One of my biggest strengths on working with others is my accountability. With group projects like this I am especially motivated to get my work done and do an extraordinary job because if I don’t not only am I letting myself down, but I am letting the people around me down as well. There is evidence for this in both my peer evaluation reports as well as our peer feedback sessions. My teammates spoke to how accountable I was with my work. I said I wanted to improve in the area of relationship management when it came to emotional intelligence, and for the most part I did. Over the course of the term our team grew closer and was able to enjoy each other’s company more, so it didn’t always feel like a chore to meet up and work on the project. This shows that we grew in the area of bond building. Also with my effective contributions to the team, it proved my effectiveness with teamwork and collaboration.
However, there is still one area of relationship management that I did not grow in as much I wanted. On our peer feedback forms, all of my improvement sections were related to communication and how I could’ve spoken up more during our group meetings. This was disappointing to me, because this was one of the things I was focusing on throughout the term. I thought that my reflections after each meeting were helping me grow as a communicator and be more effective. I felt like I did a good job of contributing in each meeting, but obviously it was not enough. I have identified some ways I can improve on this in the future. First, it would be beneficial for me to continually check in with my teammates to see how they feel about my level of contribution. This way not only will I be receiving good feedback, but my teammates will see that I’m really invested and care about the project. With the feedback evaluations it was tough to see that because we only did it once while the project was going on, and when the second one came around, there was nothing more to be done. Another thing I can do to improve my communication skills is brainstorm points ideas to bring up in meetings and come prepared with those. Even though I contributed in every meeting, I was never the person to start discussion at the beginning of meetings or lead the discussion throughout.
Another way I was effective working with my teammates was helping out with roles I wasn’t necessarily assigned. For our first presentation, I was one of the three people who did not have to present to the class. Despite this, I still went to the meetings of the three presenters and their practices to give them any feedback I could and act as an audience. I was the only one of the three non-presenters to do this, and my teammates appreciated it. One part of my peer feedback report said “Created the powerpoint for our presentation and also showed up to all presentation meetings, despite not being a part of the presentation.” This shows that I’m a team player and am willing to contribute in any way I possible can.