Group Logo and Name - Honey Bee
Honey Bees, as one of the best-known bee species of all insects, work in a group for the production and storage of honey in the beeswax. Each of the bees including queen bee, drones and worker bees have their own responsibilities in the “colony”. We would like to name our group name as “Honey Bee” because cooperation is important for group work. That will be great if we can trust each other and cooperate well in this course to achieve our goals.
Group Member (Right to Left)
Maggie
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Peggy
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Mandy
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Vincci
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I am now working in retail industry as a HR practitioner. I am responsible for managing full spectrum of HR functions in HK & Macau, including recruitment & selection, compensation & benefits, policies formulation, leave administration, employee relations, performance management etc.
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I am working as an Assistant Manager in HR Resourcing Admin Team in a bank responsible for supervising the team in carrying out all the day-to-day resourcing operational activities. With the transformation in the department recently, fine-tuning processes to ensure the team works efficiently is the major challenge in my job.
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I am now working for a professional body as an Assistant Manager. I am under the departments of Education & Examinations and responsible for handling all the administrative work related to examination.
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I am working for an eyewear trading company as Assistant Manager in Vendor Optimization Team of Integrated Risk Management Department, this is a very new team and post in this industry. I am responsible for leading a team to upgrading & improving the vendors in mentality, management, productivity & quality.
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Group Goal for This Class in Relation to Work and Life
We would like to learn the strategies for building a high performance team in workplace and understand the various dynamics for collaboration and their impacts on team effectiveness. Besides, identification of the critical success factors for enhancing team productivity in complex business environment is also our group goal.
For the life, it is expected that our perspectives can be shifted and the communication skill will be further enhanced to foster positive social relationships, reduce conflict and enrich social life after the class.
The Most Exciting Topic
We agree that topic of week 3 – Building trust among diverse individuals is the most exciting topic. We always find that one of the biggest obstacles for team building is trust. It always takes very long time and hard work to build the trust among the groups. At the same time, it is very easy to break the trust.
Additional Topics We Would Like to Learn
As in our daily life (whatever in working or private time), collaboration with others is unavoidable. To understand others in psychological way is very helpful for us to get alone with individuals or groups. The topic we would like to learn in the class is collaboration with others in psychological way.
One Myth We Have "COLLABORATION" that Wants Confirmation or Disconfirmation
~ Trust is the prerequisite and foundation (or should be "formation") of collaboration ~
Picture Source: http://brianconnelly.com/html/references.html
In the individuals level of Collaboration, there are many factors affect the effectiveness of achieving high performance collaboration, such as having a good leader, having responsible team members, the attitude of the team members, having a common goal and shared vision, effective communication, the commitment of team members, the competence of the team members and a favorable situation, sufficient resources etc. All those factors is build the pre-requests, i.e. building-trusting relationships. "Trust" is the primary base for the creation of a team. It is the prerequisite and foundation (or should be "formation") of collaboration
In the individuals level of Collaboration, there are many factors affect the effectiveness of achieving high performance collaboration, such as having a good leader, having responsible team members, the attitude of the team members, having a common goal and shared vision, effective communication, the commitment of team members, the competence of the team members and a favorable situation, sufficient resources etc. All those factors is build the pre-requests, i.e. building-trusting relationships. "Trust" is the primary base for the creation of a team. It is the prerequisite and foundation (or should be "formation") of collaboration
Oxford Dictionary defines trust as “the belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something”. Without trust, there is no way a team can work together because it is difficult to get along with others for collaboration. To build a happy family, complete a group project or win a championship, we also need to trust that every participant is doing their part to reach the common goal. Otherwise, the collaborative relationship cannot be continued. General speaking, trust comes from open communication, mutual understanding and transparency and here are Two Forms of Trust, adapted from Lewicki, 2006 in Collaboration & Team Science: A Field Guide by L. Michelle Bennett, Howard Gadlin and Samantha Levine-Finley:
Identification-Based Trust
- Characterized by similar interests, goals, and objectives that support the shared values.
- Established through positive shared experiences and interactions.
- Over time, team members learn how others behave and interact and, based on these observations and experiences, create their expectations of individual contributions.
Calculus-Based Trust
- Characterized by openness, reliability, accountability, dependability, and consistency.
- Established by having processes and procedures in place that guide behavior and actions.
- Expectations are made explicit in written documentation that provides the foundation for communications and data sharing.
