Reflective writing
This
is our core course named high performance collaboration, and when I joined this
course, I guessed that it has two core contents. One is it could teach me how
to cooperate with others; anther content is how to reach the high performance
by our cooperation. During learning this course, I found that we should solve many
case studies and discuss with my teammates. And the biggest feature of this course
is doing the virtual project. As we all know, our team is an international team
and teammates come from different countries (France, Bangladesh, China).
Different countries have different culture and working style, so we should
adapt each other’s style in our team.
Team
practices
Firstly,
we use different methods to frequently communicate each other in different
situation. When we were in collage, we would discuss our project by
face-to-face, because this is most useful and high efficiency method. If we
were not in college, we always used Skype and emails to contact each other.
Following the development of technological, modern technology will save our
time and our costs. When we have some questions about our project, we would
send emails to my teammates and give my suggestions about my understandings. If
we did not have consensus, we will use Skype to discuss them and find the best
understandings. We mostly used the Internet to communicate with each other. But
it also has some disadvantages to hinder our project. As we all know, face-to-face
discussion will be the most suitable communication method. When we just use
email or Skype, which means we lose the opportunity to face-to-face. The
technological methods just help us to finish the project, not help us to
improve our relationship. Sometimes when you use email to discuss, it will
waste time, because we are not on-line all the day, when you remember to check
your email, maybe the time is two days later.
Secondly,
about the team’s coordination, our team has many conflicts, because we have
different working styles. For example, one teammate wants others to follow his
ideas and another teammate has a trait that he is over-confidence and assertive
behavior, Chinese person often avoid conflicts that is my style. So most of
time, these two teammates made conflicts and then we solved them together like
they wanted to persuade each other and wanted others to accept their own ideas.
So the solution is negotiation. About how to negotiation- they would explain
their ideas clearly, and show their ideas’ advantages. Then we choose vote to
decide which decision would be accepted by our team. And during the process of
cooperation, I learned how to cooperate with foreigners. For example, they like
to finish their work just before the deadline, and Chinese people like to
finish the work in advance, and then discuss and modify our work. So when I began
to cooperate with them, I always so urgent and inform them the deadline of our
teamwork. Now I adapt their working style, I will finish my part and wait their
parts.
Thirdly,
about how to do decision, it would based on the different situations. When we
have teamwork, we would arrange our time in advance like we would decide the
timetable to know our common time to discuss the outline of our project. During
the process of sharing our ideas, we could know their different thinking ways
and thinking models, which will enhance our creativity. And sometimes when we
do not have better ideas, we will follow the first idea. For example, about our
final project- choose two companies or communities to build a common virtual
platform. When one teammate shared his idea about- police and media, we felt
that it is a special idea and no idea would be better than this one. And when
we all had ideas, we would share them; when we felt my teammate has a good one,
we would follow his ideas.
Fourthly,
concerning about our team’s conflicts, most conflicts caused by different
working styles. Firstly, I should describe the personality of my team. One of
my teammates has many good and special ideas, he wants to share and explain his
ideas, and wants teammates to follow his ideas. If you do not accept his ideas,
he would use many data or reasons to persuade you. Another teammate also likes
sharing his ideas about the case, and likes explaining his truth idea when he
did not understand your idea or did not like your idea. And I have the Chinese
style- I always avoid conflicts, and just hear their explanations. So most of
conflicts are task conflicts, which are the different ideas about the same
project. About the same project, my teammates had the different ideas and
sometimes one of my teammates would explain that I did not like your ideas, and
then cause conflicts. Then, we should change the ideas again and again, and
reach the consensus. I guess conflicts are better, because it could promote us
to think a better idea and enhance our creativity.
Learning from
this experience
Negotiation
Negotiation
is a process in which two or more participants attempt to reach a joint
decision on matters of common concern in situations where they are in actual or
potential disagreement or conflict. And it includes five styles - avoid,
compete, accommodate, compromise and collaborate. From my part, I guess my
negotiation style is avoiding. As we all know, Chinese people always care about
others’ feelings and thoughts, and when they do not like others’ ideas, they
will use tactful words and sentences to explain our ideas. And we do not want
to make conflicts in our team, because Chinese people like to keep good
relationships. So I also have these traits and when our team has conflicts, I
always choose avoid.
