In this module, participants get introduced to the aspects of effective teamwork in international teams. Skills covered in this module: remote communication, working in intercultural teams, collaboration, giving feedback, planning, and reflection.

TOPIC 1: Team dynamics. How to make a good start (1 hour)

Relevant video material

Five-Stage Team Building Model

Conflict Resolution

The Role of Human Connections

Relevant reading material

D. Levi. Group Dynamics for Teams. (4 ed)
Stages of Team development – p. 98, 100-103.

Exercises

During your first meeting, do some “warm-up” exercises, to get to know each other better. Bellow are three levels of the exercises, choose the level depending on how well you know each other (30-45mins).

• In turn, share about your favourite movie/book. What do you love most about your country? Your favourite place on earth?
  
• Play 2 truths & 1 lie. Each of the players tells 3 facts about himself/herself. 1 of them is a lie, and 2 are truths. Let the others guess the lie.
  
• Bring a photo(s) (video – even better!) of your home place – room(s). If you have a virtual meeting, take your camera around and give a live tour! Tell the other participants about it.

EXTRA: Organize an informal team gathering (Live or virtual).

SUPPORTING MATERIALS

D. Levi. Group Dynamics for Teams. (4 ed)

TOPIC 2: Team contract (1 hour 20mins)

Relevant reading material

D. Levi. Group Dynamics for Teams. (4 ed)
Team Goals, Hidden Agendas & Norms – p. 110-117.

Exercises

(60 mins) Setting a Team Contract. DISCUSS:

• Share your personal goals of participating in this project you are working on as a Team.
• What did you like and dislike about working as a team in your previous projects?
• Have you ever experienced how Hidden agendas (look at page 113 from the Relevant reading material) interfere with your Teamwork?
• Define your team Norms (p. 117), that could help you to work more effectively as a team.
• Summarize: Write down a Team Contract (page 644, Figure A2).

Supporting materialS

VIRTUAL TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES (can be used as a warm-up before each meeting)

TOPIC 3: Team roles (1 hour 30mins)

Relevant video material

Team Roles

Relevant reading material

Belbin Team roles (1-2 p. & 8-13p.)

Exercises

• Do the Belbin Team Roles test individually (15mins).
  
• Read the relevant reading material (look: Relevant reading material, Topic 1) and descriptions of your personal roles (20mins).
  
• Discuss the following questions (30-45):
  1) What is my dominant role(s) in a Team? What are my Weaknesses and Strengths?
  Give examples from real-life situations.
  2) How our roles might influence our work on the project we are working on?
  3) What roles are we missing in the team? What is the dominant role among us? How it might influence our work?
  4) What can we do if the problems that we discussed arise? How can we prevent them? Write it down and keep it in mind as you work on the project. You can try to change your role every two meetings.

Supporting materials

Almost a perfect teamwork

TOPIC 4: Diversity in teams (40mins)

Relevant video material

How to be Culturally Intelligent at Work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ50emoPcVI

Relevant reading material

D. Levi. Group Dynamics for Teams. (4 ed) pages 460; 480-485.

Exercises

• Discuss the following (20-30mins):
  1) What kind of diversity do you have in your team? How does it affect your work?
  2) Share what kind of stereotypes dominates about each of your cultures. How much of them are true about you personally?
  3) How can stereotypes affect your team’s work? Have you ever experienced the bad influence of stereotypes on your teamwork?

Supporting materials

More on how cultural differences affect business: Hofstede’s Cultural dimension theory

TOPIC 5: Communication. Virtual meetings (1 hour 10mins)

Relevant video material

Virtual Teams. Principles

Relevant reading material

D. Levi. Group Dynamics for Teams. (4 ed)
Facilitating meetings. Communication skills for group meetings. Virtual meetings – p. 224-235.

Exercises

• 30-45mins.
  
• Choose a team member, who will facilitate this meeting. Facilitate to Facilitation guidelines, shown in Figure 6.2, p. 224.
  
• Discuss the following questions:
  1) What did you find interesting, or useful in the literature, that you’ve read?
  2) Think about your Team’s last meeting. What kind of communication flaws did you notice? What helped you to communicate and what didn’t?
  3) Create a list of 5 to 10 rules for eye-to-eye or virtual meetings, that might help you to communicate better while working on your project. Add them to your contract (from the previous task).
  4) After the end of this meeting, discuss how did it go. Was it easy to follow the Facilitation guidelines? What effect did it have on the meeting? Could you use it in your future meetings? Why?

TOPIC 6: Feedback and Reflection. Finishing the module (1 hour 20mins)

Relevant video material

The Secret to Giving Great Feedback

Relevant reading material

15 golden rules of constructive feedback

Exercises

• Watch this episode from “The Office”. Observe two co-workers giving feedback to each other. Discuss what was good and what was bad according to the principles of constructive feedback (10mins).
  
• Practice giving feedback on each other’s work on the project so far, using the principles you’ve learned by reading the literature and watching the video (30-45mins).
  
  How to do it: 1) Write the names on a sticky note and each draw two times: first – which person will you give feedback to, the second time – which person you will receive the feedback from (if you work virtually, for the first draw list team members in alphabetic order and couple up first with second, third with fourth, etc.; for the second draw list people according to your height and apply the same principle to couple up). 2) After receiving feedback, the receiver says thank you. Other group members give feedback to the giver, about giving the feedback. Then the receiver shares how did (s)he feel receiving the feedback. Couples change.
  
• Finishing the module: Each of you share your impressions about this module: I. What did you learn? II. What did you personally do well and where could you improve? III. What are you willing to use while working on your project as a team? IV. Give yourself big applause for finishing this module! (30mins)

Supporting materials

Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory