Report: Personal Reflection on Teamwork, Leadership, and Marketing Mix

This report presents a student's individual reflection on their experience working in a team, focusing on the application of marketing concepts and the dynamics of teamwork. The report begins with an introduction outlining the assignment's context, emphasizing the use of Tuckman's and Belbin's theories to analyze team behavior. The 'What Went Well' section highlights the successful implementation of team formation strategies, conflict resolution, and collaborative research efforts, emphasizing positive outcomes like improved communication and satisfactory presentation performance. The 'What Did Not Go Well' section discusses initial difficulties in team cohesion, the challenges of data collection, and the impact of differing personalities and working styles, using Belbin's theory to analyze individual roles and contributions. The 'Own's Contribution' section reflects on personal growth, leadership skills, and the importance of fostering a positive team environment. The 'Other's Contribution' section acknowledges the diverse contributions of team members and their impact on the assignment's success. The conclusion summarizes key learnings about teamwork and the importance of effective task management. The report references academic sources to support its analysis.

INDIVIDUAL
REFLECTION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
WHAT WENT WELL.....................................................................................................................3
WHAT DID NOT GO WELL.........................................................................................................4
OWN'S CONTRIBUTION..............................................................................................................5
OTHER’S CONTRIBUTION..........................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
This assignment is based on my personal reflection of working in a team. This discussion
is based on the market analysis with use of marketing mix for understanding the stages involved
for product development (Peattie and Belz, 2013). However, I always found marketing as one of
the most complicated aspects of the management. Hereby, I had used Tuckman's theory and
Belbin's theory as well for showcasing my experience while working with others in a team.
WHAT WENT WELL
As per the Tuckman's theory, I initiated and formed the team with set objectives and
time-frame. The other team members were cooperative, yet they were reluctant for establishing
any connections. However, the forming stage helped to ensure that members must be involved to
work together (Humphrey and Aime, 2014); this stage led the foundation of team formation on
the basis of backgrounds and overall experience. Next is storming, which shed light on the
sustenance for staying in the team (Thurgood, 2011). In this regard, I found indifferent member
who was not cooperative with any one of us. Moreover, the acceptance was low and led to
disagreements. Here, I conducted sessions to have one to one interaction for resolving the
conflicts. This helped in facilitating a more assertive approachability and made the team
members understand about active listening skills (Berlin, Carlström and Sandberg, 2012).
Furthermore, the third stage refereed as norming assisted me to gain insights about
completion of presentation by doing research in collective order. I was not active at this stage.
Although, the others were ready to take any suggestions for making the assignment better and
this collaboration accelerated the team's performance in positive direction (Chiocchio, Forgues,
Paradis and Iordanova, 2011). Later, on the presentation day, our team performed satisfactorily
due to encouragement, motivation and consistent practice. Overall, the results was above average
as understanding while addressing answers was good. There were no mismatched answers while
interacting with audience (Gerhardt, Chandler and Hill, 2018). Lastly, we successfully
accomplished our tasks and catapulted these efforts in effective manner. Moreover, we decided
to stay in contact and meet once in a while.

WHAT DID NOT GO WELL
There were few things that did not go well as per my planning. In the beginning of
forming phase, I found great difficulty in making my members to speak to each other. They were
awkward and did not know how to start the project. Here, Belbin's theory came into handy (Burz,
2013). This theory had given insights on the people's preferred attitude and working ethics while
focusing on achieving goals (Batenburg, van Walbeek and in der Maur, 2013). One of my team
members acted as a great shaper. In accordance with action-oriented roles, this member took lead
and pushed the entire team in combating all the challenges and problems we faced while doing
the secondary research to collect data (Flores-Parra and et.al., 2018). Along with, there was a gap
and ambiguity between each member functional role and complete contribution in the team for
performing tasks (Belbin, 2012). This got eliminated with the interactive sessions that we
conducted.
Additionally, the data collection methodology also proved as a complicated procedure as
this topic was vast and the pool of data and information available in the market was never
ending. Henceforth, all the members were good resource investigators who found the trail and
error method very useful and enriching. This people oriented role as described in Belbin theory
kept our team in coherent mode and made us understand the team spirit by eliminating the
personal profits. Sometimes, this leads to inefficiency in team through diplomatic behaviour and
uncommitted positions (Simona and Zenica-Livia, 2013); although, this helped my team to grow
and develop together.
Illustration 1: Five Stages of Tuckman's theory
(Source:Hillary,2015)

