teams in an organizational setting. In
the modern era organizations have adopted flatter structures and encouraged open
communication among team members. An open communication model helps in understanding
the roles and responsibilities of members of a team and also helps in the management of diversity
among team members (DeOrtentiis et al. 2013). I learn to communicate clearly and effectively

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and respect opinions of my team members from my experience of working in a team. I could
relate my experience with the practice of communication adopted by global organizations. In
multi-national companies communication plays a vital role to minimize biases and stereotypes
related to gender, caste, language and ethnicity that is prevalent in cross-cultural teams
(González-Romá and Hernández 2014). In the norming stage of our team, we selected a
particular business idea and studied the micro and macro-environmental factors and the
competition in the marketplace to benchmark our business idea against the best practices of the
industry. The idea we chose was to sale micro-brewery machines for brewing beer at the
convenience of home.
Background Theory
I could contemplate from my teamwork that Goals, Role, Process and Interpersonal
relationships play a pivotal role to enhance team performance (Wang, Waldman and Zhang
2014). The goal of our team was to develop entrepreneurship skills by preparing a business plan
of a commercially viable business. The practice of setting well-defined goals is prevalent among
highly effective teams of business organizations. The goals of a team are specific, quantifiable
and the members of a team should be clearly and transparently communicated about the
individual roles and responsibilities which will contribute towards the achievement of the
objectives of a team. The process of work within a team should have clarity and should be
transparent (West 2012). In our team, the process of work followed a particular sequence of
activities like generation of business ideas, evaluation of the ideas, choice of a potential business
idea and market research about the idea chosen to prepare the business Plan of our idea. The
performing stage of our team commenced with the preparation of the business plan. The business
plan had several parts like the operations plan, the marketing plan, the financial plan and the

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human resource plan. The performing stage of our team demonstrated high amount of loyalty
and members of the team supported each other to prepare the business plan. I played the role of a
transformational leader at this stage and the performing stage of our team enhanced my skills of
problem-solving. This stage enabled us to accomplish the goal of our team.
Critical Discussion
During the entire process of working in a team, we followed ethical code of conduct by
respecting our team members, avoiding biases and stereotypes and communicating effectively.
The role of ethics is indispensable in an effective team. Ethics are the set of conduct that
members of a team follow to align their activities with the ethical values of an organization
(West 2012). The ethical code of conduct that we followed in our team was a written code of
conduct with mutual agreement followed team members.
From my experience of teamwork, I could contemplate that team-knowledge is essential
to understand the process of interaction among members of a highly effective team. The team
knowledge can be related to specific tasks that a team undertakes as well as team knowledge can
be related to knowledge about individual strength and weakness as well as values, attitudes and
inner beliefs of members of a team (Beardwell and Thompson 2014). The team-knowledge is
essential for developing cohesion among members of a team and can be positively co-related to
the effectiveness of a team.
I could contemplate from the experience of my teamwork that it is essential to be
completely aware about the goals of a team and prepare a plan to achieve this goal. The
awareness about environment and situational awareness also plays important role in the

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formation of a team (Bratton and Gold 2012). I could comprehend that team members should be
willing to contribute to execute the plan which will lead to the accomplishment of the goals of a
team. From my experience of teamwork, I understood that it is essential for team members to be
aware of individual capabilities, strength and weakness in order to efficiently contribute towards
execution of the plan. I have discovered some of my strengths and weakness while working on
our team. I could contemplate that delegating responsibilities, organization skills, skills of time-
management and interpersonal communication are some of my strengths. While working in our
team, I played the role of team leader. I could effectively communicate the goals of our team to
our team member in the formation stage of the team. I could also handle conflicts among team
members during the storming stage. I could contemplate that conflicts rise among members of a
team due to difference of opinion among team members.
Summary and Synthesis
While analyzing the business ideas of our team, I have noticed that team members
expressed different opinions based on personal biases. It was necessary to overcome these
personal biases to choose the best idea. Constructive conflicts are essential for members of a
team (Bradley et al. 2012). From my experience of team-work, I could demonstrate abilities to
create mutual trust and understanding among team members which led to better collaboration
among members of our team and effective resolution of conflicts. However, from my experience
of teamwork I could also contemplate on my weakness and arenas of personal skills and
characteristics which require improvement. I realized that I need to enhance my skills of
innovation and creativity as well as analytical skills. I could understand this weakness in the
brainstorming sessions. Innovation and creativity plays an important role in organizational teams