References:
Trust. (n.d.). In Oxford Dictionary. Retrieved from http://oxforddictionaries.com
Bennett, L. M., Gadlin, H. & Levine-finley, S. (Aug 2010). Collaboration and Team Science:A Field Guide. Retrieved January 31, 2012 from National Institutes of Health, Web site: https://ccrod.cancer.gov/confluence/download/attachments/47284665/TeamScience_FieldGuide.pdf?version=2&modificationDate=1285330231523
Agreed that high performance collaboration required trust between parties and thus able to get a good result of work. However, in real world seems that trust is the semi- product of collaboration instead of the prerequisite and foundation of collaboration. Since, most likely, in work place most of the staff has no choice to choose who will be his/her partner then work with. They are passive in relationship and trust building. For example, marketing team required to coordinate with sales team to launch new products. All of them are result-oriented to complete the job, not being required to build trust first and then work together. Of course, through effective communications, mutual understanding or else, they ultimately build trust and have a good result of the collaboration which it’s happy to see, but it seems that trust is the outcome not the input of collaboration.
ReplyDeleteI like the color choice of this blog amongst all. Even the words are printed in brown color coincides with the theme of ‘Honey Bee’!!
ReplyDeleteFor the myth, if “Trust is the prerequisite or foundation for collaboration”, trust is a precondition for collaboration to exist. Without trust there will be no collaboration. However ‘trust and collaboration’ is more of a hand in hand relationship but not necessarily related sequentially. Even when you don’t trust someone, you may still form collaboration. When political leaders of different countries form collaboration, they may not trust each other in the first place. The idea is the matter of the sequence, is trust really need to come first (a pre-requisite/foundation) before collaboration?
I do agree however trust does breed good collaborations, and trust actually reinforces collaborative behavior. Trust is extremely important and a highly collaborative environment usually comes with high level of trust. When people trust each other, a more long lasting and constructive collaborations usually emerges as result. Yet I don’t agree that trust is an absolute precondition. Without trust, perhaps collaboration will become difficult, won’t last long or becomes ineffective; still it exists in our society. Given the importance of trust, perhaps I would like to know more about how to maintain trust in collaboration setting in order to sustain a win-win situation.
I agree that trust is important in collaboration, especially when we work in China. We have to build up our “Guanxi” (relationship) as a primary and important factor in China culture. “Guanxi” is the relationship that referred by relatives or friends. The process will be smoother when we work in a “trust” environment in China. Most of the time, the trust will be the first step of being collaborate. We have to maintain the trust relationship when we have same goal, same working attitude etc which are the factors that mentioned in the paragraph for the effectiveness of achieving high performance collaboration.
ReplyDeleteI like the format and the color of this blog. I agreed that the group name "honey bee", the great team work of each bee member is like one of element of collaboration!
ReplyDeleteFor the myth, I agree trust is a catalyst for collaboration. However, I do not agree "Trust is the prerequisite or foundation for collaboration". In our reading "Establishing Trust and Building a Relationship", there are 3 types of Trust, first is Deterrence-Based Trust, second is Knowledge-based trust and third is Indentification-based trust. Details of each trust explained in the paper but i will use knowledge-based trust to show my standpoint.
Generally, knowledge-based trust is a person very clear about other's behavior and necessaries. It may include company's background and people's behavior. So, even the contact windows change may not the relationship. For example, when the supplier and customer cooperate many years, although, a cheaper supplier can be found in outside, they would not like to change. One of the reason is they do not want to take risk. In addition, supplier know customer clearly that customer must rely on supplier. So, Customer may gain less and do you think is it a real "trust"? As a result, this type of trust should not develop a good collaboration.
I think that this myth is quite interesting to discuss. In my opinion, trust is not only the prerequisite of collaboration, but also exist within the whole period of cooperation. We develop our trust among teams as well as trust grow between countries. It is easy to see that if subordinates do not trust their leaders, they will not pay respect and effort to the team. Thus the company goal could not fulfill successfully. Although members trust their leaders in the early stage, they start to question on the leaders in later stage could still damage the process of collaboration and win-win situation could not happen. Therefore, I believe that trust should occur during the entire duration of collaboration, not only the prerequisite and foundation of collaboration.
ReplyDeleteOur group name is Beehive and it's so interesting when we heard that your group is named Honey Bee. Such a delighted coincidence!
ReplyDeleteTrust is a very interesting thing and it's so important in our daily life. We need it, we want it but meanwhile, we doubt it. From my perspective, I definitely disconfirm the myth "Trust is the prerequisite or foundation for collaboration". Actually, sometimes it’s not us who have chosen to collaborate, we’re just tied together to work for the same goal. In this case, it’s better to have trust among the team members but it’s also fine if there’s not.
