Abstract

From being complete strangers to forming a company led by 21 entrepreneurs in just 7 months is what we achieved in Proakatemia. In this essay I will be addressing how team Tremia worked together for almost 3 months and formed a cooperative in Finland. It will also address the difficulties we faced while doing so. 

Team Tremia when newly formed was excited for the upcoming years and the projects we would do together as a team. Since childhood I had a dream to start a business with one of my classmates and now I know that soon it’s going to come true. We as a team came up with multiple projects and tried our best to achieve it, be it siilinkari project or sales day. Doing these projects we had to go through multiple difficulties within the team like communication, misunderstandings, differences in opinions, managing our individual classes and many more. 

What did we do

We had multiple payas on emotions, how does everyone feel, a google forms survey on everyone’s feeling, used dialogue diamond and many more. The one thing we learned as a team was that everyone has their own way of thinking and everyone should get the opportunity to express their own feelings. For instance after sales day we had a paya about how does everyone feel after the project and people started to open up which was really important and saved the team from many future    issues. 

Acknowledgment and consideration 

As a team while doing projects everyone gets passionate about their individual as well as the team’s performance in general. Due to this people started to panic and blamed each other for losses of the team. As the project ended the team realized its mistake and we had a really amazing paya in which we appreciated each other’s mistakes by playing fun games. Due to these games the team started to reunite once again and regained the bond till some extinct. 

The problem we faced was due to lack of acknowledgment and consideration within the team. Due to being individually passionate about the project the team members were not able to recognise each other’s contribution towards the project which resulted in this misconception. Had we realized it during the project and had a more considerate approach towards each other, then we wouldn’t be facing the problems in the first place. 

Monetary Value 

As an entrepreneur sometimes while working towards the monetary wellbeing of the team we forget the emotional wellbeing of the team. The monetary wellbeing surely is a vital part of the teams overall budgeting and survival but the team as a whole is the most important thing in the Proakatemia journey. 

Forming responsible groups within the team

As a cooperative we had to choose the board of directors who represent our company on a legal aspect. The team had a very democratic way of voting for the team members who were willing to take up the responsibility. Then we also formed a finance team, communication team, learning team, technical team and team building team. After dividing ourselves in these teams we had a lot of work done successfully for instance the company paperwork. The skills I learned while doing this was work delegation, teamwork and handling responsibilities. 

Tuckman’s stages of group development

To understand the stages and phases our team went through, Tuckman’s theory can be very useful. According to the theory a team goes from forming, storming, norming and performing stages (Westchesteruniversity 2022). We discussed this theory in one of our team paya to have an understanding of how everyone is feeling. After a deep discussion we got to know that a lot of us think that the team is storming ahead and we have to improve on a lot of skills like communication, appreciation, transparency and many more. A few of us also thought that  we are already done through the storming stage and are now heading towards the norming stage where the teams start to bond, understand and relate to each other more. The one thing which we realized is that we are already half way through the difficult stages and soon we will head towards the performance stage in the second year. 

Conclusion 

Overall, working in a team company is a challenging job but you also learn to cooperate with others and understand others. While you also learn a lot about yourself and your own personality which makes Proakatemia a very interesting place to be at.  

References 

Westchesteruniversity. 2022. Tuckmans stages of group development. Updated 28.09.2022. Read on 28.03.2024. https://www.wcupa.edu/coral/tuckmanStagesGroupDelvelopment.aspx#:~:text=These%20stages%20are%20commonly%20known,more%20collaborative%20or%20shared%20leadership.