Critical reflection on government policy implementation team dynamics

Produce a critical reflection on working with a number of colleagues on a given project or significant operational task. In doing so address the following:

a) Drawing on relevant theory and concepts, would you describe this as a group or a team?

Objectives of the team

The objectives of the team

The team's objectives are the goals that are specific to the team and enable it accomplish these goals within a fixed amount of time. The objectives flow the purpose of the team and they move the team members towards the vision of the organization. The objectives of the team were appropriately aligned with the organizational objectives. This was made possible by means of the Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan and Norton, 2000).My team was mandated with the following objective of implementing government policies and programmes.

The theories of leadership and group interactions

I would describe this as a team. This is because the strength of our organization is dependent heavily on the commonality of purpose as well as the interconnectivity that exists between the members. In all leadership theories, team has been considered to be the top in the list. If compared to the body, measure of leadership is not in the quality of the head but the tone of a body, hence, the signs of outstanding leadership primarily among the followers. In this case, a good leader therefore is one who recognizes that each person in the organization has unique and special talents and gifts. In the spirit of those diversity of the special talents and gifts, the team leaders together with the members recognizes that each person is important to the group (De Pree, 2004).

While the success of the team is more on collaboration among the team members, it is important to note that an organization is supposed to have the right people in promoting the team work. Collins (2001) replaced the old human resource slogan to read "the right people are the most important asset." Organizations should not hesitate in excusing people who are no longer a benefit to their organization and replace them with the right person; it is only when the right people are in place when the team can figure out on how the team shall forge a head (Collins, 2001a).The right team members are believed to be exceptionally skilled and gifted, hence, they bring into the team their own level of motivation; they do not need to be polished by the leaders (Collins 2001).

Management theory of leadership is about leading the team to involve the people in the journey. The beginning of leading a team to journey entails recognizing the special gifts which employees has in their respective jobs. This is because every employee has the ability to influence problem solving and decision making. Given that the participative management is rooted a relationship which exists between the team members, the leader's role is to foster the others rights and relationship (De Pree 2004). Involving each member of the team in the journey is therefore a critical factor of success. The followers should not be the type of people who are known for blindly taking orders from the leaders without asking questions. But as a substitute, the members should act as strong leaders in their own rights who are so talented and driven into building the arena into one best in the whole world (Collins 2001).

In order for the leader to achieve the desired change in an organization, it is imperative that the leader takes effort into creating new team or reorganizing an existing team. This can be done through the Kotter's guiding coalition. Guiding coalition is advantageous in that the coalition's processes information faster and quicker as compared to individuals (Kotter 1996)

Undertaking a task involving more than one person has been challenging and calls for collaboration among each member to ensure success and achievement of results. It is therefore important that all those involved in undertaking an activity work in a team. Team work is traced back to the ancient ancestors when they came together in several occasions including animal hunt, raising families, playing games and defending their communities (Graslund, 1987). In the history of man, people are known to be coordinating with the preliminary knowledge of purpose to explore and situation. In undertaking the project, we have employed the concept of working like in the large organizations which developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries involving a collection of individual jobs working proper environment (Kozlowski, 2006).

Team work is the process of collaborating or coordinating among team members. A team is considered to be a composition of two or more people who coordinates with the aim of providing better outcomes in respect to the team work and the team objectives. In most cases, team members allow both potential coalition formation and hidden communications to take place among them (Bettenhausen, 1991). In undertaking the project, we encouraged a variety of independent activities including working with shared work inputs, set goals, process and reward distribution (Wageman, 1995). We also employed explicit coordination which included setting of deadlines, prior planning use of schedules and program (Faraj and Sproull, 2000). In achieving the goal, we allowed the exchange of information between the team members through formal and informal means with the main aim of integrating respective contribution from each member (Kraut and Streeter, 1995)

In the undertaking of this project, our success was enabled by the fact that we were working in a team and not in a group. Group working is each member in the group work separately and reports to a supervisor, in this case, there is a high likelihood that the there is little mutual accountability and inter-dependence among the members. The leader has a responsibility of defining reality; the leaders should communicate a well thought out a strategy to the organization with specific directions and plan (De Pree, 2004)

b) Identify and critically reflect on the relationship between the objectives of the project / significant operational task and your individual role and objectives.

