Groups and Teams
Group and Teams
Alexander Dumas in his book The Three Musketeers wrote: "All for one. And one for all." This philosophy is what high-performance teams is all about. It is better to belong to a group or team when an organization needs to organize a major event. I was involved in a special team project at my organization to plan a parent involvement retreat with other community liaison in my school district. This essay will examine the teams' cultural diversity and demographic characteristics in impacting the goal or outcome.
The Project
I belong to a public school district and one of my responsibilities is to increase parental involvement in my elementary school. I was assigned to a special task force of many community liaisons in my area in East Dallas to plan a parent retreat. The team consisted of eight liaisons in my area. The project was to come up with a timeline, assignments of duties, and goals for this parent involvement event. The team decided we had to partner with the director of parental involvement to assist us in evaluating what topics needed to be presented for the workshops according to the parent survey data he had on our area schools.
Effective teamwork equals successful school improvement. There was a cross-function in our team with a diverse mix of players that brought in their expertise and collaborated in a professional manner. What made the group a high-performance team was its diversity. According to Schermerhorn, Hunt and Osborn "membership diversity offers a rich pool of information, talent, and varied perspectives' that can help in the improvement of solving problems and increase its creativity (2005, Chapter 10, pg. 8).&nbs ...