Individual
Blog Reflection
.
Conflicts
in our team
Actually, it also has some conflicts in our group; first of all, we should choose a communicate tool with the night team. Our team prefers to use WeChat, nevertheless, night team would like to use WhatsApp. Both of us give some reasons that why we choose our preferable communication tools. In the beginning, none of us would like to yield. However, considering the solidarity and the further corporation with the night team, we choose to yield. Although it involves giving in completely to the other side’s wishes, with little attention to our own interests, we tackle it in a peaceful way. At last, we spent eight HKD to download the WhatsApp.
In the first conflict, I also want to use the five stages of conflict to analyze it.
The first stage is potential opposition or
incompatibility.
In the first
stage, it has three aspects, communication, structure, personal value.
I suppose we
belong to the personal value. Joe and Chris are from Hong Kong; Monkey, Jake
and I are from Mainland. Both of us receive different styles of education,
cultures and use diverse communication apps. This all could be the reason of
the potential opposition.
In the second stage, it is cognition and personalization.
It includes awareness of conditions in stage 1 and the conditions cause some
sort of frustration. When we discuss about the communication tool, the
potential conflict appears.
The third stage is intentions. It includes
competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating. Although we
are not very willing to use Whatsapp, we also compromise to use it. It is a situation
in which our team to a conflict is willing to give up something.
The fourth stage is behavior. In this
stage, we have decided to choose Whatsapp that frustrate our team’s interest.
The fifth stage is outcome. It includes
functional outcomes from conflict, creating functional conflict and
dysfunctional outcomes from conflict. We got a functional outcome from the
conflict. It helps us to communicate with each other more effectively than
before.
In our group, we also have another conflict, when we first time to have discussion in the
class, or did some practice in our class, someone should be a representative to
present our conclusion and perspective. However, none of us would like to
present, after our negotiation, we choose Monkey was the first one to present
the content, and me and Jake in return in the next opportunity. We find a
mutually beneficial solution to the disagreement. When we present, it is a good
opportunity to practice our oral English and presentation skills. I suppose it
is a three-three orientation.
The third
conflict
is the timing between our two teams. Firstly, when we communicate with each
other through emails, when we send the email to the night team, they reply us
within 2 days, we suppose it is too late, asked they reply as quickly as
possible, however, they said they are on duty in the daytime, maybe time is
limited. But at last, we reach an agreement; we should reply the email within
one day. It is more effective than
before. Moreover, in order to communicate with each other more effective, we
decide to have a skype meeting, however, time is a big problem, sometimes they
are available for that time, but we could not, sometimes we are available for
that time, but they could not. But after our negotiation, we decided to choose
the time when they have a class in the night. The time issue satisfies both sides
interest. Both of us satisfied the final agreements. We share our information initiatively
in this issue; find a decent way to tackle these two problems, because
information sharing is a significant feature of this style because both parties
collaborate to identify common ground and potential solutions that satisfy
everyone involved.
The
fourth conflict is about the logo for the group. At first, our group
just had two team members, Monkey and me. However, in the second class, the schedule
has been changed. Every group should have three team members. Hence, Jake
joined our team. Meanwhile, Monkey and I discussed the topic about choose which
logo be our team logo as followed.
Monkey prefers
to the first logo, he thought is more active and vigorous. It represents
our young people’s image. However, I supposed the second logo is more suitable,
the first logo seemed like a little bloody and unfriendly. The second logo gives
a sense of steady and friendly. It makes people feel more comfortable than the second
logo. We have distinctive perspective for the team logo. Meanwhile, Jake also
participated in the discussion between us, and he also preferred the second
logo. After some minutes, monkey yield to choose our idea. I suppose during
this discussion, we experienced the soft negotiation. Both of us are
cooperative, we didn’t yield or avoid. Choosing more suitable logo is our
outcome and goal. During the discussion, we trust the other. Monkey also made
concessions to build relationship, because the relationship is quite significant
for the future corporation between us. So he changed his positions easily and
yielded to pressure.
Successful
Corporation
I suppose the virtual team corporation is successful
between our team and night class team. I will analyze it through opportunity
and challenges, strong leadership, build trust, develop self-management and
managing virtual teams.
