8.+Our+Individual+Reflections

As a teacher, I see my “team” as the staff that I work with. It is essential that we work together as a cohesive unit in order to effectively educate the students at our school. We need to develop curriculum that is consistent throughout the grade levels so students have the building blocks that they need to support their learning. Each grade level needs to communicate with the grade levels above and below them in order to find out where we have weaknesses so that gaps can be filled. We need to be able to trust each other to give honest input and listen objectively to our ideas without fear of reproach. If we view conflict as healthy we can debate about ideas and come up with the best solutions regarding instruction. Having everyone’s input in debate ensures that we are all committed to our school’s goals which guarantees buy in from more of the staff. Holding each other accountable will ensure that each person has the positive support they need to achieve the goals we have set as a team. When everyone feels supported and committed to the plan, they are less likely to put their own needs above the goals of the team. Following these step will create a school that is, if nothing else, a happier place to work and learn. Most likely we will also be offering an education that is far superior to other schools that struggle to work as a team.

Trecia Garrick

 I would agree with Trecia that the "team" in an educational setting is the faculty and administration. I try to collaborate as much as possible with other teachers, especially in the social studies department because that discipline seems to blend well with language arts. I also work closely with the teacher librarian whenever possible and look to the administration for guidance. Looking at the five dysfunctions, it is essential that we all trust each other. Otherwise it would be impossible to work together and be honest in our suggestions to each other. I would say that, overall, our faculty members trust each other. There doesn't seem to be a lot of backstabbing, and we get along fine during faculty meetings. Regarding the second dysfuction -- fear of conflict -- I would say there is room for improvement. There are definitely those on the faculty who are more dominating, and those who don't speak up much. We could all work together to have more healthy conflict, to get ALL of our ideas out on the table and discussed. Because of the fear of conflict of some members of the faculty, I would also argue that there is a lack of commitment. Because there are those who don't want to rock the boat, they are more comfortable doing their own thing and "check out" a little in faculty meetings. If the faculty as a whole made a concerted effort to draw these individuals out more, we might have more overall commitment as a team. Regarding the fourth dysfuction, avoidance of accountability, there are definitely those on our faculty who are not team players. For example, everyone is supposed to be using standards-based grading in their classrooms, and some of the faculty hopped on board immediately. Others waited for a couple of years until the last possible moment and then continued to do things their way, for the most part, behind closed doors. Whether or not they believed in the philosophy of standards-based grading, they definitely weren't being team players. This leads to the last dysfunction: inattention to results. I would argue that the younger faculty members, or those who still have many years of teaching to go, are more concerned with results than the older faculty members who are closer to retirement. This is just human nature, after all. But we could still do more, as a team, to work on overall commitment and attention to results, or goals. The goals of our school tend to be focused on either CSAP scores or school climate, and you can see eyes glaze over when we discuss these issues over and over. Perhaps we need a new approach to get better results? To wrap up my reflection, I would say that my school's team is probably average as far as how it functions; I'm sure there are school teams that are more cohesive, but also others that are more fragmented. That said, I think there's a lot we could do to better ourselves as a team and increase the overall educational experience for our students.

Charlotte Brooks 

 I feel that most teams probably have a lot of turmoil within because they are trying to get everyone on board to make the decision a unanimous decision. Lencioni makes it very clear that that is not true. From reading this book and looking at the “Lack of Commitment” section, I learned that not everyone needs to buy into the decision to make the decision, but that everyone needs to be heard and appreciated for their thoughts. The difference between unanimous and consensus decision making is important for the group to understand.

Lencioni believes that trust is the foundation for all teams to begin to function successfully. With that in mind, each team needs to feel comfortable with each other and divulging little pieces of personal information while trying to build up the team trust can help this process even if the information is not too personal. The questions suggested were number of siblings, hometown, unique challenges of childhood, favorite hobbies, first job, and worst job. Besides building trust the sharing of nonthreatening personal information allows team members to also build relationships. Once you begin to understand where a person is coming from, you can usually see their point of view and better understand why they may or may not be standing behind a decision or choice. With this information the team should be able to come around with commitments on decisions that need to be made even if all team members do not agree with the decision.

