Team Member Roles

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�PAGE � �PAGE �5� Team Member Roles

Team Member Roles

Ross Hicken

University of Phoenix

Gen/101

Skills for Lifelong Learning I

Laura Dorsey, M.A.

July 21, 2007

Workshop 1

Team Dynamics Paper

Andrew Carnegie (2007, para 6) once said. "Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision; the ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." In any effort that takes more than one person, the idea of teamwork comes into play. Teamwork is defined as the cooperative effort of a group of individuals toward meeting a collective goal (Mendelsohn, 1998). Teamwork is gained by identifying the roles and responsibilities of the members of the team and then provides them an environment that encourages the process of those roles and responsibilities (Mendelsohn, 1998). The basic thought of teamwork is that the team as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts and by working together, they team can achieve more than each member would by working on his or her own (Mendelsohn, 1998).

Each team member needs to remember that the team is more important than their place in it and they will do without their own personal gain for the good of the team (Mendelsohn, 1998).

Work groups transform individuals into functioning members through subtle yet powerful social forces(Kreitner, Kinicki, 2003). These social forces, in effect, turn I into we and me into us. Work groups of varying size are made up of individuals who perform different roles, on either an assigned or voluntary basis(Kreitner, Kinicki, 2003).

One needs to understand the importance of roles and what they mean if a team is successfully to understand group behavior. This paper will take a look at three important facets of group makeup and...