Working in teams – Lecture and reading
from ETS TOEFL Official Guide Book
The lecturer talks about a research conducted by a
firm to see the results of its working teams on several projects. He says that
the theory presented in the reading passage was incorrect and somehow
contradicted to what happened in reality.
First, some team members got ‘free-ride’, which means
that some members did not contributed to the team’s work but received
recognition. This also means that people who worked hard in the team might not
receive the recognition they devoted. This idea contradicts the idea stated in
the passage that the team member could have better chance to shine.
Second, the passage says that the team can work more
quickly in response to the tasks assigned to the team. This is because team
members have different ideas that the responsibility of the team is spread over
all its members. However, the lecture says that in reality some projects
handled by teams did not move quickly. The reason was that the team needed to
reach a consensus after several meetings and discussions. This reality
contradicts the idea of the passage.
Finally, in the research, the firm found that there
were some team members who managed to become influencers. These influencers
tried to persuade the team to adopt their ideas as the idea of the team while
the ideas of other members were omitted or even not discussed in the team. The
risk of this behavior is that if the ideas of the influencers were wrong, the
team would go to a wrong direction. When projects failed, the blame was on all
the members of the team. On the contrary, the passage says that team members
feel better to provide decisions to the team.
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