From
my teammates, they chose different negotiation styles to solve the conflicts,
which is based on the situation. For example, when they have different ideas
about the same project, they would share them and explain them in detail and
clearly. And when they guessed their ideas are good, they would want to
persuade others to accept their ideas. Sometimes they competed to decide the
best one, and sometimes they accommodated or compromised others’ ideas and formed
the common one, sometimes they collaborated their ideas and sought to integrate
the interests of all those affected. I guess conflicts are not bad, also have
some advantages like conflicts foster an awareness that problems exist, and
discussing conflicting views can lead to better solutions, conflicts require
creativity to find the best outcomes and raise awareness of what is important
to individuals. During the process of cooperation, I guess I should change my
style- avoid. When I face the conflicts, I should share my ideas and care about
my interests, and then persuade others to accept my ideas, not just avoid and
listen my teammates to discuss their ideas.
Add values by Internet
About
our project- virtual platform build by police and media, I always think that
why the teacher wants us to do a virtual platform not a real platform. After
building this project, I learned several things from this project. Concerning
about benefits of Internet, firstly, Internet technologies have lower barriers
to entry and new entrants can go to the market with lower capital cost. So when
police and media build this virtual platform, there is no barrier to hinder
their platform, and they could save their costs compared with build the real
one.
Secondly,
it could also service to other stakeholders. About the virtual platform, which
not only service the police and media, but also could bring some service to
government and public. As we all know, government is the key of the society and
our country, so it has rights to obtain all information and know the process of
police and media. Public have the right to check and upload the information in
our country, so if this platform use in our country, police and media should
protect the public’s right.
Thirdly,
it could provide information quickly. It is the virtual channel to share the
information. When the country happens the new case, police and media,
government and public will check this platform and share their own information
that they collect, which is the quickest method. And it could reduce the cost and
save time. From doing this virtual project, I learn many benefits of Internet
and virtual project.
Enhancing creativity
Creativity
is the ability to generate new and interesting ideas. During the cooperation
with my teammates, it could enhance my creativity. Firstly, our team comes from
different countries, which means we have different knowledge backgrounds. When
we discussed a project, we would analyze it from different perspectives.
Secondly, multiple thinking in a team will increase creativity. Teammates who
have different backgrounds will have multiple thinking models. Thirdly, working
with a team that has many conflicts will enhance creativity. When a team has
task conflicts, which will promote teammates to find a best plan about this
project and then remove this task conflict. So when I as a teammate in this
team, I could know the different thinking models and perspectives from my
teammates, learn their good parts. And I have enhanced my creativity.
Leadership
Leadership
is critical to teamwork. The team leader is the person responsible for ensuring
that members work effectively together to achieve their goal or objective and
must facilitate the cooperation necessary for the team to perform well. The
leader must also ensure that the team has the resources and information
necessary to complete its task. And teammates also should support leader’s
work. Our team has a good environment. Firstly, our teammates also believe that
we have different abilities and could finish the work by ourselves. So our team
creates a supportive climate of openness, trust and mutual respect that
promotes loyalty and cooperation.
Secondly,
our team has the specific goals for every project. Our team’s leadership tends
to be task-motivated leadership, which means we focus on our task. And when we
have different projects, we will have detailed outlines to divide our task, and
then discuss which part should involve some contents and then we should finish
our own parts. After some days, we would check these parts and give our
suggestions to teammates’ part. This is the collaboration process and forms the
good cooperation environment.
Thirdly,
motivation should give the teammates. During the process of cooperation, when
teammates encountered the problem of their own parts, other teammates would
support their work and helped them to remove this problem like commonly finding
the data and articles to support the theories and our researches. And the
leader always asked you that do you face some problems, or if you have some
problems, I could help you. These supports always tend to be motivation,
because it means that the leader and teammates care about my part and want to
support me when I face problem, I could obtain respected from these supports.
Fourthly,
sharing environment also involve in leadership. Our team has a big trait:
sharing information. When our teammates have the ideas about the same project,
they want to share them and discuss with us. It means our team has freedom
environment- we could share anything that you want to say.
Although
our team has some task conflicts, it also promotes our team to have better
ideas. And our team has good cooperation environment. When I am be a leader in
my future life, I will form the good environment like my team- have specific
goals, promote my teammates to share their ideas and care about their task,
give enough respected to my teammates, and then form a good working surroundings.
All
in all, this is my unique and special learning experience, which give my
lessons from this experience. From virtual project, I know the importance of
virtual platform that could bring to the communities and public. From the
cooperation of my teammates, I know how to do project with foreigners and how
to adapt their working style, and how to negotiate with them, how to build a
good leadership.
The
end
By
Nancy Xiao
