The funny thing about this project is that I did expect the assignment - which is completely new to me - to be a great challenge. I have worked in teams for the past eight years and was fairly confident that group dynamics would be easy to manage. Boy was I wrong! And I should clarify that I do not mean this is a negative way!!! Let me explain.
In the professional world, at least in my experience, teams are assembled with very clear goals and efficiencies in mind. You are included in a project only when you are essential to it and you have a clear sense of task and goal, while ALWAYS trying to meet some unreasonable deadline. I am so used to being guide by this sense of urgency that I never realized most personnel management happens before the project starts and that there is often a natural selection process within teams to realign tasks if someone is out of place or unable to cope. In a firm, you have a greater chance of being grouped with people who have the same working ethic and job philosophy as yourself and the specialization of each colleague tends to define each person’s place quite clearly.
Contrarily, the CVP team was grouped randomly (various professional backgrounds and habits), our project was chosen randomly (varying personal interests and goals) and we have decided with the client what the scope and objectives are. Additionally, we have as "homework" for Management Practice to analyze our team dynamics – really??? Who has time for this?
Now I supposed that I am lucky to be in a team where every member is quite keen to pursue this " analysis", although I have to admit it is super hard to sit back once and while and examine yourself and your interaction with the group. I thought I was going to be the fluffy one in the team, making peace and holding hands. It turns out, I’m a goal pusher!!! I’m a “let’s get things done, solve the problem and get ourselves out of here so we can have a drink” gal! Over two decades of self-examination, year-after-year of office reviews and multiple Cosmo magazine self-tests, and I have to get an MBA to find out about the real me! What a shock!
I suppose everything is relative. When you work with burly construction types all your life it should be easy to win the “fluffy” label just by saying “please” once in awhile. When you suddenly get paired with colleagues who actually work best without defined schedules and like lots of discussion…yeah, I do get frustrated (just a little) sometimes. But I suppose you really don’t know yourself until you immerse in a completely opposite environment than you are used too. The unknown is the path to self-discovery after all.
What a learning journey! It’s been over a month of working with this group…and I am finally getting the hang of managing my “practices”…I think!
Alex
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