Reflection #1

                               

                                              Reflection #1

By Luisana Larreal

 

 

The world consists in people with differences and uniqueness. Everyone has their essence and way to perceive life, that is what makes life so beautiful. Last Friday we as a class, we talked about strategies to work together as a society effectively. The topics being talked about were intercultural communication, communicating in groups, and effective group leadership. Group one talked about Intercultural communication understanding the differences of the people all around the world and highlighting the importance of respecting their uniqueness. Group two talked about communicating in groups giving strategies to work together as a society. Then Group three talked about Effective group leadership and problem solving, which addressed how to work together in an effective way. Even though all these topics are different, but they all have in common the fact that respecting our differences and joining them to complement each other’s weaknesses, it can result in wonderful results. If we all work together, we can make the world a better place. 

 

 

    We all are diverse and our own views in life. Intercultural communication is essential for the world to function effectively function of the world. The differences from one to another can be because of differences in culture, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender, politic position and socioeconomic status. You are never going to agree in every aspect with anyone, no matter how many things you have in common with someone, there is something you will disagree on. At the end of the day, everyone haves their own essence and no one thinks in the same exact way as anyone else. Effective communication requires understanding each other’s points of views, even if is completely contrary from yours. If communication is not empathetic, it most likely going to turn into stereotyping, classism, homophobia, religious intolerance, sexism, xenophobia and racism, which is mostly the biggest cause of the conflicts happening in the world. As a society we have come very far at respecting each other and sharing this earth with love, but there is a lot that can be done, and it starts with small actions in our daily lives, treating each other with kindness. Like my king Harry Styles said, Treat People With Kindness. 

  I was part of group two, we presented communicating in groups. As a group we actually worked together quite well. Communicating in groups effectively involves good communication, understanding different communication styles, assigning roles to every member of the group and active listening.  There are different types of groups, some of them are families, social groups, support groups, interest groups, service groups, work groups and virtual groups. Each group work differently and have its own strategies to communicate, dynamics and roles, but they all have in common supporting each other, listen openly, having good communication and taking advantage of the strength of each person on the group. In 1995, Bruce Tuckman presented the idea that there were five stages, when working in groups: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Forming is when a group is getting to know each other, storming is when there are disagreements, norming is when those conflicts are solved, performing is when the group works effectively towards achieving its goal and adjourning is when the group fulfills its objective. Miscommunication can cause different conflicts such as Pseudo-Conflict, Issue-Related Group Conflict, Personality-Related Group Conflict, conflicts regarding culture and conflicts in virtual groups. These conflicts can be avoided if there is good listening, organized task assignation, and empathy for each member who forms the group. Effective group communication happens when there is respect, vulnerability, active participation and empathy for each other, this way the members of a group can help each other to grow. 

    Effective group leadership and problem solving require shared responsibilities and clear communication. For a successful group dynamic every member must contribute considering their strengths, it is not only the leader’s responsibility for the project to succeed. There are five leadership styles: autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, transformational, and servant. Autocratic leadership is when the leader makes decisions by themselves without completely having the other members opinions in count, democratic leadership is when the leader considers the members opinion in an equivalent way, laissez-faire leadership is when every member do their part without too much interaction with each other, transformational leadership is when the leader inspires their team members to achieve their highest potential, and lastly servant leadership is when the leader considers the needs of each member to make every decision regarding the project. The six steps to solve problems are defining the issue, analyzing it, setting criteria, brainstorming, evaluating solutions, and implementation. Depending on the leader, their personality and the objectives of the project the leadership may variate, but the essential elements for a good leader are organization, clear goals, identify the capacities of each member of the group so there could be productive role assignations and treating people with respect.

 

    The presentations were of these topics were very good. My classmates expressed the information and message that they wanted to be delivered on a successful way. Even though some were nervous everyone was well informed and had a good intonation. The presentation went to the point and were engaging. There was a good teamwork my group, which is funny because we talked about communicating in groups. Zach was an incredible leader he listened to us, was open to help and is so fun and wise, we could not ask for a better leader. We communicated well, everyone had their section and work to have the best result we could have, we also helped each other and updated about our progress often, this all resulted in a great presentation. I like as a class we did good job considering that it was the first presentations of the semester.

 

Our presentations highlighted the importance of working together embracing our differences and treating each other with respect. All three topics touched the themes of good communication, group collaboration, and using our differences to our advantage. We all used these topics to complete the projects, we respected our differences, communicated with our classmates and used leadership and problem solving in our favor. These topics are crucial to know how to manage groupwork and treat the people around us with respect and empathy. When we listen to different perspectives, join strengths and treat each kindly it makes us stronger people and contribute to make a more united community.