Tips and Advice on how to go about your group task
At the time of studying for my course at the University of Sunderland, I registered for a module that would allow me develop me skills and leadership skills in business. This saw me register for PGBM68 2018/19 at my master’s level. Of course, I also managed to register for other courses in decision making. In my coursework for example, I have achieved several goals that even before taking this course, I have already developed several negative attitudes. Currently, I can proudly say that I have gained numerous skills that I think will see me become a good business leader as well as a strong team player.
Besides, I will grow into a person that appreciates and values diversity. More specifically, I have a strong feeling that after going through this module, I am more than confident that I am ready to go out to the real world and put into practice what I have gained. Besides, the plan in the appendix outlines some of the tings that I would have to go through to supplement my theoretical aspects covered in the module. at
I have gained communication and negotiation skills.
Even though in my undergraduate level I managed to gain some levels of communication skills, and more importantly from the theoretical standpoint, I am proud to state that the current module was distinct. After from learning a number of theories, participation in my group work with other members was an eye opener to me.
I now understand that business managers depend on communication and negotiation when taking to both external and internal stakeholders. For example, the business that I will be working for will include customers, employees, potential investors, and potential suppliers. I now understand constant interaction that strengthens a relationship with anyone in this category will require my deeper understanding of both written and verbal communication. I developed the skill of communication and negotiation while participating in the group work.
The secondly, I have also developed time management skills. In most case, I have had to think that time management forms one skills. Therefore, I ended up developing it with the objective that I would achieve other goals. However, after going through this course, I can now proudly say that I have developed a number of skills that relates to time management.
For example, I can now set goals that are SMART in nature. Just as Belbin (2012) says, that everyone of us must continue setting goals in life whether they are for a business or individual without stopping. I understand that when I make decision about the things that I seek to focus on, I will always be conversant about by goals and the manner in which every action I undertake would bring me closer to achieving everything I would have laid down. Belbin (2012) recommends that we should avoid fooling ourselves that we only have to set goals in most areas that involve money. While money comprises of a good asset, it can only assist us in achieving our goals.
The nature of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practice or initiative
Participation in our group work played a major role in making me develop ways to set up SMART goals. For example, our group was based on the work of Tuckman’s stages of group development such as forming, storming, naming, performing, and adjourning. During the first initial stage for instance, everyone of us game up with different goals on ways that we could accomplish our task.
I have also come to acquire decision making skills. Egolf (2013) explains that in every aspect that we seek to do, one should ask and answer the following questions, which task should be done? Which task should get done first? What time is appropriate to accomplish the task? What type of the meeting should I attend? All these and some that are not mentioned here, form part of the decision-making process that we all go through.
More specifically, I learned this skill during the second stage of our group meeting. For instance, while developing out our group, we jointly worked together to generate ideas that could assist up. we considered it appropriate to make decisions by negotiating the roles that everyone would play. James McGrath (2017) aspect relates to the role of group members in decision making process. We opted to appoint one of us to become our leaders. We did this with the understanding that without a leader and someone that we could all look upto, we could not achieve our goals.
Group Learning Logs
Tuckman’s stages of group development proved to be vital for the group as it provided a platform through which the group could look at its behavior alongside performance. The stages of group development include forming, norming, storming, performing and adjourning. These stages are considered to have both positive and negative influence as far as the group is concerned. Below is an analysis of these stages and how they impact the group;
The first stage is forming. This entails the examination of tasks, goals and objectives coupled with structure of leadership and how leadership would be handled. In this case, the group members’ strengths and weaknesses are looked upon and as such tasks allocated based o strengths of individuals. Storming is the second stage and it entails the coming together of members and coming into mutual agreement on proposed idea (James McGrath, 2017). This stage as a whole enable all the group members to know each other and also be able to openly discuss on ideas that have been generated. Roles and responsibilities are discussed in this stage of group development and appointments are made accordingly. The provisional leader that was elected was C while F was appointed as the secretary. The learning environment was emotionally charged and the results of such an environment if hostility and conflict of interest.
The third stage is norming which tends to help the group when it comes to controlling of hostility and conflicts thus developing collaboration and interdependence (Egolf, 2013). This results to the establishment of group cohesion and performance norms. In addition to this, it allows for all individual’s contribution to be coordinated. The fourth stage is performing which is seen to occur once the group is fully functional. There ought’s to be successful progression so as to have a better understanding with regards to mutual information, well-organized structure as well as effective group. This would enable the group as a whole to be able to work towards the attainment of the set collective goals.
The last stage is adjourning which would occur when the main objective has been attained which would be to prepare and present on the 12th of July 2018 during the class session. The group was dissolved after which it was reformed into a completely new entity so as to start afresh. This resulted to group members losing a sense of direction when the project was complete thus leading to satisfaction and unhappiness.
There are nine roles of an individual as founded by Meredith Belbin in his theory named Belbin-nine team theory. These roles include implementer, shaper, resource investigator, completer, coordinator, team worker, plant evaluator, specialist and monitor evaluator (Belbin, 2012). The implementer ensure that everything is done according to the initial plan. They ensure that things go as per the requirement. The shaper on his end has to be task-focused having the drive and courage to attaining the set objectives. This tends to provide the group with the motivation, courage, and drive thus the group would always be focused toward the set goals without them deviating from the goals.
References
Belbin, R. M. (2012). Team Roles at Work. London: Routledge.
Egolf, D. B. (2013). Forming Storming Norming Performing: Successful Communication in Groups and Teams. Bloomington: iUniverse.
James McGrath, B. B. (2017). The Little Book of Big Management Theories: And How to Use Them. London: Pearson Education Limited.
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