REFLECTIVE WRITING WEEK 12: SELF MANAGED TEAM
In this topic, Dr. Jamilah shared with us about nature of self-managed team or SMT, the benefits of self-managed team, characteristics of effective self-managed teams and 4 stages of group development. During lecture, I asked question about how to cope with the situation where a new employee is required to from SMT. Because obviously, a new employee does not familiar with her/his new workplace and new colleagues. So how is she going to form her self-managed team? Dr. Jamilah gave us a very beneficial advice which is, we have to learn from the best.
I had an experience during my first posting at a school. Two weeks after I started teaching, I was asked by my principal to form a group to manage school library and media unit. To me, the task was very hard, I hardly know anyone, and I haven’t had chance to form good relationships with my colleagues yet. How do I build trust among us when I didn’t get to know them first? Trusting others in terms of believing in the trustworthiness and honesty of others but also believing in the capabilities of others is a successful element on SMTs (KiffinPetersen and Cordery, 2003). Other than library, the team also had to manage computer laboratories because they are under media unit. The library is the centre of many school activities especially for academic programmes for SPM and PT3 candidates. So, technically, I had to deal with many senior teachers to arrange schedule, and some of them did not satisfy with the schedule I made. I also need to find sponsors for library programmes and initiate many programmes to encourage students to love books. It was so difficult for me because I did not know where to start, and the previous person in charge transferred to other school. I somehow managed to do my job, and my team was very helpful. But now when I look back, there is a feeling of unsatisfaction with my own performance back then. I wish I could do better.
Previous research on team effectiveness or person–environment fit has proved the relevance of the individual characteristics for the success of the entire team and the surrounding system (Boyatzis, 1982; Kristof-Brown, 2005; Mathieu, 2014). According to this research, if we want to form a successful SMT, we have to build strong individual characteristics first. That is what I want to improve in myself because I know sooner or later I will encounter the same situation like before, where I need to for my own SMT. Dr. Jamilah has given the characteristics of effective SMT such as high levels of communications, have clear missions, high performance standard and so on. These are the qualities that I have to nurture in myself.
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