Our group project is starting to come together! We met Tuesday night and had a half hour of near-panic; none of us really understood what would be expected of us during our Monday presentation. At about the 25 minute mark I began guiding the team away from discussing Monday and towards expanding our need statement. I think this was an example of 5ps, in particular Modeling The Way. It took an effort to settle down and focus on our expanded need statement. Once we started a concerted effort our POV statement really flowed; we went from nothing to a final draft in a half hour.

I also had some excellent practice improving my ei, my emotional intelligence, later in the week. One team member is from China and sometimes he has a hard time understanding our perspective as Americans. For instance, it took me five minutes to explain to him what ‘hands-on’ was, but I got there in the end. Now he even uses the term occasionally, which actually feels quite rewarding. A couple members of our group get a little frustrated when he can’t understand, but as a student of foreign languages I find it east to stay patient. English is an incredibly difficult second language and I have lots of empathy for anyone who learns it.

Meeting up with the group again tomorrow afternoon–i eill add to this post if anything comes up!