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(Galegher, Kraut and Egido 2014). So, I would like to improve this skill by practicing tools of
creative thinking like mind-mapping. During our teamwork, I have developed skills of time
management. I delegated a to-do-list among members of our team while preparing our business
plan. Time management is an essential sill that enhances team performance because by mastering
this skill we can prioritize our tasks and achieve the target of our team. Time management is also
important to avoid procrastination and enables team members to accomplish the goals of the
team within time (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). I have discovered that during our team work
that networking skills and researching skills were helpful for our team. Organizational teams
communicate with the external environment to derive information about competitors, market and
customers (Boies, Fiset and Gill 2015). In our team, we demonstrated the ability to embrace
changes and flexibility was a part of the work process. In our business plan, we also developed a
contingency plan to manage risks effectively. I have understood from my experience of
teamwork that some people perform excellently within a team while some others are individual
performers. I demonstrated qualities of conscientiousness and extraversion which enabled me to
be an effective team performer. I could empathize with my team members and the overall
performance of our team was more important to me than individual team performance. However,
some of the members of our team were introverted and focused on individual performance. The
contribution of these members was also equally important because they demonstrated analytical
skills and creativity (Hendry 2012). I could understand that there are some skills like
communication, listening techniques, skills to mange conflicts and values like reliability and
respectfulness which are essential to be an effective team player. Thus by demonstrating these
qualities, I along with my team member could develop a business plan for the micro-brewing
machines which will make brewing easy and efficient at the comfort of home.

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Conclusion
In the modern era of highly competitive business environment, team-work is of
paramount importance to achieve the organizational performance. I developed some of the
essential skills of team-work like interpersonal communication and conflict management while
working in a team comprising of our siblings. The goal of the team was to develop a business
plan for a commercially feasible business. Though this team was developed among members of a
family, it has given me opportunity to reflect on my strengths and weakness and develop
essential skill sets which will enable me to be an efficient team player in an organizational
setting. Our team went through the stages of forming, storming, and norming, performing and
adjourning like most other teams. Each stage had its own challenges as well as learning outcome.
The teamwork has taught me to respect the opinion of my team members and manage conflicts
efficiently. I played the role of a team leader and collaborator and delegating tasks among my
team members was an important role that I have played. Also, I could contemplate that it is
essential to monitor the performance of a team and check whether our actions are in alignment
with the goals of a team in order to enhance the performance of a team.

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Reference Lists
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Beardwell, J. and Thompson, A., 2014. Human resource management: a contemporary
approach. Pearson Education.
Belbin, R.M., 2012. Team roles at work. Routledge.
Boies, K., Fiset, J. and Gill, H., 2015. Communication and trust are key: Unlocking the
relationship between leadership and team performance and creativity. The Leadership
Quarterly, 26(6), pp.1080-1094.
Bradley, B.H., Postlethwaite, B.E., Klotz, A.C., Hamdani, M.R. and Brown, K.G., 2012. Reaping
the benefits of task conflict in teams: the critical role of team psychological safety
climate. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(1), p.151.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2012. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave
Macmillan.
Crawford, E.R. and Lepine, J.A., 2013. A configural theory of team processes: Accounting for
the structure of taskwork and teamwork. Academy of Management Review, 38(1), pp.32-48.
Galegher, J., Kraut, R.E. and Egido, C., 2014. Intellectual teamwork: Social and technological
foundations of cooperative work. Psychology Press.

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González-Romá, V. and Hernández, A., 2014. Climate uniformity: Its influence on team
communication quality, task conflict, and team performance. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 99(6), pp.1042-1058.
Hendry, C., 2012. Human resource management. Routledge.
S. DeOrtentiis, P., K. Summers, J., P. Ammeter, A., Douglas, C. and R. Ferris, G., 2013.
Cohesion and satisfaction as mediators of the team trust–team effectiveness relationship: An
interdependence theory perspective. Career Development International, 18(5), pp.521-543.
Wang, D., Waldman, D.A. and Zhang, Z., 2014. A meta-analysis of shared leadership and team
effectiveness.
West, M.A., 2012. Effective teamwork: Practical lessons from organizational research. John
Wiley & Sons.