Managing Teams

I have always believed that communication plays a vital role in effective team management. This became even clearer to me after out two-day seminar on "building effective teams." The COSI model presented during the seminar really made me think about how the members of my team back home process information. The group exercises we participated in really stressed how important it is to understand what cognitive style your tram members fall into, in order to better understand what they will and will not respond to.

Back home my core team consists of Jhovanni and David, two very different individuals with almost opposite personalities. Jhovanni is very intense and focused while David is much more laid back and able to go with the flow. Now that I am consciously aware of the different cognitive styles, when I look back on different situations I have faced with my team in the past it is remarkably clear that their differing cognitive styles played a major role in their reactions.

It has always been clear to me that one of my team members, Jhovanni, likes to be able to follow a plan and gets very stressed when that plan changes. For example, one day this past summer, Shawn, a rider I hired to help with the young horses while I am in Europe, was supposed to arrive at 9:30 to begin riding. Most days Shawn is ten to fifteen minutes late, this morning, however, he arrived fifteen minutes early. I happened to be in the barn near a window and saw when he drove in. I stared getting the horse ready for Shawn because I saw that Jhovanni was busy with something else. I felt that everything went smoothly. I had no problem getting the horse ready, Shawn was on within ten minutes of arriving, and everyone else was able to continue doing what he or she were originally working on. I asked Jhovanni if he could get the next horse that Shawn had to ride ready and bring it up to the ring in thirty minutes. He responded with a curt "okay" and refused to look at me throughout the entire exchange. Jhovanni was steaming mad and everyone who came into the barn could feel his anger, even though he wasn't speaking to anyone at this point. I realized he was angry about something and just assumed he was in a bad mood that morning. It never crossed my mind that he might be angry about what had just transpired.

After Shawn left my mom finally confronted Jhovanni and asked him what his problem was. At this point he had made me so angry with his behaviour that I was ready to tell him to leave for the rest of the day because I didn't want to deal with his drama. My mom and I felt it would be best if she spoke with him because she wasn't quite as frustrated with him as I was. The conversation started with him ranting about how everyone walks around like robots and how nobody can communicate with one another. Needless to say my mom was confused and asked him what he was talking about. Turns out he thought I knew that Shawn was going to be there early and didn't tell him, therefore making him look unprepared. My mom explained that no one had any idea that Shawn would be there early and that I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to see him drive in. She also told him that I was trying to make his day easier for him by getting the horse ready myself and not bothering him with it. This seemed to placate him a little, but it didn't seem to totally sink in because his response was "well, she still should have told me."

What I find the hardest part of dealing with Jhovanni is the fact that although he complains about a lack of communication, he is probably the worst at communicating out of all the team members. While he is very much a planner and doesn't like it when the plan changes, he is not very good at letting everyone else know what his plan actually is. For example, the day that Shawn arrived early there was no detailed plan in place regarding who was going to get the horse ready, just that it needed to be ready around 9:30. Jhovanni had probably planned to do it himself, but had never directly communicated that to anyone.

I realize now that I need to try my best to keep things running as smoothly and as predictably as possible to keep the planner in Jhovanni happy. According