The characteristics of a team by Yuchen

It’s not easy to accept failure, especially when it’s the failure of a whole team. In one of my other courses, we had a group of three people, two guys and one girl, and we were supposed to deliver two team projects. The first project is a group presentation of an analysis of Sport brand commercial, the other one is a 30 pages paper. Everything was on track until the first Tuesday after the reading week and one week before our presentation, when one of our teammates left the class. The rest of us were shocked, angered then confused. We managed to deliver the presentation but that was also the end of our group. We had to split up and look for other groups that would accept us for the last team project.

Now since I finally have some time to review what went sour in the team building process that lead to the unfortunate split. To be honest, I blamed her for weeks and never had a single thought of if it was me to be blamed and it actually is. Before she left, I thought our team was creative and effective because each time we met (once per two weeks but the other guy and I contacted often), we had solid progresses on the subject. The team also looked diversified in terms of different background, gender and capability, though we are all from China. One potential problem was none of us tent to lead the team, but at the moment we thought it was OK.

However, the real reason is underneath the peaceful surface. First, we didn't manage to create a friendly and trustful atmosphere for all of us. When the team was formed, the other teammate and I knew each other which made the girl a new comer to the team. However, either he or I bothered to establish the sense of security for the new comer; we just went directly to the business and thought that would be sufficient. As a result, we lost our magnetism and therefore, people no longer wanted to affiliate with this team. In addition, when one person in the team talked too much (it’d be me in our situation), the other members might feel unappreciated since they couldn't share their opinions equally. In the end, since nobody was in the middle to communicate with each member, we couldn't know what people's true feelings were, and finished our team with the split.

There are several things I think we could improve. First, create a trustful environment for the new comer as it’s the foundation of any teamwork. Second, have one person to lead the group. Last but not least, encourage all members to share opinion in order to facilitate the coherence and avoid from letting someone feel undervalued.