To Team or Not to Team

 

            For the final Media Studies project, I came across the decision to work individually. I initially was going to work in a group of two with another person; however, after several activities and time passed, I realized that this person I particularly wouldn’t work well with considering this project is a full year. During the Lost at Sea activity in particular, this person made too many decisions for themselves without considering what the whole group was thinking. Despite having a higher score for the team portion, the activity didn’t reflect the expertise of the programs for the project. The activity only reflected a situation I would need to react to if I was stranded at sea. This style wouldn’t work sufficiently in a group setting where collaboration is significant. I also don’t trust this particular person to work at the same productivity as me towards our final project that is graded by Cambridge. Additionally, the activity with the Social Media Peer Account only confirmed my assumptions about the person. The person demonstrated their personality traits clearly and solidified my decision to work individually for this project.

            I’ve learned that trust, collaboration and accountability are amongst the most important qualities needed to build a successful group of individuals. Team building and Group dynamics mentions the significance of understanding other’s personal backgrounds to make a better judgement of their actions in the working environments based off specific individuals (Becker, 2015). I followed through this methodology and it proved successful. I fully understood my partner’s personal background while developing a sense of untrustworthiness and lack of potential accountability. Accountability is essential for such a significant project that determines whether you receive the AICE credit or not. Working with another person that you don’t fully trust or can’t have full accountability over, isn’t a viable option and would create a burden for myself. Trust is also a very important factors that somewhat ties in with reliability. Trust is what builds relationships and develops over time. If there is any question in trust, then there is room for error during this project. I trust and understand myself better than anyone else, and I am choosing to work individually on this project because of the former.

            I believe that my personal traits can make my work more efficient, and I could become more productive if I am working individually. I am not the most social person, so I have learned to subconsciously think rather than collaboratively discuss ideas. I organize things in my personal style and when I work with others, I don’t like to enforce this upon them. Working individually allows me to creatively express all of my organized thoughts in a style that doesn’t affect others. Songwriting loafing or creative collaboration stated that some may think that working in groups can compromise the individual songwriters’ visions, the reality is that it is specific to the artists themselves and their creative processes (Pettijohn, 2010). This demonstrates that, although collaboration can be useful, sometimes working individually can be more efficient based on the person's creative processes. When I was in a group setting, some of the ideas or other processes that I would usually construct were domineered by some of the leaders in the group. This was also mentioned in Songwriting loafing or creative collaboration when they said that, “a leader of a group [can] becoming controlling when it prohibits others from demonstrating all of their skills” (Pettijohn, 2010). I personally connected with this statement and felt it reflected my experience somewhat accurately. This assisted in my decision to work individually considering I didn’t want any of the ideas I had become prohibited from others. For all of the previous reasons, I believe this decision will benefit me in many ways that I had not previously realized.