Although most of us would like to make decisions based upon a positive outcome this is rarely the case, because we don’t know what the outcome will be until the whole situation has played out. I was once told that we have to make decisions with the information that we have at the moment, and hope that the outcome is what we want. With any decision we need to be aware that the outcome may be nowhere near what we wanted or expected. Just as in life, our decisions don’t always bring about the outcome that we wanted. That is the way that most businesses have to make their decisions too. Just as everyone wants to make the right choices and decisions, so do executive teams.

A team can have all of the research that it needs to make a decision but that doesn’t necessarily make the decision better or worse, especially if it waits too long. However, by waiting around to get a unanimous decision the team could ultimately lose to the competition. Lencioni suggests that sometimes making decisions just from the discussions aired about the topic are just as stable and well-rounded as those done based upon a lot of research. It is that teams are sometimes afraid to make a decision without looking at all of the details.

As a new teacher librarian, I have not had the chance to be part of a team yet. However, with the information that I have gotten from this class, I feel that I want to be part of a team and with this project and the information that I have gotten I feel a team I may be on in the future has a chance of being a healthy team. I do realize though that sometimes a person is put on a team that they really don’t want to be put on, so they need to put on their commitment happy face. While other times, a person may be on a team that they have a passion for and their commitment will just shine through.

Sara Drongesen 

 As I read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team I was not only thinking of faculty teams and administrative teams, but also of student teams. I feel that the information in the book can be useful in not only improving ones professional team, but also in helping students to improve team functioning within small groups.

As I am about to start a new job, I am going to be conscious of the five dysfunctions and how my new teams are working. As a teacher librarian I may be on teams of two, myself and another teacher, small group teams such as a technology committee, the large group team of the entire faculty, and also I am part of each students team. Absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results can occur within any of these groupings and should be addressed at all these levels.

Having this model as a base to understand the constantly changing group dynamics of the many teams that I will be on will help me focus on how each team is functioning and how to improve the performance of each team. It will also help me look at my own behavior to see if there's something specific that I could do to improve my own work or to better the functioning of the team.

Once I become comfortable and familiar with the five dysfunctions, then I will be able to help my students learn about the concepts and apply this knowledge to their own group work. Students could use the model to evaluate how their group has functioned for a team project. It will be interesting to see if using this model with students would help them improve how well their team works together, but also if it improves the quality of their final product. I imagine it will.

This reminds me of the process vs. product debate - some teachers value one over the other. Both are important and the Five Dysfunctions model helps me attend to both.

Suzanne Neuman 

I believe that I will be on several teams for my new position as the teacher librarian at Everitt Middle School. At the very least, I will be a part of the Leadership Team, the Literacy Team and the Staff team. It will be crucial that as we meet together as teams that we become groups that work well together. I believe that Lencioni’s book will really help me as I participate on these teams. I have been on dysfunctional teams in the past and I look back at the wasted time we spent with deep regret. The five dysfunctions that Lencioni taught about in his book showed me some of the errors of the past teams and why they did not work so well.

The importance of the underlying foundation of trust goes without saying. If trust is not established first then the rest of the steps to a functional team will not happen. Since the teams I am going to be on might be more familiar with each other already, I will have to work doubly hard on gaining their trust and getting to know who they are.

I would put the fifth dysfunction, next on the dysfunction pyramid if I were developing a leadership philosophy of my own. I think when group members are more concerned with their own needs and goals than the team goals or results then again the whole team cohesiveness breaks down. In addition, what positively binds together a group the most is achieving the group’s goals. The group members must agree to sacrifice their won agendas for the good of the team.

The rest of the dysfunctions, Fear of Conflict, Lack of Commitment, and Avoidance of Accountability, crop up as a result of the Absence of Trust and Inattention to Group Results. One of the most important things I learned from this book was under the “Lack of Commitment” section where the author discusses the group decision-making process. I liked the idea that while we may not have everyone behind every decision of the group, we must ensure that everyone has felt comfortable in making their ideas and thoughts known and appreciated. That will help the dissenters come to the decision in the end.

With the knowledge I have gained from this book and past experiences I feel confident that I can help future teams that I am a part of to be a healthy and productive ones that trust, do not fear conflict, are committed to the team and its goals, do not avoid accountability, and put team results ahead of its own.

Katy Fluitt