Team Effectiveness

WHAT?
The team that has taught me the most about the importance of team effectiveness, cohesion, and vision was my high school boys varsity cross country team. My senior year, I was the captain of this team along with another senior leader on the team. There were 7 guys who ran varsity, and we were some of the best of friends. At the start of the season my senior year, some of the varsity runners seemed to be much more focused on individual achievement, rather than goals as a team to try and make it as far as we could. As my co-captain and I realized this, we worked throughout the season to bring the team together.

SO WHAT?
As a captain, I was a designated leader and wanted my team to succeed as much as we could. Our goal as a team was to at least make it to the northern region meet with everybody in the best shape possible. In our Team Leadership class this week, we read about Team effectiveness which included the input-process-output model. I believe that this model is very closely related to how our team functioned throughout the season. The article states that the best functioning teams are usually between 2 and 10 members. The team was a perfect size at seven people, not too big, and not too large.  The team was cohesive because we all knew each other on a personal level. This helped us because we were able to comfortably communicate. I wasn't afraid to let someone know that they needed to help contribute more by showing up to practices or working their hardest, and they weren't afraid to challenge me if they disagreed with how I thought we should approach a race. Furthermore, in order to reach our goal, we had to practice teamwork. Cross Country is no doubt a team sport.  My job was to make sure everyone was trying their hardest and not getting discouraged, whether it took motivational speaking, or breaking out into "Living on a Prayer" during workouts to reassure the runners that the work we were putting in was going to pay off. When the season was coming to end, we were able to perform to the best of our ability because team output exceeded the sum of individual output. With our vision focused on our goals throughout the season, we were able to place second at the regional meet.


NOW WHAT?
Through the experience I gained as a captain on the cross country team, and applying some of the key components of Team Effectiveness, I now know what it takes for a team to be able to achieve its goals.