And also, sometimes people collaborate because they want to gain and share the same benefits rather than they have trust. Just like Iris mentioned about the Chinese phenomenon “ Guanxi ”, two are connected based on the benefits they can gain from each other. Most of the time, one offers authority and the other offers money. Trust is totally not existing in this kind of collaboration.
I do agree your myth, trust is the most important element for collaboration. Collaboration between people, trust is a must.
ReplyDeleteThe question I will think:
Who to involve?
How they will be involved?
How the group will work together?
How to share the responsibility to become the goal?
Collaborative starts with a commitment to involving others. This commitment could have motivations. Involvement could bring together into different points of view and lead to a better outcome. With involvement can come a sense of shared ownership and energy for implementation. Also, it can provide an opportunity to influence their views.
In my point of view, collaboration is enhanced by trust, and the experience of collaboration can help reinforce trust. Trust is strongly based on alignment around intentions and strategic thinking provides the opportunity to make the intention more clear. Much more easily to achieve the goal
One of the collaboration element is help people trust both the process and each other. The best collaborative requires trust between each other and opens the door for them to trust by influencing the outcomes. Finally, the shared of responsibility for success that is the trust.
Agreed that trust between parties is a factor to success in collaboration, and thus able to get a good result of works. However, in real world, it seems that good relationship and trust may not be easy to get before collaboration. Perhaps, it would only be the outcome of collaboration.
ReplyDeleteTaking a simple situation to be an example, sales team has to work with marketing team to launch a new product. Most of them have limited choice to choose who will be worked with prior to task assigned. That’s mean even though they have no idea of someone else have to work together. Also, as long as they are result-oriented to complete the task, such as through effective communication, from which they also have an opportunity to get high performance collaboration.
In such case, trust may not be the prerequisite but an output or a semi-product under a good experience of collaboration.
To me, trust is perception, relation, determination and vision.
ReplyDeleteI imagine myself being redeployed to a sub-branch office of a company to lead organizational change projects.
To start off, I have to going through the staff profile to identify potential members for respective task forces. I say trust is perception because I execute the generalization function inside me for quick judgment. So whether I trust A+B+C are more adequate members for the task force but not X+Y+Z is a result of my generalization from the presented documented information (e.g. performance appraisal records) and word of mouth (e.g. management/supervisor orientation briefings).
I say trust is relation because when I actively interact with A+B+C for the project matters, I may gain more primary information and experience about them. When I know them more, I rely on them more.
Somebody may argue immediately that the reverse may also happen. Hence I say that trust is a determination. I decided to trust A+B+C is not because they are perfect, as nobody is, but because of the process of building up the relation with them has simultaneously perfecting my expertise to hanging around them in order to make the set goals remain accomplishable. I decided to trust them because I have to, I rely on them.
Finally, I say trust is visionary. I consider Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous saying that “A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.” is definitely a declaration of her trust of innate potential of all woman! I trust A+B+C because they are the shapers for the company’s future!
Last but not the least, I like to trust this group as they are all beautiful ladies!
Hey, Honeybee, your blog is very bright and cute, I love this kind of carton.
ReplyDeleteFor the myth is about whether "Trust is the prerequisite and foundation (or should be "formation") of collaboration"
I really agree that Trust really play a big part of people relationship. If you are trustworthy, people tend to like you more and getting happier to work with you. If the problem is that I am not sure if harmony working environment making the best interest of collaboration.
I have mentioned in the class that trust may not be built in this globalisation environment. My colleague used to work in Microsoft in the States. He managed the whole team of people from Beijing. He is never seen any single person in his team, but he performed well. I think the successful collaboration not neccessary solely rely on trust, but system and the way to related each other.
I also mentioned that positive competition may encourage people to perform their best. For example, in insurance industry, companies always set target for agents to achieve. If people have the best result, they tend to have more bonus. So, agents are always motivated to compete for the prize. It is not neccessary to have a trust relationship with team members.
In my conslusion, we need to get the good balance bewteen trust (relationship) and getting works done in different situations. There is no golden formula. I good manager must know how to form a good combination of building trust and threat.
Trust is a psychological state comprising the purpose to accept helplessness and openness based on positive expectations of another person. In simple form, trust means putting faith in other entity. However, it is also a mutual activity: to accept trust, one must establish trust to the other person. Employees feel grateful when they trust the leader of the organization that they work for, and layoff is one of the greatest disappointments to employee loyalty. However, trust is not the only element takes into account in an employment relationship. Imagine that you are applying job at two companies, everything of the employment package is the same, except the pay. One company pays 50%more. Most people will likely to work for the company which pays more, not because they know trust the company more; simply because it pays more. Everyone has different perspectives in decision making regarding jobs. Different values include job satisfaction, happiness, exposure, work/life balance, salary, lifestyle and trust.
