Team Dynamics

For many years, there have been teams, football teams, basketball teams, debate teams and so forth. All teams usually want to be successful or "win". Therefore, teams are created to complete a specific task. For example, in football, there are receivers and quarterbacks and linemen who all play specific roles to create touchdowns. These touchdowns, in turn, determine the score, which is an indicator of a successful or unsuccessful outcome. In order to complete the task team members must establish relationships and boundaries among them selves to exist as a cohesive unit. The outcome of the task is sole dependent upon the team dynamics. For us to truly understand what team dynamics are, we must first understand the definition of team. Team is defined by Merriam Webster Collegiate dictionary as "a number of person associated together in work or activity"(Merriam-Webster, 1997, p. 1209). Further, team can also be defined as "a group on the same side as in football or a debate"(Merriam-Webster, 1997, p. 1209). The same dictionary defines dynamics as "related to physical forces or energy"(Merriam-Webster, 1997, p. 361). Dynamics can also be defined as "a pattern or process of change, growth, or activity" "(Merriam-Webster, 1997, p. 361). From the various definitions given, one can assume that team dynamics is a group of individuals working together to achieve a common goal to bring about some type of change, growth, or activity. To successfully accomplish this, team members must follow a set of rules or directions.

In my personal opinion in order for team dynamics to work every team member must play a specific role to its fullest. The most common roles in a team are the leader, the recorder, and the active team members. Each one of these roles in the team has a specific responsibility that is vital in the success of the team. To determine the success of a team, it is important to examine the individual roles of each member. Together, the work of the team members, regardless of his/her title, creates its dynamics. Active members play a critical role; they work diligently to provide information to the entire team. These individuals may be responsible for researching various topics, interviewing, or creating presentations. In other words, an active member of the team may be asked to go to the library to research an article that could be vital to the team outcome or goal. He or she may be asked to create the PowerPoint presentation that will be shown to the instructor as evidence of the work done by the team. Conversely, the recorder may combine all of the information obtained