Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Reflection on the teamwork and communication process througout CG1413
6 comments Posted by Cherlia at 9:12 AM
Picture: Various modes of communications.
Since primary school, or even since kindergarten, we have been well exposed to group work. Whether is it working together to solve a problem, cooperating to achieve a goal, I am sure projects and group work are not new to many of us.
However, what seems ironic is that even though we are all well exposed to doing projects, and interacting with people all the time, most of us never learnt through the classroom the basis of communication, or what it is to communicate with people. Most of us learnt by experience learning, by facing obstacles during communication, and learning to overcome them by trial and error, and by repeated attempts to be proficient in communicating with other people.
This is until we met CG1413, and our module tutor, Mr James.
Then we learnt the concrete ideas behind communication, like how does communication get deciphered and passed on, how we can avoid miscommunication by taking measures, learning how non-verbal cues help us interpret one's behavior.
All these skills help us re-enforce the ideas we gathered during experience learning all these years, and gave us a concept on the importance of communication, and what exactly does it encompass. This helped me to build a rapport with my team-mates when we met for meeting to discuss the projects, or worked together to accomplish the assignment. It helped me to understand that having an effective team was not as difficult and as arduous as it seems to be.
In my CG1102 group, these communication skills allowed my team to have debates about the project that had minimal conflict. To the best of our ability, we objectively described and explained our opinion and how it might be beneficial to our project. This allowed our group to have many interesting and beneficial concepts and ideas that might not have come about if there was not any form of active discussion. The effective part of this is that our group maintained cordial during discussions and we were all open to suggestions from everyone. This greatly minimized the amount of conflict that could have potentially appeared in group discussions.
Picture: Enjoyable meeting sessions. (:
In my CG1413 group, these communication skills allowed me to hone my skills in requesting for people to help in my surveys, to create clear and concise survey questions that can be beneficial to my project, and communicating with my group mates. It also gave me an extra chance to keep my presentation skills in check.
Picture: Extra chance to hone presentation skills.
Out of the classroom context, these skills I learnt allowed me to understand better how miscommunication occurs, and how to avoid it, not only in the school based environment, but at home, with my friends, with my family, or whenever communication occurs, which is everywhere.
Picture : This shows us that communication is part and parcel of our everyday life,
for every situation that requires us to open our mouths, or to show something.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Individual
As compared to the first oral presentation, I was evidently more composed in this Oral Presentation. I was also better prepared, and did not rely as much on the index cards, opposed to Oral Presentation 1. I felt that I was more capable of expressing my ideas coherently, and elaborating on the points that I had raised.
However, I still have the problem of speaking too fast, and sometimes not very clearly. In some parts of the presentation I seemed to be almost mumbling and the words could not be heard well. I would need to work on improving the speed and pitch of my voice, and express myself better the next time.
I tried to maintain eye contact with everyone in the class, but at some points in time, I seemed to be focusing on a certain few people in the centre of the class. This is another thing I need to improve as the others whom I am not maintaining eye contact may feel unimportant, or distracted as my attention is not given to them.
Team
I felt as a whole our team did well, we had sufficient visual aids and diagrams to illustrate our point, and different portions by various members of our team complemented each other well. For example, my slide on the vicious cycle and Brandon's slide on the self sustaining cycle emphasizes to the audience, that a change in perspective of the public can help to solve problems, if their perception of things can be changed. Moreover, we did not have too much trouble with slide transition.
However a problem we faced was that we placed too much content into the presentation, causing all our team members to have to race their way from the start to the end of their parts, and our time also overshot. This is a lack of time management on our part, and in the future, we should not be overly ambitious is having too much content in the presentation.
