Organizational Team Development Analysis

Team Development sessions in Effy Organization

(Name of Student)

(Name of Institution)

Team Development sessions, using Peter Senge’s disciplines

Upon a start of an organization, one usually hopes that the organization will live into many generations in the future. However, most of times organizations do not last long. Very few organization live more than estimated. According (Zeeman, 2019), one third of 500 companies will disappear within 15 years, with the average lifespan of large enterprises existing for approximately 40 years. The organization with considerably longer lifespans are doing things differently, which Zeeman claims to be continuous learning motivated towards growth and development. With continuous growth, is the underlying continued change within the structures of the organization.

An organization that grows from time to time lives evinces of its ability to manage change effectively. According to Cohen et al, organizational change involves the transition from the known to the unknown, the unfamiliar to the familiar, and most importantly, from relative certainty to relative uncertainty, (Ramanthan, 2008). The fact that an organization never moves to a state of obsolete certainty shows of how an organization ought to be excellent with handling change, this is because change is a permanent constant in the organization’s lifetime. To which peter suggests the five disciplines of a learning organization, (Zeeman, 2019).

According to Peter Senge, for an organization to have a much longer lifespan, it has to master continuos learning and incorporate it within its every aspect. The five disciplines are; personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning and systems thinking. For personal mastery, an employee has a clear vision of a specific goal with a clear perception of reality. Mental models involve identifying the identity of the organization and what the enterprise is all about. Shared vision comes in through interaction with employees within the enterprise. Team learning ensures that platforms that enable continued learning is available. Finally, systems thinking directs thinking towards the general problems of the organization. These disciplines makes an organization that learns continuously.

Effy Organization is an enterprise that works to see the environment is clean and sustained. The continued pollution of the environment has adversely affected the sustainability levels of planet earth. Effy addresses this issue through carrying out research projects on sustainability and environment degradation, and effecting campaign activities that create awareness to the public. To be in this organization, one ought to be passionate about the environment. More importantly, the people therein need to learn from time to time, as the environmental issue is dynamic. I am one of the employees in this organization. We are working in the research department, which is sort of the heart of the organization.

The members in the team development session

1. Peter Andrews – Head of the department

2. Mary Orleans - Member

3. Genevieve Joseph – Member (Me)

4. John Greenleaf - member

5. Gray Richards - Member

The team will be meeting twice a week in one hour sessions.

In Effy organization, there is identity issues, in relation to the organization’s vision. In our team, members seem to lack team identity. Members do not feel mutually accountable to one another for the team’s objectives. This has presented slackness, and lack of commitment and effort towards realizing the organization’s goals. There are numerous conflicts between team’s goals, and individual goals where each member focuses on their personal goals and ignoring the team’s goals which is along the overall organization’s vision. This issue has consequently led to lack of collaboration within the team.

I will chose two disciplines from Peter Senge’s suggestions to address this issue of absence of team identity. The first discipline is personal identity. Personal identity refers to a set of principles and practices that enables an individual to learn, create a personal vision, and view the world objectively. The second discipline is systems thinking, which constitutes of results from the effects of reinforcing and balancing process within the organization.

There seems to be rivalry in every individual concerning where to focus their energy while working in the organization. Instead of focusing on the organization’s needs and working towards satisfying them, everyone is working towards an end that does not benefit the organization. I have chosen these two disciplines because they will help in showing the team how they ought to work in the organization.

Each session involved fun activities that sought to expose the issue in a fun way. A particular activity was a little game called, “Two truths, one lie”. According to (Sons. S, 2019), this game involved an individual telling the other co-worker two things about them that were true and one thing that was a lie. The listener had to guess the statement that was a lie. This happened all-round the teams, such that every person had played with every member. This also happened in relation to the organization where the team members identified lies from a set of statements that described the organization.

These sessions were all attended to and turned out effectively. Concerning the two disciplines chosen, various lessons were captured. The team members had a clear understanding of the organization’s identity and needs. However, their personal needs outweighed the organization’s needs. That is why the collaboration was not well-attained. These two disciplines can enable a team examine each member’s dispositions towards self, and towards the organization at large.

Reference List

Ramanthan, T. (2008). The role of organizational change management in offshore outsourcing of information technology services (pp. 20 - 25). Boca Raton: North Umbria University.