ReplyDeleteMcShane and Travaglione indicated that between identification-based trust (which is high on potential of trust) and calculus-based trust (which is low on potential of trust), there is another level identified as knowledge based trust. Knowledge-based trust is grounded on predictability of the other party. The better understanding we have on a person (or company), the better we can predict what that person will do in the future, as a result, the more we trust he/she. Therefore, during most merger and acquisitions, the trust is usually calculus-based trust, because knowledge-based trust and identification-based trust require time and effort for both parties to know each other in order to build the relationship. Moreover, there are individual differences in trust. Those differences can be due to the emotions, personality, values and experiences of the individual. McShane and Travaglione (2007) also mentioned that trust is breakable in new relationship, since newly formed trust is based on assumptions rather than experience.
Sun Tzu mentioned in the Art of War, “know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril”. Therefore, it is important to trust your colleagues and alliances; it is also important to know your enemy well in order to defeat them or, to collaborate and compete to achieve better goals.
McShane, S. & Travaglione T. (2007). Organizational Behavior on the Pacific Rim (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
I agree with the above comments about how trust is important to team building in different angles.
ReplyDeleteGenerally speaking, trust is crucial in collaboration, but the meaning of “Trust” can be perceived in different aspects and different level. As Dennis Wong said, there are 3 types of trust mentioned in our readings. This is a kind of category.
In the psychology point of view, rapport is closer to be a prerequisite of collaboration than trust. Rapport (1), simply said, relate 2 or more people that make them mirroring in unconscious and cognitively that help to create trust and understanding. Individuals with good rapport will often involve in deep degree of mutual trust. Consider the situation that the 2 individuals with distrust to each other express their view in an open manner; they can still have collaboration when there is mutual benefit for their cooperation. Explaining in game theory, it can still reach the Nash equilibrium (3) point if the transaction cost to collaboration is low that having enough information.
Therefore, trust is normally a prerequisite and foundation of collaboration, while it can be false by different context such as in this extreme case.
References:
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapport
(2) Glesne, Corrine (1989) Rapport and friendship in ethnographic research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2(1), doi:10.1080/0951839890020105
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium
Thank you for sharing your points of the myth. Actually, it is an interesting topic and I always discuss with my colleagues. In my view, I think the myth is false as I have so many experiences in my work. Because of my duty, I always work with different people from other divisions. After collaboration, I find that some of them are liars(they always say that they haven’t said or promised something or they would say they forget they said this before.) and some of them are devils(they would do something they may not get advantage but it would hurt you or your team.). But for new projects, I need to collaborate with them again and again as I have no choice. I work with them just because it is a rule of a company and my boss’s order. For example, I need to build a new centre. In the centre, some items are related to IT team, some items are related to Project and facility team. As I have not this professional knowledge, I do work with them. In this collaboration, is trust still here? Actually, I confuse that what is “trust” in the collaboration. Is it I trust that 1. they have ability to do the work; 2. we will do a good job and get a good result together; 3. they know what I want and try to do it; 4. they do anything is good for me; 5. what they tell me is true? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your points of the myth. Actually, it is an interesting topic and I always discuss with my colleagues. In my view, I think the myth is false as I have so many experiences in my work. Because of my duty, I always work with different people from other divisions. After collaboration, I find that some of them are liars(they always say that they haven’t said or promised something or they would say they forget they said this before.) and some of them are devils(they would do something they may not get advantage but it would hurt you or your team.). But for new projects, I need to collaborate with them again and again as I have no choice. I work with them just because it is a rule of a company and my boss’s order. For example, I need to build a new centre. In the centre, some items are related to IT team, some items are related to Project and facility team. As I have not this professional knowledge, I do work with them. In this collaboration, is trust still here? Actually, I confuse that what is “trust” in the collaboration. Is it I trust that 1. they have ability to do the work; 2. we will do a good job and get a good result together; 3. they know what I want and try to do it; 4. they do anything is good for me; 5. what they tell me is true? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI think the myth is conditioanlly false as it's not the prerequisite of "all" collaboration. In my working environment, I periodically work with different kinds of colleagues and customers in projects and most of them I never met before (because I worked less than a year in this company). When I collaborate with colleagues whom I never work with them before, I have no trust at the beginning at all. As my boss wants me to work with them, such new/first time collaboration has trust and the relationship starting from zero. During the collaboration, I may built trust on them and they may gain trust from me. So I think trust is the by-product of collaboration.
ReplyDelete