The objective of the project is to come up with an evaluation of the appropriate skill sets that would enable me as the Permanent Secretary as the Chief Accounting and Human Resource Officer of the Ministry. This would aid me in evaluating my strengths and weakness to enable me discharge my duties better as the permanent secretary of the ministry of agriculture, lands fisheries, marine and the environment. This is for the benefits of public sector environment which governed by the civil service regulations of Antigua and Barbuda.

c) Drawing on relevant theory and concepts, and with reference to 1b, evaluate how you interacted with your colleagues.

Employeeship

Employeeship is an important concept as it helps in the understanding of the leader follower relationship. Relationship and cooperation are key to understanding employeeship. Basically, employeeship is how employees manage their relationship with the employer and the job. It concerns parity of authority and responsibility, loyalty, commitment, trust, participation, social and technical competence, communication, self and shared leadership and the separation of the job and the private life (Simonson, 2002). Borrowing from this theory, the kind of interaction employed was informal and cooperative.

As a matter of fact, leadership is part of employeeship.

Learning organization

This theory tries to emphasize the concepts of building team learning and shared vision. This creates a wave of experimentation and advancement thus allowing people in the organization to expand their horizons to create the results that are desired by the team (Senge, 1994)

Our close interaction was meant to facilitate team learning.

Synergism

This concept provides that the sum of the parts working together as a team is greater than the sum of the parts working individually. It is usually represented by the notation 1+1=3 or 2+2=5As a team leader I realized the need for closer interaction that could foster team working to achieve the desired results (Blanchard, 2004).

Leader full organizations

These are organizations that believe in employee empowerment. More employees are empowered with decision making power and responsibility, encouraging a wider input and ownership and focusing on common goals and shared meaning.

As people relate as co owners and leaders, they feel more respected and become more responsible (Wolfred, 2008)

Basing on the above theories my level of interaction was good but can still be improved for better performance.

I would pay more attention to the team. This is because I have realized that the human resource is the most important resource for this project and any other project, other resources are just tools. For you to get the results you need, you must not only respect the team members, but also treat them as internal stakeholders (Cardy, 2001).

d) Looking back on the project / significant operational task what would you do differently and why?

The organizing of my team should have been done with the help of the latest leadership innovations like the Lean Six Sigma.

Skills that was developed over the MBA programme

In the course of the MBA programme, I learn several skills such as;

Organization and time management

I the course of the programme, I managed to organize a team and delegate duties to the team members.

Decision making and problem solving

I made several decisions on the best course of action to take in order to solve certain pertinent problems within the organization and also our team.

Planning

My planning skills were eminent when I planned for the employee motivation courses and talks so as to motivate my team.

Motivation

The process of motivating a team is a very challenging one and is not as easy as motivating an individual (Clark,2004).The individuals within my team operated with different values, expectations and goals. These personalities where united under my leadership to evoke a positive force by allowing the members to contribute their unique capabilities whenever they were needed. The teamwork that I made them realize allowed them to achieve even more under their collaborative effort that when they are working individually. The techniques I used for motivating my team are those that were suggested by Clark & Estes (2002).My objective for motivating them were to make them;

1. Have a mutual respected for each other on the basis of their expertise.

2. Aid each team member in realizing that their efforts are crucial for the success of the team

3. Bring about a shared belief in the collaborative capabilities of the team

4. To make the individual members of the team be accountable for their own contributions towards the team efforts

Delegation

Delegation is an element of good leadership. I was able to delegate duties to my team members in accordance to their key competencies.

Reflection

I reflection of the actions that I undertook with my team using Gibb's reflective cycle (Gibbs,1998) indicate that we accomplished a lot as a team. What happened is that we had to ensure that the government policies were implemented in out ministry. I thought that bthe task would be daunting but we managed to do it as a team. The good experience that we had is team building while the bad one is the lack of corporation from other team members. The sense that I can make of the experience is that teamwork is the key to organizational success. It is important for the entire team to reflect as a group as it fosters collaboration. What could have bee done is to infuse the Balance scorecard approach to the entire organization. I faced with a similar responsibility, would encourage teamwork and innovation in the entire team.

Gibbs reflective cycle (Gibbs,1998)