Here are some comics showing us how presentation skills are important to communication and transmission of information :
Source : http://images.google.com.sg/imglandingq=presentation,funny&imgurl=http://www.presentationmagazine.com/graphics/Boring%2520Presentation.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.presentationmagazine.com/humour.htm&usg=__3hUDiKZut6d4-zBBHjuIqN8ziaM=&h=400&w=400&sz=21&hl=en&itbs=1&tbnid=5uibefAIJ2Gr-M:&tbnh=124&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpresentation,funny%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&sa=G&gbv=2&tbs=isch:1&start=0
Source: http://images.google.com.sg/imglanding?q=presentation,funny&imgurl=http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/rte/lowres/rten88l.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/b/bottom_line.asp&usg=__bSGpJ-gOTbj2E9WtNj_4t8a5aA4=&h=400&w=373&sz=40&hl=en&itbs=1&tbnid=wpISQ9zcGZsUlM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpresentation,funny%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&sa=G&gbv=2&tbs=isch:1&start=6
Source: http://images.google.com.sg/imglanding?q=presentation,funny&imgurl=http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/rte/lowres/rten88l.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/b/bottom_line.asp&usg=__bSGpJ-gOTbj2E9WtNj_4t8a5aA4=&h=400&w=373&sz=40&hl=en&itbs=1&tbnid=wpISQ9zcGZsUlM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpresentation,funny%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&sa=G&gbv=2&tbs=isch:1&start=6
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Generally I felt the meeting was effective and rewarding for us as a group.
Initially, everyone was feeling slightly awkard, sentences were picked and chosen with care. This was probably due to the effect of having a webcam during the meeting process.
However, as the meeting progressed, it was evident that everyone became more focused on the meeting itself, and eventually everyone became more comfortable as the meeting continued.
When the meeting just started, we defined what the question was about, and what were the requirements we felt was needed by the question, and when the meeting was ending we made an effort to summarize all the points we discussed. I felt this is a good way to conduct a meeting as we start off stating what we expect to be doing in the discussion, and end off summarizing so all the points that were touched on will be refreshed again, so no points will be missed out.
During the meeting, all of us were focused in solving the problem in CG1102 lab 3 together. The meeting conducted was effective as no one was distracted, and we objectively pointed out mistakes in theory or concepts without causing any conflict. In this way, we acknowledge as a team that any opinions of any member in the team are respected.
Faizal raised a good point in reminding us that our concept of how the assignment may be approached may not be optimal. And throughout the meeting he also actively questioned the ideas we initially had about the assignment. So even during our design of our project, we are already checking for parts that may be not feasible or wrong, so we minimize errors that might cause issues in the later parts of our assignment. Likai was also proactive in giving insightful opinions and ideas about the assignment and how our ideas can be better improved. Jay was engaged in spearheading where our discussion is headed towards and he provided many opinions about how we should approach this assignment.
Generally everyone in the group listens to everyone else's opinions and reflects objectively on it.
However I personally feel I could have allowed for more room for discussion by my other team members, and give them more chance to express their ideas. This way we minimize conflicts in the team, thus conducting an effective meeting.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Speaking of conflicts, I remembered an argument I had with my friend.
I told this friend of mine that there was an issue with his character, that he was lacking a general ambition or purpose in life, and was treating everything in his life with a lackadaisical manner.
He was having problems with his grades then. Even though he will feel upset over his poor grades at first, soon the problem will be clean out of his mind, and he will seem like normal again. And he treated many things in his life that way. I felt as a friend I needed to help him get some direction, and tried to approach the issue in a objective manner, so I would not hurt his feelings. I understood that getting him to accept that he was lacking in someway or the other was bound to be hurting. So I tried my best to be sensitive to his feelings.
He told me he needed my help to change, and I tried my best to help. But whenever I gently reminded him of this problem, he got upset and agitated. There were a lot of disagreements over this, but most of them were cleared up rather quickly. Even so, the problem was not solved. It seems my friend's happy-go-lucky nature has caused him to put problems out of his mind very easily. Therefore he did not seem to be able to concentrate and tackle the problem.
By then, the small and frequent disagreements have already strained our relationship, and every time we talked the conversation will be full of tension. Then once I told him I did not want to bother about him anymore, and could not be bothered to care. He tried to appease me but failed. And worse of all, the next day, he behaved like nothing had ever happened, like we did not argue fiercely the day before. I was quite upset about his attitude, but did not know how to tell him about it, so I left it at that.
Would the situation have been better if I did not interfere with this in the first place?
What could I have done to further improve the situation?
