To Team or Not to Team

 

    I came upon my decision about whether to work on my AICE Media Studies portfolio alone before doing the team building activities. I have a unique mind and like to be by myself a lot of the time; therefore, I will work better alone. Although I can be very social and have a lot of friends, I like to be isolated, and try to stay out of everyone’s way as much as possible. 

“Intrateam communication will be more natural for the extrovert than the introvert, the sensing than the intuitive, and the thinking than the feeling personality types” (Bradley, 1997). This quote shows that the communication between those who are outgoing is going to be much more effective and apparent when it comes to teamwork compared to those who are shyer, and less outgoing. People who are less outgoing are called introverts. I would not call myself an introvert, however I do enjoy the time that I have by myself. It was interesting doing the social media peer account, because I got to see what other people are really like outside of school. However, this was not enough to get me to work with someone else. The persons social media I looked at was a very social cheerleader and had lots of friends. While I also have a lot of friends, I prefer to keep to myself.  

“The facilitated sessions help teams to comprehend where they fall within five distinct pillars of teamwork: trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results.” (Becker, 2015). Last week we spent our time, trying to figure out how well we worked as a team. These 5 pillars are used in many studies to prove the effectiveness that each one has on a group. When we did the lost at sea activity this was shown. Everybody had different answers and trying to agree on one, came easy. A leader shined through while doing this activity and it was not me. It seemed that the leader kind of took over, but also made it easy for me to make decisions, which I'm bad at. However, I would rather be the leader of my own thoughts, since I was a little hesitant to speak my mind in the group.  

At first when we were told to think about if we wanted to work alone, or in a team I had already thought of working by myself. This became an easier decision when I realized I did better on the lost at sea project by myself rather than with a team. In “The Effect of Personality type on Team performance”, Bradley notes “Team members must work together effectively to produce successful systems.” this is a true statement, but it did not prove true when we worked together in class. This is okay though, since I was already planning on working by myself. If I were to do this activity again, I would try and speak more. I was more reserved when it came to the talking because I did not want to be overbearing. Maybe next time this will change, but for now I am choosing to work by myself.