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In considering my past experiences in group settings, both positive and negative, one particular team I was part of last school year distinctly comes to mind. We were a group of three charged to make a simple PowerPoint presentation on a chapter in our textbook. Knowing our two week deadline, we had discussed what we would present on and who would construct which pieces of the PowerPoint outside of class: it seemed like all was said and that the project would run swimmingly. The night before the presentation, however, I found myself staring at our shared online presentation for hours with only my slides completed. Me being the anxious perfectionist that I am, I took it upon myself to make a copy of our presentation and complete the rest of the slides without telling my teammates.
The day of the presentation, I was furious: my group members had asked if the presentation was complete and I very sternly said "no." In response, they found it appropriate to quickly complete their work while our other classmates were presenting. In the blindness of my malice, I let it slip that I had made a copy of the presentation, and that I had not trusted them to finish their work. Our presentation, needless to say, was unprepared and quite uncomfortable.
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What made our group work out to be a total bust was that none of us adhered to each others' norms and neither of us stuck to our own roles. In the case of my teammates, the two of them didn't know my norm for completing work a day or so before it was actually due, and neither of them stuck to the roles they had in making their individual slides on time. As for me, I was unaware of my teammates norm of procrastination and panicked because of it, resulting in my breach of role as I struggled to create the whole presentation on my own. All of us were to blame for our weak presentation because each of us overstepped each others' bounds. Had we communicated more, things may have run much smoother and with a whole lot less tension between us in the end. Then again, this was also a process of experience: we all learn by making mistakes.
If you're ever interested in improving your group work experiences so they don't look like mine here, you can check out the resource below. It discusses all sorts of ins-and-outs about the functions of groups, group norms, and group roles, both in social and professional groups:
http://infosect.freeshell.org/infocult/phenomene/English/HTML/doc0006.htm
I could not help but chuckle when you wrote, “In the blindness of my malice.” Excellent word choice! I can see myself handling this situation in an identical manner. It was wise of you to see how your group members would react before actually telling them about what you did in order to successfully complete the presentation. The memes you included in your blog post were quite funny, too!
ReplyDeleteDepending on the scenario, I would have kept open communication with the teacher or professor and ask for their advice as to how to handle the situation. Great story!
I was getting angry just reading this story. I've had a similar group work experience and it can be very frustrating when people don't get their work done on time. I'm glad you said that all of the group members, including yourself, were to blame. I never would have thought like this. I automatically would have blamed my other group members for not communicating with me or getting their part done on time. It really gives me a new perspective on how important effective communication is. Also I enjoyed the pictures you used in this blog post. They're both funny and easy to relate to.
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