OWN'S CONTRIBUTION
I learnt valuable lessons while working in this team. Not only, I gained knowledge about
the marketing trends and other related concepts, but also it helped me evolve as a better person.
As a leader, I evaluated my weaknesses and have started working on improving it. Furthermore, I
understood that team building is essential component in doing any project or job in more
proficient manner. There is a great demonstration of clubbing all qualities for bringing creativity
in making the assignment effective to score better marks.
Subsequently, I promoted friendly vibes by encouraging all the members in my team
along with motivated everyone to interact and attend the sessions that I organized at regular
intervals. There were few obstacles in between and they were minimised with the help of
adopting the key points of Tuckman's theory and Belbin's theory (Pontin, Havard and Snelling,
2016).
OTHER’S CONTRIBUTION
All the members were supportive despite having stark personalities. Personally, I felt
each member has their own individuality which contributed in the successful completion of this
assignment. One of the members who initially posed difficulties accounted the whole experience.
Illustration 2: Roles of Belbin's Theory
(Source: Belbin Team Role, 2012)

According to this member, there was an atmosphere of hostility while working in the beginning
which decreased substantially with passing time. However, with reference to this member's
behaviour, we were moody and did not seem friendly and thus, this led to the unpredictable
reactions. Along with, this member made me accountable for few moments of heated discussion.
According to this member's account, I was held responsible in failing the team when the team did
not bond well. Later, this member realised and contributed immensely for the complete success
of this assignment.
Further, the other members were cordial and supported in efficient manner. They were
given the roles of shaper and specialist from the Belbin's roles description (van Dierendonck, D.
and Groen, R., 2011). To sum up, with all the members' participation, this assignment was a
success and made us realize the importance of team building activities and adoption of principle
for smart work.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarized from this reflection that team played an integral part in achieving
the tasks by striving for excellence. Along with, I understood that segregation of responsibilities
with respect to assigned tasks is significant for proper execution of the project to meet the
deadline properly.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Batenburg, R., van Walbeek, W. and in der Maur, W., 2013. Belbin role diversity and team
performance: is there a relationship? Journal of Management Development. 32(8). pp.901-
913.
Belbin, R.M., 2012.Team roles at work. Routledge.
Berlin, J.M., Carlström, E.D. and Sandberg, H.S., 2012. Models of teamwork: ideal or not? A
critical study of theoretical team models. Team Performance Management: An International
Journal.18(5/6). pp.328-340.
Burz, R.D., 2013. MANAGERIAL TEAM CHARACTERISTICS EVALUATION.Managerial
Challenges of the Contemporary Society. Proceedings.5. p.55.
Chiocchio, F., Forgues, D., Paradis, D. and Iordanova, I., 2011. Teamwork in integrated design
projects: Understanding the effects of trust, conflict, and collaboration on performance.Project
Management Journal.42(6). pp.78-91.
Flores-Parra, J.M. and et.al., 2018, June. Towards Team Formation Using Belbin Role Types
and a Social Networks Analysis Approach. In2018 IEEE Technology and Engineering
Management Conference (TEMSCON)(pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Gerhardt, C., Chandler, K. and Hill, C., 2018. Collaborative Teamwork: For Better or For
Worse.
Humphrey, S.E. and Aime, F., 2014. Team microdynamics: Toward an organizing approach to
teamwork. The Academy of Management Annals. 8(1). pp.443-503.
Peattie, K. and Belz, F., 2013.Sustainability marketing: A global perspective. John Wiley and
Sons.
Pontin, D., Havard, C. and Snelling, I., 2016. Management and leadership. In Becoming a Nurse
(pp. 163-193). Routledge.
Simona, L. and Zenica-Livia, L., 2013. Assessing And Measuring Team Roles Balance-
Improving Team Motivation And Performance.Management Strategies Journal. 22(Special).
pp.355-360.
Thurgood, G., 2011. Teamwork: working with other people.Nursing: Transition to Professional
Practice, p.118.
van Dierendonck, D. and Groen, R., 2011. Belbin revisited: A multitrait–multimethod
investigation of a team role instrument.European Journal of Work and Organizational
Psychology. 20(3). pp.345-366.
Online
Belbin Team Role, 2012. [Online].Available
through:<http://yuganthijayasinghe.blogspot.com/2012/04/coming-together-is-beginning-
keeping.html>
Hillary, M., 2015. Team work- Tuckman's theory. [Online].Available
through:<http://margarethillary.com/team-work/>.