Steve Jobs: “Technology alone is not enough.”

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Siprak Team

6 min readNov 13, 2020

When the iPad 2 was released in March, Jobs summed up his plan as follows: “It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.” What put all Jobs’ companies aside, from Pixar to NeXT to Apple, was, in truth, the commitment that computer scientists would collaborate alongside artists and designers — that the best innovations come from the combination of technology and humanities. In an era of intellectual fragmentation, Jobs insisted that the greatest innovations happened when individuals from different fields were joined together when our different ways of seeing the universe were brought to bear on a singular problem.

A proven way to develop a strong team is to bring together a strong combination of skills and knowledge. Get familiar with the strengths and behaviors of current team members to build an effective dynamic. In order to make all of that happen, we need good team dynamics.

What is Team Dynamics?

Kurt Lewin, a social psychologist and change management expert, first described group or team dynamics in 1939. Team dynamics are the psychological factors that affect the success and behavior of your team. These interactions are generated by the individuals involved and how they communicate. Understanding the dynamics of a team will alert you to how effective it could be.

Good team dynamics happen if team members trust each other, work together, and keep each other responsible. If a team has a good dynamic, its members are more productive and there is less risk of conflict. The poor team dynamics involve individuals whose behavior interrupts teamwork and results in wrong decisions, weak decision-making, or no decision-making at all. Poor dynamics make the team more prone to conflict.

Improving Team Dynamics

Know Your Team

The team is made up of all kinds of individuals. The way people act in teams varies. Some people are helpful and encouraging, others are more worried about getting the job done, and still, others can create tension, disharmony, or conflict within the team. You’ve obviously worked with some teams that are effective, and some that aren’t. Although there is no golden potion, understanding what drives teams together and what prevents their success can be useful if you work with a group or a team.

Break Down Barriers

We can have team building sessions to help everyone get to know each other. Team building is about having the expertise, learning and support the members need so that they can work in harmony. But, to be fully successful, it needs to be a continuous process, rooted in the culture of the team.

Define Roles and Responsibility

Teams with a lack of emphasis or guidance will easily create weak dynamics, as people fail to recognize their role in the group. In a scrum agile development, each team member should have a well-specified task for each sprint to clear up any misunderstanding, disagreements, and to finish on time.

Learn How to Communicate

Good communication is one of the most critical aspects of leadership, and different team members can adapt to different types of communication. Open communication is key to effective team dynamics, so make sure everybody communicates clearly. Include all means of communication that the group uses — any online platform (Line, Discord, Zoom, etc). If we have something important to say or any difficulties, make sure everybody knows and has the same information.

Tackle Problem Quickly

If you find that one member of your team has adopted a behavior that has an unhelpful effect on the group, move quickly to address it. Help in providing feedback that tells the team member the effect of her behavior and helps her to learn about how she can change her behavior.

Servant Leader

The role of a leader in the theory of servant leadership is to grow each person to his or her highest degree of competence and dedication. Simply put, the servant‘s leadership places people at the forefront. It prefers not to focus on short-term performance, but rather to set the foundation for the long-term growth and improvement of individuals within the team — which, of course, leads to greater long-term results for the team.

As a servant leader, before addressing your own, you can focus on the needs of your team. The servant-leader should respect the views of each team member, have the support they need to accomplish their task, engage the team in decision-making, and develop a sense of comfort within the team. This would lead to greater collaboration, team capacity building, better bonds, more transparency and, of course, good team dynamics.

Me and My Team

“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” — Helen Keller

This is my team, Siprak, which consists of me, Frans, Harold, and Figo. The team name Siprak is from our project called “SI Praktikum” since we decided to take that product for PPL. I could say that we’ve known each other quite well since we’ve been in the same class for more than two years. It’s been 3 months and I have to say that I’m happy working with my team. My team consists of different individuals with different skills. We call Frans as “API master”, Harold as “login master”, Figo as “refactor master”, and myself as “frontend master” since each of us has expertise in that field.

I am very proud of my team because from the first until now there has been a lot of progress, starting from teamwork, communication, and being more open to each other. The sprint retrospective really helps us in improving our performance. Since we are now distancing, everything is done online. However, it doesn’t hold us back to stay in touch and do our best. We talk through online platforms, Line and Discord. If we have something important to say or any difficulties, we make sure that everybody knows and has the same information. Besides, we have a routine schedule for doing the task together on Discord. There, we can share each other’s difficulties and can help each other too. It gets stressful sometimes, but we keep encouraging each other. While working, we usually talk about other things so that the work becomes more fun. To get rid of our boredom, we took the time to play while getting to know each other better. Here’s our fun time together. It’s really meaningful even only for a moment.

Siprak team??
One team — One spirit

So far, we have no personal issues with each other that can make a poor team dynamics. I really enjoy working with my team and I hope my team can continue to grow so that we can finish the project successfully. Cheers to our more sleepless nights, Siprak team!

So, how’s your team? Does your team have good team dynamics? Don’t hesitate to follow the tips above!

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