To Team or not to Team

 To Team or not to Team 

It really is the question. In fact, it’s the same question that I asked myself in the beginning of this course when we first discussed our requirements and expectations. We were told that we could choose between a film or a newspaper for a project and that we could choose between working alone or in groups. Obviously, we weren't expected to make the decisions on the spot, but now the time has come to make the decision.  

My final decision was to work in a group of three with 2 other students in my class. Those 2 other students were Alec Miller and Luca Patterini. I was able to through several activities to ensure my decision on whether they would be applicable group members.  

One of those activities was called “Lost at Sea”, where you had to list 15 items by the importance of which you would bring with you on a floating raft in the middle of the Atlantic. You would first start with listing the items on your own, and then collaborate with your group to decide on what is truly the best listing. When listing I realized that Alec’s list and my list were very similar, which secured my thoughts in collaborating with him. “To Penrose and the poet/collector Edward James, Surrealism was not a style or a movement but a way of life, and they actively collaborated with the artists they supported.” (Georgina Coburn). Just like previous artists and writers, people are attracted to and work better with others who are similar to them in thinking.  

In contrast, however, my list was very different from Luca’s list, which at first brew doubt in my thoughts of working with him, but soon changed. I read an article called “Team building and group dynamics: creating and fostering a culture of teamwork requires trust, collaboration, and accountability” which changed my view about working with Luca. In the article, it shows a previous account of bringing employees of a company to work together. The author states an occurrence of how “...both team members and leaders understand how their unique group dynamic can work together to build a more effective team and achieve sustainable results.” When I read that sentence it opened the thought that even though Luca and I may not have similar answer choices, his differences could reflect on my choices and decision making, deeming him a valuable partner. 

In addition to the “Lost at Sea” activity, I also was given the opportunity to review Alec and Luca’s social media accounts. I decided to look over their Instagram's in which I found that the three of us all played sports. In fact, Luca played the same sport as me. I found that Luca and I both play soccer and that Alec does cross country. So, a relation of us all is that we play a sport with a lot of running, which may lead to good teamwork through humor and laughs. 

Furthermore, while getting used to taking different shots and angles to be introduced to filming, I grouped with Alec and Luca as well. During the limited time that we were out filming, we got a lot done and used each other's input to create our best possible clips.  

To conclude, my final decision is to work in a group of three with Luca and Alec, due to our similarities and since we can build off of each other and work on ourselves with others' input. And if it seems as if it’s not working out when we get started, there is a strategy that stood out to me that I read in an article by Eli Becker reporting in on the general manager of sales excellence and sales enablement for the Microsoft Business Solutions. The manager used a strategy called The Five Behaviors in which the people participating can understand how different dynamics can work with each other. Though I believe that is not an easily possible outcome since I have been loosely collaborating with the two for several weeks now to solidify my choice.