teamwork reflective posting DDemers

In general, I must state that this coaching exercise (teamwork) was much easier - the opinions and lessons learned seemed to flow out much more easily.  In our "meetings" coaching sessions there were occasional awkward silences, while during the teamwork coaching sessions even our observers could not resist adding their observations into the coaching conversations.

As a coach this session was very "rewarding" as my coachee seemed to have learned a lot from his personal before-coaching blog and also during the coaching session.  His experience was a team that "ended badly", partially due to inequalities among the team members.  At the end of the coaching session he came to realize that team progression through the "forming-norming-storming-performing" stages had dependencies on cultural and even personal backgrounds.  He came to realize that when some team members had already made it to the norming stage (due to previously being on the same team), it is important to make extra efforts to help "new" team members feel like they are part of the team.  However, the new team member also has some responsibility, it is not just up to the existing team members to take the initiative to ensure that the team structure naturally enlarges itself.

As a coachee I came to understand that communications, in particular effective communications, are critical to effective teamwork for team reports.  The team that I had given as an example (MRK class) used Facebook as a means of coordinating.  At certain points in our teamwork communications, there were so many new postings that the important messages were sometimes falling through the cracks.  The fact that we virtually never had face-to-face meetings meant that it was difficult to communicate messages to all members of the team and have "deeper more philosophical" discussions of what are the important points to be included within our marketing team assignments.  The only way to assert one's ideas within the group dynamics is to put text within the report that is being revised and updated from time to time.  I have low self-confidence in the "writing about marketing" skills, and low self-confidence in my writing in French skills, so I find it difficult to assert my ideas in this particular framework.  This fundamental comprehension of my weaknesses (inability to assert in such cases) is part of the reason behind me changing my MBA program from Global Business to Supply Chain Management (SCM).  The coursework in SCM will be in French, but it is a more "quantitative" subject area and I will fell much more comfortable being assertive in teamwork situations.