By: Leann ContinereIwona GorskaSarah SolivanChris Shimazu

Collaboration occurs when two or more people work together to achieve a common goal, result or work product. In a collaborative environment team members review each others’ work product and revise that product as a result of the others’ feedback.  The effectiveness of collaboration is driven by communication, content management and workflow control. 

Communication ensues two elements;

the first, is the ability to give and receive critical feedback

the second is the availability of effective communication systems (such as email, video conferencing, or conference calls).

Content management entails multiple users contributing and changing documents, schedules, task lists, or assignments, so that the team as a whole can see changes made, and when or why they were made; some systems used are Wikis, Google docs and spread sheets, and Microsoft Office Groove. 

Workflow is a process or procedure by which the content is created, edited, used and disposed, for example on a website, web pages can be reviewed and edited. In my own experience, working for Ft. Monmouth collaboration is done frequently.  Most of the work day involves communicating with others through email, or video conferencing with people from other army bases.

Content Management systems such as government calendars are used to see each person’s work schedule, so that no time is wasted trying to contact someone that didn’t come to work.  An idea about collaboration, given by Dave Pollard is that successful collaboration should include not only virtual communication, but also meeting face to face.

During Collaboration, team members learn from each other, and it will be difficult to learn if no one is willing to express unpopular ideas.

A study was performed by researchers Ditkoff, Allen, Moore, and Pollard in which they surveyed 108 business professionals on the qualities, attitudes, and skills that make a good collaborator. (This survey can be found on pages 32-33 in our text book).

Some main characteristics of an effective team member, they found to be, are:

1. Being open-minded and curious.2. Speaking an unpopular viewpoint.3. Willingness to enter into difficult conversations.4. Skill at giving and receiving feedback. The respondents, after given the survey, seemed

to be saying “You need to care, you need to be open-minded, but you need to be able to deal with conflict, effectively disagree, and receive opinions that are different from your own.”

We, as a group, pretty much agreed with the results. We agreed that this survey is a good source for any collaborator

to read when going into a team work/team building exercise whether in the work place or at school.

If we could make any changes, we would probably take the number 32 rank (Is well organized) and the number 34 rank (Has experience as a collaborator) out of the “Not Relevant” category and put it in one of the more important categories.

We believed that it is definitely relevant to be organized and to have experience as a collaborator especially when you’re working with people you’re not really familiar with.

We felt that all of the characteristics we’re looking for in an effective collaborator were in this survey and other than the changes stated above, we would definitely not add or take anything away from this study.

It’s a member of a team who does not contribute to the group

Is not willing to learn and change

May create issues within a group

Selfish- they focus only on achieving personal goals at the expense of team objectives.

Unwilling to share- avoids sharing knowledge, information and expertise with team members.

Blame & Excuses- excuses and non performance and blaming others is a common behavior.

Lack of sensitivity- feeling of other members do not concern them. As a result, ineffective team member have no sense of timing, bring up issues at the wrong time.

Independent & unsupportive- work independently in setting which require group work. Shows little support , or undermines fellow team member.

Talk to them face to face to face

Provide some options. In what other positions might this person serve?

Encourage attendance at team meetings.

Talk about team goal, if that person agree on it , continue to help ineffective team member. Be patient as long as they recognize a need to change and are willing to improve.

Only when all else has failed and the team member feels no need to improvement , they need to leave the team.

How to deal with ineffective team member?