Examination topic Teambuilding

1. Introduction

2. Definition(s) of a team and teamwork.

3. Team development and its stages.

4. Teambuilding activities.

5. M. Belbin’s theory of team roles.

6. Bases for a winning team.

7. Conclusion.

UNIT 11

PROBLEM SOLVING

Warming up

Look through these statements. Choose the one you like most to be an epigraph to the Unit. Explain your choice.

1. Every solution breeds new problems.

2. When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer.

3. If one views his problems closely enough, he will recognize himself as part of the problem.

4. The solving of a problem lies in finding the solvers.

5. Never create a problem for which you do not have the answer.

6. The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem.

7. If a problem causes a lot of meetings, the meetings eventually become more important than the problem.

8. When I’m working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

9. A significant problem cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created it.

TEXT 1

Read the text and point out its most important and most interesting ideas.

Become smarter and quickcer

“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” A. Huxley

Thoughts are causes and conditions are effects. Therefore, the quality of your thinking largely determines the quality of your life. The greatest mental principle is that "you become what you think about most of the time."

Top people in every field are solution-oriented. They think about solutions most of the time. In­stead of getting bogged down in who did or didn't do something or other, the most successful people in every field concentrate on the solutions and what can be done to solve the problem.

The Sufi philosopher Izrhat Khan once said, "Life is a continuous succession of problems, like waves from the ocean. They never stop." This means that your ability to practice self-discipline, self-mastery, and self-control when faced with the never-ending flow of problems, dif­ficulties, setbacks, and temporary failures you will expe­rience is essential to your success in business and in life.

When something goes wrong, the natural tendency of most people is to become angry and look around for someone to blame. But the moment you become angry and upset, your neocortex—or your "thinking brain"—shuts down. All you have left then is your paleocortex, your emotional brain, which thinks in terms of "fight or flight." When your emotional brain is in charge, you think in terms of black and white, yes or no, or doing something or doing nothing. You lose the ability to think in shades of gray and to look at all the different possible ways to deal with this particular situation.

But this is a waste of energy. It solves nothing. Instead, you must discipline yourself to remain calm, objective, and unemotional. When you face an unexpected problem or crisis, discipline yourself to stay calm, to focus on the solution rather than the problem. Think in terms of what can be done now, rather than thinking about how it occurred and who is to blame.

In your own personal life, you continue to rise in your company and your profession in direct proportion to your ability to solve the problems and make the neces­sary decisions at each level of your career. The good news is that when you think about solutions most of the time, you train your brain to be intensively solution oriented.

No matter what problems or difficulties arise around you, your brain will be continually seeking creative ways to solve the problem. As a result, you actually become smarter and quicker, with more of your thinking brain available to you faster.

TEXT 2

Read the text and decide which mark – question or exclamation - we should put at the end of the title of the text. Give your reasoning.