Collaborating with Colleagues

During these last 8 weeks everyone in group has been supportive and responsive especially during my period of not knowing how to handle the situation with my sister-in-law. I very much appreciated the feedback and ideas that helped me get through that time because it was more emotional for me to see through the “Third Side”. I have enjoyed this class very much and hope that it continues to help me improve on my communication skills for not only my professional goals but my personal goals as well. I wish you all the very best as you embark on the last few classes left toward our degrees. If anyone ever needs anything or just wished to talk my personal email is elizabethgarcia1950@gmail.com

Thanks Again!!!

Stages of Group Development

When I was working on my bachelor’s degree we had groups for every class like we do here; however, the work load for our group assignments was much more involved. For three years I worked with people that came and went depending on the class. There were very few that I started and finished with over that three year period. After about a year into my program, there was a few that we noticed were a constant and we tried to make sure that we were in the same group class after class because we knew we did our work and we worked well together. Towards the end of our program we were at our most efficient and I would consider us a high performing group. I would say this was the group that was hardest to say good-bye to. I remember times when I was glad to see the group go because of lack of work, commitment, and communication. However, the final group that I had for the last year straight was a great team to be a part of and we all worked hard. We knew how the teams worked, we knew who was leader each week, and we knew our parts and did our work. If problems came up, we discussed possible solutions and we all helped to solve the issue; it never fell to one group member. We did call each other and say good-bye because this was on online school; however, if we were closer I would have loved to get together for a small celebration if we could have. We all worked extremely hard to finish and I believe we deserved some type of recognition for that work. I know that when we finish working on this master’s degree that some may post messages, some may send email and other may make phone calls; however, I do wish it could be more. Adjourning is an essential stage of teamwork because members may “reflect on their accomplishments and failures as well as determine whether the group will disassemble or take on another project” (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012, p. 257-258).

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication. New York: Bedford. St. Martin's.

 

Communication Conflicts

This has been very ironic for me because I normally do not have personal conflicts; however, just earlier in the week I did. I had already written about it on the discussion board but it fits perfectly with this assignment so I will briefly go over it again. My ex-sister in law just recently remarried and never even told me that she was going to do it let alone that she did it. I found out about it through facebook which made me livid. It shocked me mostly because we were so close for so long and even though she divorced her first husband we remained close and still did almost everything together. I knew that she was pregnant before anyone else, I knew her problems, and I knew when she was happy. Then on top of all this, I found out that the lady that does her nails knew all about it. I waited 3 weeks for her to say something to me and she never did. So today I finally said something to her and it turned into a horrible argument. I said some terrible things and told her I did not want to hear anything she had to say because I figured she had plenty of time to say something to me. After reviewing the lessons learned this week I did realize that I could have tried to see things from her point of view. We had learned about The Third Side and how seeing, listening, and speaking should be done with different perspectives. According to The Third Side (n.d.), when in conflict, we see ourselves as “in the right” and that is how I dealt with this, without giving her a chance to explain. As far as I was concerned, she had plenty of time to do so and I was not important enough to explain why she got married and did not want others to know, especially me. Another thing that I could have done better was speaking from the 3^rd side. “The words and actions we choose influence the conflicts around us” (The Third Side, n.d.). I allowed my words and actions to take over the conversation which lead to me saying to never call me again.

I would love to hear everyone’s input regarding this situation. It has bothered me since it happened. This is not normal for me, but all I can say is that I allowed my emotions to rule my conversation and I exploded.

The Third Side. (n.d.). The third side. Retrieved from http://www.thirdside.org/