Reflection Paper on Group Communications
Communication is important no matter what sort of business one is in. People must communicate in order to conduct business. Healthcare professionals must communicate with patients, families and each other. Teachers must communicate with students, parents, and other teachers and educational professionals. Merchants must communicate with customers, suppliers and government officials. These are just some examples. However, communication is influenced by many things including cultural bias and leadership styles. Most industries require that people work together in order to get things done. That means they must learn to communicate with each other by dealing with their cultural biases, being able to give and receive feedback and finding ways to work together peacefully.
Personal Cultural Biases Impact on Group Communication
Every person has some cultural biases. Cultural biases is not always just racism. Cultural biases can be about lifestyle choices, gender, sex, age or other issues that a person has biases toward. For instance, I remember once in another class there were two older women in a group with me. They were confused about many of the things the professor said and they were nervous about what they should do and say. I felt some bias toward them because I thought at their age they should have a better control on their self-esteem. However, I realized they may have biases against me too because I am young, and they may have thought I was disrespectful to them. This definitely affected the communication between me and the two women.
When I realized that they may find me disrespectful, I decided that I should try to be more respectful toward them. That helped. They opened up more to me and to the entire group saying that they had not been in school since high school. Both had raised children and been housewives. Now their kids were in college and out of the home, so they thought they would go back to college and get a degree also. I have to say that I came away from that group liking the women for having the courage to do what they were doing. By accepting the biases I had and that the women had, we were able to put the negative feelings behind us and have respect for one another. They turned out to be great members of the group as I hope they felt about me too.
Feedback
In the current group I am in, there is not a lot of feedback. During our first meeting as a group, we made our communication rules. They are that everyone will show respect toward each other. If someone gets angry, there should be a cooling off period so that it can be discussed reasonably. However, no one has gotten too emotional about anything in my group. We seem to always pretty much agree and cooperate, so I guess my group is lucky in that way.
One of the things we talked about when we discussed communication within the group was how to give feedback. One group member suggested using the usual rules that usually go along with peer reviews. These rules consist of being polite, being specific and not acting like a know-it-all. I suggested a rule that I had gotten for peer reviews from a professor who said for every negative thing we found to complain about, we should also find a positive thing to praise the person for. I like that idea. That way, feedback is not always negative. If it is, then it is not offered at all. However, people like to give feedback, and it is important to group function to have it, so the person offering feedback is challenged to find something positive to say for everything negative they want to complain about.
One of the group members and I were talking after class one day. He was complaining about another member of the group who does not always understand the assignment and asks the rest of us for help understanding what she is supposed to do. Most of us just explain to her what we understand about the assignment in a kind and patient way, but the group member I talked with that day outside of class was very upset. He said that she had caused a problem in the group because of she did not understand. I tried to explain to him that this was why we explained to her what was going on, so that she did not cause a problem. I have a feeling that he is having a difficult time with the communication rules for the group.
Leadership Styles
The person who I think usually plays the role of leader in our group has emotional intelligence, influences us all to work hard and be respectful of one another, and caring. I would say his leadership style is participative because he seems to always take the assignment that nobody else really wants. In fact, when we are dividing up work, he waits till the end and takes whatever is left. I think he is really sweet to do that because he probably does not want the assignment either, but he is trying to lead by example. He also shows that by taking the worst job of them all, he has not let the power go to his head. This has also caused me and other group members to offer to help him on the worst assignments .
My leadership style is not as good as the person who leads our group most of the time. I would probably get annoyed at people who did not want to do their fair share of the work. He never does. He just lets them do what they want to do and takes on their work or divides it up among the rest of us. I am caring and kind though. I do not like to think I hurt another person’s feelings, so I try not to. I also try to be a good example for other people, but that sounds like I am bragging, and I do not want to do that. I just try to be kind like my mother always told me to be. She said more people would like me if I am kind than if I am not kind, and I believe her. Being kind has made me lots of friends, and some of them look up to me as a leader, but not all of them. I would say those that do not see me as a leader are more like leaders to me.
How my Perspective has Changed
I think I have always known that good communication was important. I did not have proof of that though. When I met the two older women in the group in another class, I learned that there are ways to communicate even if one has differences with another. This current class let me put the ideas taught in it to that past experience and understand it better. I like what I have learned about myself and about that past experience. I have also enjoyed the group experience I have had in this class. I like that because we have discussed all the ways leadership, communication, bias and feedback work that I can think about my group experience and understand what is being taught about communication. I guess I mean I am glad that my group experiences are providing me examples to which I can apply my learning about communication.
I also like that I am able to understand what the group leader does that makes him so likeable. I also understand what other group members do that could negatively influence the group. I am glad that I can look at these things and know what I am seeing and maybe even figure out a way to solve the problems. Mainly, my perspective has changed because I feel like I understand more about how to communicate well with others and to understand what they communicate to me.
Doubts, Ideas, Questions
The no negative without the positive feedback rule that I learned from a professor I had before this class is a good one. I remember once that a student in that class said that he had no feedback. When the professor asked him why, he said it was because there was nothing positive to say about the other student’s paper, so he could not say anything The professor said that it is too easy to find negative things to say and much more difficult to find positive things to say, and made that student try again. I think it is a good rule to go by because a person can say all positive things, which probably would not be realistic, but if they say all negative, then they are not really doing the hard work of giving good feedback.
I have some doubts about the two group members I discussed above. The one who is always asking questions is going to have a hard time succeeding if she cannot figure out simple things on her own. The one who gets angry at her needs to not let things bother him so much. I am not sure how to deal with a person like that. I would like to know what to do in that situation.