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Observation of team behavior: intercultural and interpersonal communication
5 comments Posted by Cherlia at 12:05 AMBeing in a multi racial country, seeing people of difference races or religion working well together is not uncommon. However, with the increase in influx of immigrants from all around the world, Singapore gradually becomes an even larger melting pot of different cultures and traditions. Therefore the need to work well with people with different cultural backgrounds becomes progressively crucial in our contemporary society.
An example of how intercultural communication is important is in baseball. Baseball is a sport that requires a strong sense of teamwork and cooperation. Without proper communication, the team cannot possibly work together to cause the opposing batter to be out of the game. This requires very fast paced communication and deep understanding between the team members.
In recent years, many Japanese famous baseball players have entered the American Baseball playing field. And being in a team where almost all the players share a similar culture, it must have been difficult to smooth out the cultural and language differences at the start. But these teams were not daunted by the task, and they managed to overcome the differences and work together.
For a good team to work well, it is important for the members to understand the different cultures of their group members and not to judge their traditions. Being unable to accept another's cultural makes one seem ethnocentric and inflexible, largely affecting the team dynamics. It is also important for the group to have effective interpersonal communication, to be able to resolve conflicts even if their differences cause some communication problems. This is crucial to a team as the members need to know how to manage conflicts effectively without compromising on someone else's feelings in an argument. They will also need to be emotionally aware of their group members' feelings and how to negotiate on differences in ideas objectively without sounding defensive or aggressive.
Inter cultural and interpersonal communication are necessary skills that all of us need to hone as our world becomes a global city, and people become more interconnected. If we are acceptive of others' culture and lifestyle, we might achieve much more as a team, having diverse viewpoints and perspective that can further stretch each others' potential.
Below is an example on how misunderstanding occurs due to cultural differences.
Selling to the Arabs
A disappointed salesman of a Cola drink returns from his Middle East assignment. A friend asked, "Why weren't you successful selling the Cola drink to the Arabs?" The salesman explained:
"When I got posted in the Middle East, I was very confident that I would make a good sales pitch as Cola is virtually unknown there. But, I had a problem: I didn't speak Arabic. So, I planned to convey the message through three posters...
- First poster: A man lying in the hot desert sand...totally exhausted and fainting.
- Second poster: The man is drinking our Cola.
- Third poster: Our man is now totally refreshed.
And then these posters were pasted all over the place.
"Then that should have worked!" said the friend.
"That’s what I thought, said the salesman. Didn’t realize that Arabs read from right to left."
Source : http://www.contentforcommunicators.com/cross-cultural-articles.html
Friday, January 22, 2010
Being a member of a uniform group in my secondary school days, I have had my fair share of problems dealing with communication and teamwork with my squadmates. I lost count of the numerous times information failed to be transmitted to everyone in the squad (or team),or when the squad failed to agree on an issue. And these are all common problems that exist in many organisations. Regardless of whether it is a bureaucratic company, a CCA, or in a project, the moment people need to work together to achieve things the largest obstacles they can face are miscommunication, and the lack of teamwork.
I truly believe, in order to have a great team that is able to not only accommodate each other's shortcomings and work well together, communication is vital. My experience has shown me how inefficient things can become when miscommunication occurs, and when conflicts are not resolved amicably. It affects everyone's emotions, sometimes causing a general frustration, which causes more incompetency in dealing with the problem at hand. Therefore communication and teamwork is important to me.
Good communication not only allows people to forge strong bonds with each other, it allows them to work more cohesively, thus eliminating the problem of having conflicts that were badly dealt with. And similarly, having good teamwork and cooperation further enhances communication within the group. So teamwork and communication goes hand in hand in many circumstances.
However, with the increasing modes of communication that are invented in this modern society, it seems that it is increasingly difficult to communicate efficiently. As humans are overly exposed to too many forms of communication methods, which also serves as distractions, it is difficult to communicate properly and get the message across. For example, when a group meeting is held, it is not uncommon to see members of the group individually distracted by a mode of communication; one can be checking their email while a group member is talking; one reading or replying an sms, etc. These are all disturbances that people now face in dealing with effective communication. It is no longer about the delivery of the message itself, it's about how concentrated the listener is when the information is being processed.
Below is a comic illustrating how difficult it is to communicate in this modern context :
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