Reflective Paper on Teamwork

The Importance of Reflection

The reflective process is an important process that professionals require to undertake as a means of evaluating themselves in a bid to find fault and improve themselves. It involves critically thinking about an event or experience and draw educational and developmental insight from it. It involves exploring experience regarding what one feels by looking at the significant features and events during a period. Through reflection, professionals can constantly develop themselves by using the feedback from the reflective process to change some aspects of the work and conduct. Reflection is more than just a thought practice and involves looking at a certain process to find the reasons for its success or failure. It is important for the growth of a professional. Scholars have emphasized the concept of reflection, with most of them saying that reflection, imitation, and experience are some of the best ways for one to learn and gain wisdom. According to Dewey (1933, 78), people gain more from reflecting on experiences and letting those reflections guide self-development plans. The articulation and lesson taught to one by experience in a reflective manner have more advantages than the actual experiences because they do not have the third perspective on issues.

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Context

In this paper, I will focus on reflecting on a team project activity that I had with my colleagues. The simulation project was made up of several stages that needed collective decision making from the group members with the assistance of the team leader. Through the project, teams were judged according to their performance based on successful completion of tasks based on team cohesion. A reflection of this experience is of importance to me because it is one of the few experiences that have helped develop myself as a leader. As well, an evaluation of this experience is poised to play a key role in my self-evaluation for team and leadership skills. Even so, at the moment of the experience, I had a major accident, which changed a lot in the team dynamics. An evaluation of this will also help me understand the reasons why my teammates behaved the way they did in a bid to find better ways of improving communication and teamwork.

Reflective Model

Several models are used to guide the thought process. Each of this model has its approach to the reflective process, with each achieving the goal of enhancing learning and improvement in a professional. Studies indicate that there is no right model for reflection because the individual will choose models that are conversant with them (Finlay, 2008, 3). The aim is for the individual to articulate thoughts and use judgment to see what led to the success or failure of a project. It is essential for one to choose a model he/she is comfortable with since it best assists in the learning process (Finlay, 2008, 3). The freedom of choice eliminates biases that can be found if one is forced to use a model he/she is not contented with because he/she will feel restrained. Additionally, using several models concurrently works well because they provide a diverse perspective on the case in question, leading to a more varied result, which is more informative due to the different criteria used by each model. Three main models of reflection are commonly used, which are Gibbs' model, Johns' model, and the Driscoll model.

In this reflective paper, I will use the Gibbs' model of reflection to evaluate and draw wisdom from the experiences of the simulation project. I believe that the structure of this model is ideal for me because it focuses on the emotional part of human connections (Wilding, 2008, 721). It is evident that human reactions and links play a crucial role in team dynamics. Teams involve a lot of communication, and therefore, are prone to disagreements, which trigger emotions. I find Gibbs' model appealing because it is one of the most cited models in the health profession. The model is structured to evaluate the program at each stage of a project. Through the segmented form of the approach used by the model, the results found to cut across the board and provide a well-informed lesson.

The Gibbs' model has six components in its structure where the main steps in the composition aim and evaluate an element of the event in question. Such is where the first step is descriptive when one gives an account of the project to lay a foundation for the evaluation process. What follows is the describing of the feeling felt during the period.

Reflection

During the simulation project, the team was arranged in such a manner that the decision making was distributed among the team members, with the lead of the team leader. During the initial stages of the project, each team member played his/her roles efficiently, and the team worked well, experiencing minor disagreements. After a while, I got an accident and was out of the team for a while. During my time away, the team went ahead and worked on other parts of the project. When I returned to the team, we worked well for a while until I received an email saying that one of my team members wanted me out of the team. This was confusing because we were working fine since I had returned to complete the group. However, the university decided that I remain in the team and we worked our way through the project achieving excellent results.

From such experience, I felt as though my teammates had betrayed me by 'going behind my back' to petition for my removal from the team. Additionally, I felt as though I had failed them in a way and that is why they did not want me on the team. In the Gibbs' model, it is essential to gauge the way an experience makes one feel to assess its emotional aspect regarding the professional. At one moment, I felt the reception in the team was abnormal and felt like actually leaving but I stayed on and decided to mend the relationship with my teammates.

The Gibbs' model emphasizes a personal evaluation of the event and its impact on the success or failure of the project (Dyre, Hechsher, and Niss, 2009, 2). From my evaluation, I think that the accident affected team dynamics and the team did not know how to relate to me after the mishap. The accident raised issues with communication between team members because the petition to remove me from the team was anonymous, and when I confronted them, no one wanted to admit to requesting my removal from the team. From an analytical point of view, the accident played a vital role in the disruption of team dynamics. After the misfortune, there was poor communication between us. This led to the failure of the team to be answerable to each member because communication plays a central role in the success or failure of a group (Firth, 2017, 1). This made me aware of the need to communicate effectively.

From my evaluation of how the team managed to pull through the disagreement, I noticed that it was important I stayed on it; in so doing, it helped me understand how to deal with conflicts in a team setting. Additionally, the experiences made me look deeper on factors that affect team dynamics, allowing me to improve myself as a team player and leader at the same time. The experience got me to understand the 'bus factor,' which needs all team members to be up to date with the progress of the project. Moreover, I got to fully understand the critical role of communication in team dynamics and success. The experience taught me that it is imperative to be clear and consistent in conversations for a team to be able to achieve its objectives. Under the same context, I got to understand the cultural differences that affect communication because different cultures use different forms of expressions.

For future endeavors that involve team activity, I suggest that team members should first focus on team introduction and asses by discussing factors that might hinder the success of the team. The focus on factors such as the 'bus factor,' and communication should be addressed beforehand in a bid to create effective and standard communication lines within the team. I believe that a focus on preventive measure goes a long way in reducing the occurrence of events that might otherwise reduce the team's productivity.

Reference List

Dewey, J., 1933. How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educational process. Lexington, MA: Heath, 35, p.64.

Dyre, J.C., Hechsher, T. and Niss, K., 2009. A brief critique of the Adam-Gibbs entropy model. Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, 355(10-12), pp.624-627.

Finlay, L., 2008. Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL paper, 52, pp.1-27.

Firth, N.C., 2017. Communication and Teamwork. Routledge, pp.1-8.

Wilding, P.M., 2008. Reflective practice: a learning tool for student nurses. British Journal of Nursing, 17(11), pp.720-724.