Month: November 2013

As a group we have been working hard at building our presentation. We have met a lot the last couple days to ensure that we are done with enough time to be able to practice our presentation over the weekend. We divided our presentation into segments and have been working on each of our own segments  outside of our meetings. As we meet, we have been spending our time checking o check over progress as well as brainstorm new and adjusted old ideas.

During our last meeting I came to a sort of realization. As I was discussing ideas and other project elements, I was starting to feel bad as I noticed that a couple members were keeping to themselves.  So as the meeting went on I would invite members to speak by asking their opinions or if they had any ideas of their own. As this was going on, I came to the realization that my current role was reversed form the norm. Later that night as I thought on this some more I realized that I have been demonstrating this sort of action during our last couple classes and meetings. I always thought of myself as the one who stood to the side during group conversations in the past. I would sometimes have something to say, but would find myself restraining from stating what was on my mind for some reason. I think this is a good example indicating that I have improved in my goals. However, everyone in my group are great people, and we have all become somewhat comfortable with one another and thus enjoy each others company.  This may insinuate that my greater levels of leadership may be a result of my comfort. I cannot say that I would be as outgoing and in the action if I was presened with a random new group. I will have to test my improvements next term as I am assigned new groups.

 

 

On Wednesday we met briefly to discuss what it was we wish to take care of before we next met, which was earlier this evening. Today’s tasks consisted mainly of combining all the work that we have been doing into one final document. As we got everything in order, we all worked together to edit the document and make it flow nicely and in a singe voice. Communication was key during this phase of the project. It was essential that we confirmed any edits that we make as to avoid making further mistakes or perhaps even ruining someone’s hard work. Before we met today, I volunteered to adjust and create our per-final situation analysis. As I combined my segment with the others, I worked along everyone else with the the editing and finalizing process, where I was sure to effectively communicate anything that I was doing to our final GoogleDox document. Saturday, we plan on writing up the costs section as a team.

This week our group met on a few occasions while we worked to finish up the first draft of our memo. We approached this project by first making a general outline of what will go in each section of the memo. Afterwards, we split the memo into segments in which we each took home to complete. When we met again we combined our sections and then edited the paper as well as finished any last details together as a team.

During our next class section we received feedback from our teams. On of my main worries when initially starting this project was that I would be too reserved in my thought and ideas. My worries died as I observed my scores; I was pleasantly surprised. Some of my highlights included great participation and idea contributor. However, I still feel that I need to continue working on until it get to the point where I am comfortable with it and it comes naturally, as oppesed to having to put a stressing amount of effort into it. Also discovered through the evaluations that I need to work on slowing down and not jumping ahead, for this can cause extra stress and confusion for the team as a whole.

After hitting some roadblocks and falling behind from some of the other group, we have as a team been working very hard to not only catch up, but get ahead of many of the groups. We met everyday last Friday-Sunday last weekend and have been and will continue to do the same this weekend. At this point, we have a pretty clear idea of where we want to go with this project, and now we are pretty concerned with researching and also obtaining information from other LCB international students as to give us a even clearer and narrower path to follow.

I have noticed that we work very well as a group. Everyone contributes and each bring their own unique qualities to our project. Though I think we make great progress as a group, we do have our faults. For me personally, I think that I have detected another leadership issue that I need to work on.

I went into this project with the goal of speaking up and being a much greater contributor to the conversation process than I had in other groups. I do feel that I have shown improvement in this aspect thus far, and I am pretty proud of this. However, in doing so I notice new issues of mine; such as cutting someones idea off from the beginning. I don’t think I am alone in this, for I have seen others in the group doing the same. But I feel that when I do put myself out there to contribute to the conversations, I get nervous sometimes and run on adrenaline. I noticed that while in this ‘zone’, there was a couple times where I would unintentionally shut someone’s idea down. I would then feel very awful about this and this feeling lingers in for me a while. As I do work on being more outgoing, I will also have to work on perfecting this outgoing-ness if I ever want to make it a great leadership quality.