Army Crew Team
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In the increase of colleague interdependence, teamwork and workforce diversity, cognizance of identity issues and identity dynamics are crucial in the modern workplace because team success is attributed to interpersonal congruence. Without congruence teams can be conflictive, disruptive and unproductive. In the “Army Crew Team” article team incongruence was a key identity issue highlighted in the case study.
As recommended in the “Identity Issues in Teams” the best time to initiate the platform for achieving high levels of congruence is during the launch of the teams activities and that the team leader must create the psychologically safe environment for the team members. The case study “The Army Crew Team” the situation was contrary to this recommendation. At the beginning of the crew season Coach P. didnt establish a psychologically safe environment within his Army Crew team. As a consequence his Varsity team members faced conflicting identities dynamics and personalities clashes. To illustrate, during a CEP team-building session, the Varsity team members accused Coach P. of “creating a rift between them and the JV boat by frequently forcing them to row against each other at practice. In fact the members of Varsity preferred to row alone and regarded that the races between the two boats was “unnerving and embarrassing” for them. Devoid of a psychologically safe environment from the coach and among the Varity members created poor alignment of self-confidence, self-perceptions and appraisals. For this reason the Varsity team experienced identity threats and personality conflicts that challenged their self-percepts and ignited identify crisis. Emails from the Varsity members to the coach are example that exemplified these identity issues and clashes. While one email from confessed a self-verification letter another email sought after self-enhancement by insulting another team member. For instance one email written by a Varsity team member expressed “Nowmy bitching session about Jim…” The lack of a psychology safety environment and these emails are evidences that members in the Varsity team experienced the imposter syndrome. In addition to the feeling of discomfort and inaccurate perceptions, interpersonal clashes also resulted in the failure to realize their individual and the teams full potentials.
In comparison to the Varsity team the Jr. Varsity team exhibited a higher level of team congruence. Their high level of congruence became evident during one final experiment where Coach P moved some JV rower into the Varsity boat. It is worth noting that at the beginning of the season “sent up” was a regarded highly prestigious for JV members to join the Varsity team, now, however, the JV “wanted nothing to do with the Varsity rower who was “sent down” and the JV rower wanted to remained with the winning JV boat with little desire to “move up” to the losing Varsity. Their behavior and attitude therefore illustrates the JV high team appraisal and satisfying team environment. Furthermore, the JV teams “Nothing to lose” pledge from the Jr. Varsity team fostered strong behavioral integration. The teams motto is another demonstration of the JV s high level of self-perception and appraisals alignment. As a result the JV was able to establish a psychological safety environment. This psychological safety environment permitted them to easily and comfortably expresses themselves and share information to their teammates. Furthermore, the JV team didnt compartmentalize them and was able to combine their individual perspectives and collectively yield healthy and constructive feedback. To illustrate, after every practice the members of the Varsity team would merciless critique each other individual performance whereas the JV members didnt criticize