To Team or Not to Team

 Jennifer Lamb 

To team or Not to Team (Blog Post 4) 

 

I’ve decided that I want to work independently and not with a partner or group on my portfolio this year for AICE Media Studies. Many different types of sources have helped me make my decision on not wanting to work in a group like the “Social Media Peer Account” activity, the “Lost at sea” team building activity, and the articles I read from Week 6 PowerPoint on personality types, collaboration, and team building.  

The “Social Media Peer Account” activity showed me that I don’t want to work with anyone. I looked at my peer Nhea's social media account. I found that she was consistent with posting on Instagram and also consisted with posting stories. Most of the posts were with her friends having a good time, and I think the image she's trying to portray on her account is that she is a very happy and fun person that loves to socialize. I believe that since she’s so social and always with friends I'm concerned that she wouldn’t have enough time for this project. I think she is a verry smart person, but I'd rather not have to rely on someone to do their work if they might not end up doing it and causing that move to have effect on my grade.  

With the “Lost at Sea” team building activity I saw that working as a team helped me see things that I didn’t see before that were wrong. I do believe that working as a team is beneficial but the participants in my class that want to work in a group with me would not be the ones I would choose just because their lack of time management and them having to rely on me to finish the project. The activity did teach me that I do better after certain teammates put in their inputs that I worked with. My score ended up being better with my team, but my mind had made a clear decision after the activity. Even though I enjoyed the experience working as a team with them, I can't rely on others to get their work done on time.  

One of the articles that helped me choose that I wanted to work independently was “Team building and group dynamics” written by Becker. This article showed me that by establishing framework to build from with trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results within a group increases the work for laying a foundation out and making groups more successful. She learned that she can get her team to be more impactful with these certain points implemented at her work. I believe that working on these points will make your group more successful, but I have many of these traits that will help me work to the best of my ability.  

I chose to work independently on this project because my personality traits are very positive when I'm alone. I don't like to rely on others for finishing my project. I’m an independent worker, working alone has many clear benefits. I work better when I know that I alone have the responsibility to finish the project on my own. It allows me to block out all distractions, including distractions from team players. I feel more disciplined and self-aware when I work alone, and I tend to stay on task better. I’m good at self-managing myself and determining my own goals according to my own schedule without distractions from different personality types pulling me in different directions.