Sunday, November 3, 2019
Team production with gift exchange
There are a great deal of experiences that I participated in the team and work together to make accomplishments. For example, I have involved in the team projects for presentation about starting up the new store in Urbana and Champaign area, or making a new board game and so on. These team activities were interesting and productive.
However, the team that has the most diversity and variety of people is my military team. In military, there are a great deal of background of people because they are collected from all over the nation without requiring strict limitations such as education level. In addition to this, it is mandatory to take a military service in the age between twenty to thirty, which makes sense that literally random people over the nation are gathered in the military. The reason why I stated this is because I realized that people around me (or hangout with me) are at least partially similar to me. For example, if I met a person in the class, then the person and I have at least have same education level, which we both decided to go to university to learn something. On the other hand, people that I met in the military are very different in that wise. One guy was a professional marathon player, and another guys were a plumber, electrician, heating specialist, students from electrical engineering, computer science, English, French, business, and so on. In addition to this, each one's characteristics were very different. Some people are very active and outgoing. Another people are quiet and serious. We were so different. Therefore, I want to talk about this team production with gift exchange.
In our team, one of the important duty was to prepare for welcoming foreign guests at Seoul Airbase. To welcome them, we spread red carpet, warm up or cool down the temperature in indoor facility, trim the garden and flowers, check if anything wrong with lights or electrical related issues, interpret between foreign people and our team if needed, and so on. In this situation, our gift were beautifully exchanged to make a great job. People who had background of driving trucks, manlifts, and other ground work vehicles helped with moving a heavy stuff such as red carpets. People who had back ground of maintaining facilities was in charge of indoor temperature, people from electrical engineering and electrician background checked all the electrical related conditions for the building and facilities. People from gardener background took care of the garden cleanness and beauty. And I helped with interpreting conversation between Immigration officers and flying crews or pilots.
In addition to the background, there were many different characteristics. Some people are gifted to lead the work. They have stern voice, understand the situation, and have many experiences. On the other hand, another people are good at listening to others, behave rapidly, and respect other opinions. If there were only type of people who like to lead another people, this team might be hard to be successful. Besides the background and speciality, a good combination of characteristic is very important as well. I can say that these characteristics are also the gifts and this is also the important gift exchanges.
In this situation, I realized that there are no such a thing that can be superior to other things. One gift cannot make the huge accomplishments. People from a variety of gifts can make the bigger accomplishments if it were successful. If the team consists of the similar gift, this job cannot be done. It was possible because each people have own gifts and collaborate them.
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As a general rule, not just in the military in Korea, people who are brought together in an organization will differ in their skills, inclinations, and personalities. That people make contributions according to the principle of comparative advantage makes sense. Having everyone do the same tasks won't be as efficient.
ReplyDeleteHowever, we need to distinguish a production activity, where the end goal is to make the activity turn out as well as possible, from a learning activity, where the goal is to give people experience and understanding of how to perform tasks where they previously did not have the experience. For learning activities, it may very well be the one goes in the opposite direction of comparative advantage, to maximize the learning.
In other words, sometimes you learn more if you practice where you are currently weak. This may have benefit in productive activities down the road. You talked about people being leaders of the group. Such leaders need to understand all the tasks that must get done. How do they gain such understanding? In that sense the learning activity can be thought of as preparation for future leadership.
Of course in the military there is training in advance of assignment. What I'm suggesting here is that the learning isn't over, just because the official training has been completed. Indeed, that same point is true in any organization.
I agree with that people who are brought together in an organization differ in their skills, inclinations, and personalities. However, military experience brought me to work with the most diverse people.
DeleteThe person who has attributes to be a leader gain such understanding by communicating with team members frequently. In addition to this, he or she has a gift to listen to other's opinion and understand the core problem.
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