Teamwork

We learnt that a lot of job descriptions look for people with good team-working skills. For example, Netflix and Yahoo. 

Netflix has said they would like employees who can "Work effectively with cross-functional teams, such as marketing and product development, across multiple time zones." also, Yahoo said that their employees need "Drive design, planning and execution of programs within the Yahoo Studio team.  You’ll manage vendor requirements, scope requests with Yahoo teams, and interact with creative designers to manage deliverables. Your attention to detail and background managing integrated solutions will be essential to your success. You build cross-functional relationships at both junior and senior levels inside and outside the organisation to ensure project success.  You’ll buy the first round.  You are passionate about the internet and its communicational possibilities"



We learnt about "boundary spanning", which we will be expected to do in later life, it is working with other teams, even outside of business to improve the quality of work. Katzenbach and Smith's theory (1993) really stuck with me from this lesson as I didn't know the difference between a team and a group. According to Katzenbach and Smith's theory, a team is "A small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable". 
A group- -Strong clearly focused leader
We also learned about Belbin's Role Stregnths.


A team- 
-Shared leadership roles
-Individual and mutual accountability
-Team purpose delivered by team
-Collective work product
-Encourage open ended discussion/active problem solving
-Measure performance by collective product

-Purpose the same
-Individual jobs
-Measures effectiveness by influence on customers
-Discusses, decides and delegates

Talking within the group about why teamwork fails sometimes, was the thing that stuck out the most for me in the lesson, I realised that in some of the times when I was in a team, I was doing some of the things that make them fail. For example I had sometimes neglected to elect a team leader, in which sometimes it should have been me. 

According to Belbin, I am an implementer. I do not agree with this. Although, whilst doing a task in lesson where we had to create a new product, I was a little bit of a implementer. I was mostly a Plant though as I did come up with a lot of different ideas. This has made me think whether I am an implementer at all. 
After said task, Esther gave me some feedback. She said
- That we were all argumentative and liked conflict, but this was the best way for the team to get the best ideas in this situation
-That there was no time keeper in our group and it was what we really lacked as we did not keep to our time limit
-That I had up to date knowledge about digital products, which showed as it was easy for me to think new products
-That I created lots of debate so that the team decided on the best possible product

That has made me think that maybe next time I need to take a back seat more so that the others can take control and listen more before I criticise their ideas.

Gibbs Reflective Theory

Gibbs reflective theory is how I will be basing my blog on. I will explain what happened in the lesson, what we learned and what I personally learned.

He suggested how a full structured analysis of a situation could take place using prompt questions at each stage. It is probably the most cited model by health care professionals but does not contain the number or depth of prompt questions contained in some other models.

Mindtools.com has stated... 

"Many people find that they learn best from experience.

However, if they don't reflect on their experience, and if they don't consciously think about how they could do better next time, it's hard for them to learn anything at all.

This is where Gibbs' Reflective Cycle is useful. You can use it to help your people make sense of situations at work, so that they can understand what they did well and what they could do better in the future."

Gibbes reflective cycle is quite interesting, it is a good cycle to use when reflecting on something that has happened in the past. For example, in future essays I will reflect back on my work and plan, using this cycle, how to improve it next time. 

Personality tests

This lesson we learned about different tests that as an individual we can do, to find out more about our own personality and what type of person we are.
The two that we mostly learned about were the VARK and Honey & Mumford personality tests and we completed both of these.

VARK personality test was a test that gives you a scenario and asks how you would deal with this scenario from the choice of four answers. There at 16 questions in this test. At the end of the test, you have to work out the conclusion of your test by plotting your answers on a table and working out which out of V A R K you answered most.
When I did this test, I was half V and K, which means that the visual and kinaesthetic parts of the test were high for me. But as you can see from the results below, the read/write score was very close.
This means that I learn best when I can see what I need to learn. This can be shown in a type of Diagram or an image. Also, because I am a kinaesthetic learner, I learn well when I can touch things, when the lessons are practical and I can remember doing an activity instead of listening to something.
This will help me when I have to revise for a test and in general life as I know how I learn best and it will help me remember things easier. I know that, instead of sitting and listening to a recording of the lesson, I can look over my notes and memorise the diagrams that were shown to me, or by making my own e.g. a mood board or mind map.

The other personality test we learned about was the Honey & Mumford personality test. This tells you your preferred learning style. It is a series of 80 questions, what you have to do is say whether you agree with this statement about yourself or whether you disagree by ticking next to the statement. Once you have finished, you need to circle, on a chart, which questions that you agreed to, each number of question is a score and when you add up all the ones you agreed you in each section. You need to plot them onto a graph and it tells you which learning style you are.

When I did this test, I found out that I was a theorist.
This means that I am
-Logical and objective
-Systematic and analytical
-Thinks through things
-A perfectionist

Doing this made me realise that I am more of a personality to think through things before I do them, thinking about the consequences before I do anything. I do not believe this is what I am and I want to work on making myself a little more free-willing and try new activities.