A Piece of the Puzzle

I’ve been an athlete and a part of teams and group my whole life. Not every one of these teams was successful or cohesive, and after taking this course I realized a lot of the issues those teams who were less cohesive were facing was fulfilling individual’s roles as it pertains to the team process. Roles identify the particular way we, as individuals, are expected to act in a group. Scholars have divided roles into two general categories: task roles and social-emotional roles. Task roles relate to the members getting the “job done”, while social-emotional roles relate to the group’s climate and working relationship (Harris & Sherblom, 2011). Roles play an important factor when it comes to groups accomplishing their goals. I feel no matter what the role is, big or small; everyone has an important part to play in the group process. As a basketball player I’ve seen how important role playing can be. For example, not everyone may get to play, but it’s up to the second team or the beach players to keep the starters prepared for the games. So even though they may not get playing time they play an significant role because if the starters cant perform up to par, the team’s chances to have a productive and winning season can be ruined. Roles give us the chance to appreciate what other brings to the table, no one is more important than the other when it comes to groups working together. 

My Comm. 141 Experience

There are many things I’ve earned this semester while being in Comm. 141; the most obvious is learning how to better to communicate in small groups. This course gave me the chance not only to learn how to better communicate in the groups I may be a part of, but it also helped me learn the things that can be implemented in a groups process to help them reach their goal successfully and efficiently. I learned how roles play huge factors into how the group is formed and how each member might handle a situation. Also what type of leadership qualities one must have when being a leader in a group. When it comes to what my favorite thing in this class is, I must say it’s the blogging. I feel it give us students a chance to share our ideas openly, and it forces all of us participate in discussions so we all get chance to see what other classmates probably saw in the readings that you didn’t. It also was a fun and far from boring way to learn the material we had each week. There’s nothing I can say was my least favorite thing about this class, but I think something that could be improved is probably implementing some activity where we could possibly get the chance to work with others in the class, like make it a mandatory group activity. Just so we had the chance to actually put what we learned in the course into action. 

Group Observation Project

So for my group observation project I decided to observe a girls Pro-Am basketball team, The Lady Rebels. Over the course of this semester long project I watched the team go through try-outs and form various roles within the team that helped them grow as individuals and as a whole. I feel this exercise was very useful, not only for me but for them too. I say that because when I was there during certain observations I felt they focused more on productive and positive communication because I was physically there. But for me I thought it was a very eye opening experience and it made me think of ways I could possibly be a better listener and communicator. One new thing I learned after observing this team was that all groups kind of goes through the same phases or stages in their group process. For example in most groups everyone is somewhat assigned a role and should be able to carry out that role effectively. The only difference is the stages they go through are in regards to the type of group it is. 

Competitive Collaboration

To me I feel there is a time and place for both collaborative and competitive collaboration when it comes to conflict resolution. When it comes to experiences in my life, I tend to always go in to competitive collaboration, but that is most likely because I’m just a very competitive person and I’ve played sport all my life. I think competitive collaboration can be healthy though; and one example I have of that is when I was in elementary school. My best friend and I used to compete every year in class to see who do better in everything, from school work to racing at recess. As far as school work, it helped us really do well in school. We always scored high on spelling test, little projects, everything. This carried over until this day where we still maintain trying to gain the upper hand on each other when it comes to grades. Doing that in elementary instilled in me the desire to always do good in school. 

Formats of Group Presentations

            In chapter 11, Harris and Sherblom talk about four different types of formats for group presentations: a forum, panel, colloquium, and a symposium. A forum is a public discussion in which “a full audience participates, examining a topic or problem after a short presentation by a group”. Forums provide those in discussions a format to go by for speaking and listening while being amongst a large amount of members. Panels are when a group of “four or eight experts” discuss problems or decision makings in front of an audience. A colloquium has three to six experts “usually chosen for their divergent views” discussing a problem in front of an audience with a mediator there to facilitate them. Then lastly is a symposium; this “provides a format for a series of two to six brief speeches made on different aspects of a complex and difficult problem”. I think if I was to choose one of these formats over the other it would have to be a forum.

            The reason being is because I feel this is one the most effective ways to gain the most out of a discussion, and it is a way to get everyone involved. With adding the element of the audience being able to ask questions and participate in the discussion, I think it makes what is being presented more memorable for all those involved. Also, I think it’s a sure way to make sure what is being presented is actually making sense and sticking with audience members. 

Emotional Barriers

One concept that stood out to me in this week’s reading that wasn’t discussed was Emotional Barriers: when we are in fear of taking risk to be creative. Creativity can appear to be a chancy pursuit, so we tend to be very tentative in our attempts; we often seek the approval of others for our ideas, rather than risk being wrong (Harris & Sherblom 2011). I think this is a very important concept we should try to avoid when trying to be creative in groups. Creativity is different for everyone, and I feel when multiple ideas come together to reach a certain goal, that’s when creativity is at its best. When being a part of a group or team no one should have to fear being wrong or looked down upon just because their idea is different than anybody else’s. As the book states “fear of making a mistake often causes us to limit our creativity”. 

Cultural Barriers

Five cultural barriers that stood out to me in this chapter’s readings were: requirement for conformity, dependence in generalization, trust in the power of reason and logic, reliance on expert knowledge, and expectations for politeness and following of the rules of social order. I felt these may keep a group from being creative because every barrier in some way keeps everyone confined socially and with their true personalities, things I think make others creative. These barriers will keep group members in a box and that can probably just stunt the opportunities for people to be creative. For example, expectations for politeness and following of the rules of social order as a barrier can hinder creativity because members may come into the group not expressing themselves fully because they may think the groups social order may go against things they find normal. As for myself, I can’t really remember a time where these socially barriers have happened to me. But I do feel this most likely experience these every time I join a new group, because I’m usually afraid to show my true personality at first just in case they don’t find things I say or do acceptable.