Essay: Self-reflection on my team experience

This is a self-reflection on my team experience regarding my recent group assignment. Our team is formed in Professional Practices II Tutorial, for the objective of working on the Research Paper Assignment 3. We are in a group of six who are Katy, Anthony, Reny, Naomi, Young and myself. We had our first meetings in Hub Central on 2nd October 18 at 2pm. It was a formal meeting with two absences which were Katy and Naomi with apologies, while Young was late. Our second meeting was conducted on 5th October 18 at 6pm, everyone was present except for Young. It was an informal meeting where we exchanged information that we prepared beforehand to discuss on.
My role as a chairperson in the first meeting, I planned it and set the location in hub central because it would be convenient for all members. Upon my realization, Anthony was performing as a leader where he summed up our points and asked for others’ opinions during the meeting. Even though I was the meeting organiser, I discovered Anthony illustrate more of a chairperson’s characteristics. This is supported by Firth, Wong and Yang 2014’s research, where chairperson performs high leadership and interpersonal skills. In opposition to this, Young did not participate actively in the discussion, thus reducing the team cohesiveness. The evidences were shown when he came late to the first meeting and missed the second. I was frustrated as Young did not apologized nor stating the reasons he was late or missing. Apologies were not necessary, yet his actions strengthened my interpretation on his characteristics that he was playing a dysfunctional role. This role is where team member pays low attention and commitment to the team (David and Ricky 2006, p.701).
We came across a conflict and it started off when I was not confident on myself and our team. As Reny and Young are Koreans, while Katy, Anthony, Naomi are locals, myself as a Malaysian. Our team had a mix of difference cultural backgrounds where not all our mother tongue is English. According to Dwyer et al., this stage is the first stage in team development cycle, forming stage where group members feel uncertain and insecure (2016, p.267) In our first meeting, I found it hard to understand the locals’ slang when they were talking in a quick accent. This conflict is an A-type conflict as it closely relating to emotion due to interpersonal relationship (Hurt and Abebe 2015, p.345). I felt stressed as I could not keep up the pace with the discussion and stayed silent.
I realized that by keeping quiet did not improve my state of condition. Therefore, I tried to listen attentively and kept eye contact with the person speaking as a body language. This symbolized my willingness to pay attention to as a positive teamwork behaviour (Hwang 2018, p.158). Besides, I confronted my teammates and requested them to speak slower considering my difficulties. They were not shocked but felt guilty for not being culturally sensitive. Katy spoke in a slower tone ,without any slang words after I pointed out my view. Both parties had common goals and agreed to reframe our communication methods, which is a collaborating strategy (Dwyer et al. 2016, p.247).
Besides, Anthony regularly providing a further explanation on his statement or questioned others who did not present clearly. Anthony portrayed strong supportive communication when he was willing to explain and acknowledge concern to other members. Supportive communication and willingness to compromise often leads to effective teamwork (Salas, Cooke and Rosen 2008, p.540). Furthermore, Bowers, Braun, and Morgan 1997 defined teamwork as the interpersonal interactions among team members. Anthony asked for a vote when he realised our discussion was opposing, this consultation process encouraged all members to participate in the decision making. Reny was the opposition but she did not argued more when the decision was made, she acted rationally of being in a team.
Our group assignment worked well as we applied nominal group technique (NGT) where all of us worked alone on our divided parts and we combined our findings together. I found it effective as we need not to accommodate with each other’s timing to have a meeting and do research together. NGT tends to be applied in a diverse cultural setting and tense interpersonal relationship (Van and Uys 2009, p.138). The use of social media channel made me felt relieved that I could communicate to Young. I was worried that Young was not updated of the meeting’s minutes as he missed the last meeting. Young positively replied me with his reasons of absence and agreed on his task given. Young had given adequate cooperation despite his poor performance at first.
There are a few ways on improving our group performance. By using non-verbal communication such as body language and visual aids will improve the understanding of audience towards the presenter. This point is directly linked towards sensitivity to cultural diversity. Team members should be conscious of their diverse forces and raise the effectiveness of communication through the ways stated. It is because communication is the key of productive team performance.