Adjourning!

Hello everyone!  So soon another 8 weeks has rolled by and as usual, we have been very supportive of one another.  However, i need to mention the fact that I have been able to come this far  because you have always being there with your unflinching support, therefore, I am saying, from the bottom of my heart, a very BIG THANK YOU TO YOU ALL for always being there for me.  I will always cherish your supports, your probing questions and insightful comments, and as we move into our specializations I hope we will still keep in touch to share new ideas as we journey through.

Team Building and Collaboration, Part 1

The adjourning stage is signifying the ‘near-end’ of the project at hand and team members are readily moving off into other new roles or projects.

I would say that separation is not always an easy task, no matter the relationship.  For example, a quarrelsome couple was once separated by work; the husband had to move to another office location different from where the wife was and they both cried openly and lamenting on how they would miss each other.  Therefore, it is hardest to leave any of the groups, whether high-performing or low-performing.

It is good for a group to have very clear established norms where the members are able to work effectively together as a team (Abudi, 2010).  However, for a group to get to adjourning stage they were able to learn one thing or the other from one another, therefore, I feel the members would not find it easy to separate.

All of the groups I participated in were very hard for me to leave, and it is not about the projects only, but particularly about the individuals involved and the relationships formed.  I have experienced, severally, very moving and highly emotional closing rituals.  Moving from one segment to the other where one is not sure of meeting all the current class member is adjourning phase and for me, it has not been very easy, imagining how it will be like at the final segment is making me sad already.

Adjourning is an essential stage of teamwork because it gives room for success celebrations and capturing of best practices for future use.  It is an opportunity to say good-bye to each other (Abudi, 2010), exchange more contact details where necessary in order to facilitate networking.

References

Abudi, G. (2010). The five stages of team development: A case study. Retrieved from http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-five-stages-of-team-development-a-case-study.html

Nonviolent Communication and Conflict Management

The disagreement was with a co-worker from another department who did not understand the depth of an issue but decided to resolve it by dishing out blames with insults, not knowing that there was a new order from the departmental head.

The two strategies I have learned about that might help me manage or resolve the conflict more productively are to analyze the source of the conflict and also to focus on issues and not personalities as the other person has started attacking my personality by mimicking the way I speak and commenting that “this is not all about grammar…..”  I feel that these strategies might be effective in order to know if there are other underlining factor(s) that are not visible to everyone concerned and also to help in the timely resolute on the issue instead of taking time off the issue at hand to start defending behavior.

For this conflict, I feel that compromise might not be appropriate because it involves delivery on target and the departmental manager set the target.  This was communicated to me but probably not to this worker in that same department.  It has been a telephone conversation and each time I tried to call afterwards, the phone either rang ‘no reply’ or picked and replaced; I could try a face-to-face discussion.

Although the situation here is a case of misunderstanding as a result of communication break down between the other person and the group manager, I have been applying the principles of nonviolent communication to inform the person of the change in target from the departmental head.  The 3 R’s of repectful, reciprocal, and responsive might not be very effective in this contex.

 
Although I would have loved to, but it was not appropriate for me this week because many people were off duty; on training, vacation, and conferences, hence, very few of us remaining had a very busy week.

Who Am I as a Communicator?

Thinking about the similarities and differences between how I evaluated myself as a communicator and how others evaluated me, one thing that surprised me the most is that others rated me highly than I rated myself.  This is surprising to me because even though I always tried to those moments of jittery, I still had the feeling that I was clumsy and that they were obvious to people around, especially when I am called upon suddenly to perform a task, e.g. in church; while people clap I usually felt rioting within, it was always a battle. 

This week, I gained a better understanding that true communication involves other people around us, and that the combination of both their evaluation and ours help us to know who we are as a communicator.  I also had a better understanding on the risk of judging people with first impression and using that as base in communicating with such people; this is because we would not have had a clearer knowledge about the ‘person’ of that individual.  I believe that these will inform and enrich my professional work and personal life a great deal.

Communication and Culture

Yes I communicate differently with people from different groups and cultures.

I communicate differently with each of the different groups that I mentioned; they are, Choristers (singles and married men and women of diverse cultural background - professionals), Teenagers (boys and girls of age 13 to 19, from diverse cultural background), and Workers - in – Training (singles and married men and women of diverse cultural background).

The first strategy I could you to help me communicate more effectively with the groups I have identified is good listening skills and a show of genuine interest.  Active listening helps to resolve issues timely and effectively.  Another strategy is to capture people’s names correctly and use it often during the cause of communication.  This creates a warmly atmosphere that makes the other person feel at ease.  I will also be watchful so that I am not the only person doing the talking, I will allow others make their contributions too so that they feel as being a part of the conversation and not just listening and carrying out instruction.

Communication Skills: Language, Nonverbal, Listening

The episode of a television show I recorded was titled “Tears Again”.  Watching the show with the sound turned off, I though the characters’ relationships were king and subject based on the ways in which they were communicating as I observed a show of dangerous anger on the man that dressed like a king while the lady was just shedding tears and seemed to be begging for forgiveness.

Based on the nonverbal behavior I observed, I saw a feeling and expression of anger and hatred with annoyance on the man that dressed like a king and a feeling and expression of weakness, total surrender and hurt on the lady that I thought could be one of the king’s subject.

Now with the sound turned on, the assumption I made about the characters and plot based on the way in which I interpreted the communication I observed was that the lady was one of the king’s subjects.

I believe that my assumptions would have been more correct if I had been watching a show that I know well.

What I learned about communication from this experience is that assumption in communication could lead to misjudgment and thereby causing negative communication based on wrong impression.  I also learned that we should be slow to conclude on issues that we are not familiar with.

What Is Communication?

My blog this week is on a family member who demonstrated competent communication within a particular context.  The family member is my uncle who once had a misunderstanding with another senior member of the family and the other person got so worked up that he started yelling at the top to his voice, but my uncle remained calm and allowed the yelling to subside then he just said in a low tone, “…but brother, your are speaking with me here, we don’t need to shout to be heard….”.  That was the magic phrase and the yelling stopped totally.

I would say that even though the situation looked as if it would turn violent, my uncle exhibited what I can call assertive behavior, that is, he was clear with what he wanted and, without being nasty, stated it  firmly.

I often model some of my communication behaviors after my uncle because this kind of communication helps the other party to check himself/herself; it also helps to avoid physical combat, thereby building matured people in a matured society.