Opportunity
and Challenges
For all of us, managing the virtual world is a new
word to us. In our group, we lacked working experiences, and both of us are
fresh graduates. However, after a semester’s virtual experience, I suppose it
is a desirable way to corporate with others. It could save time and expenses. We
could connect with each other span across spatial distance and multiple time
zones. Except use the email to communicate with each other, the two teams also
want to decide an Apps to enhance the efficiency of the communication. After we
compromised to choose WhatsApp be our communication tool. We are not very
familiar with the tool. It is a challenge for us, because it inhibits the
cultural change needed at the team level to support virtualized work properly. However,
we tried our utmost to adapt it as soon as possible, and both of us are quick
learner. We could master the tool well.
Secondly, the
strong leadership is among us. Actually,
in our team, we don’t have a team leader. But we could share the responsibility
of the leader. For example, Jake is good at technology knowledge, and he could
build the blog and be very sensitive to the software. Once it generated some
problems about the technology, he is very willing to lead us to tackle the
related problems, and he could give us the decent support to solve it. Afterwards,
take me for example about the sharing leadership. When we have videoconferencing
with the night team, the communication seems like a problem. Because they can’t
speak Mandarin, and Monkey and Jake can’t speak Cantonese. But we thought if we
speak English is quite weird as both of us are Chinese. Nevertheless, I could
master Mandarin and Cantonese, so when we have a videoconferencing, I lead us
to communicate with each other and help team members to articulate their
perspective more clearly. Through my leadership in this aspect, team members
could receive information for the project and feel connected and engaged.
Thirdly, build trust. Trust is a significant
component of many interpersonal relationships and interactions, including
face-to-face and virtual teams. Members in high-performing teams have high
level of trust in one another. Monkey, Jake and I build the trust easily. We
meet with each other in every class, and we also share some interesting topics
and events recently to each other not only in the classroom but also after
class, like have a lunch or dinner. We build a Wechat discussion room, sharing
some stimulating pictures or desirable music in it. Hence, this project boost
the good friendship between us, so trust is an essential factor to do the
project for us. However, developing trust in virtual teams consisting of
diverse members with little or no history of working together. We just could
get information about Chris and Joe from their blog. Sometimes the deadline is
short and no fact-to-face time to establish trust, the team members relied on
expectations of trust from other settings that were similar. When we had the
first virtual meeting, they could illustrate many constructive ideas and
suggestion to us. It showed that before the videoconferencing, they prepared
well. The most important thing is that they are trustworthy. Maybe our teams
are not the very high-performing teams, but I suppose we build the decent
levels of trust in one another.
Fourthly, manage virtual teams. I suppose the
Professor Frank could be regard as the leader in the whole semester. Some areas
could be addressed to maximize productivity for the virtual teams.
Firstly,
is the task right for a virtual team?
I suppose
the final project is quite suitable for the collaboration of virtual teams. The
task is a little challenge for us, but I suppose if we put many efforts on it,
we also could gain a success and learn much stuff from the virtual
collaboration. Chris and Joe have a lot of working experience, and they could
use the experience to broaden the project more practical. Monkey, Jake and I
also received many years’ education, and we could utilize the knowledge pools
to complete the task.
Second,
does the organization support a virtual team? Actually I
suppose Frank paid a lot of efforts on the virtual team’s constructions. He is
a very responsible professor. In the beginning of the class, we are not very familiar
with the project as most of us are the first time to engage in the virtual
collaboration. But he is always very patient to us and answers our questions in
every detail. When we do the presentations, he always the most careful
listener, he could provide many useful advices to us. Our team also benefit
from his suggestions. When we submit the report to him, although the workforce
is huge, we could see that he read every report very carefully, and the
suggestions are also very constructive to us. All in all, the organization definitely
supports the virtual team.
Conclusion
I suppose our team coordinate the work well, when we
discuss the project, all of us could propose our ideas and combine the ideas
into our project. Our group actively makes a decision. We also learned much
knowledge through the whole master. However, sometimes we didn’t finish some
projects or assignments very well as it is a little superficial, we could pay
more attention on it and give more related references to enable the project
more professional. We should enhance our knowledge management to tackle this
problem, master more explicit knowledge, like from database, reports, papers
and son on. Afterwards, use this knowledge to analyze the project.
Reference:
Golnaz Sadri and John Condia, January 2012, Managing the Virtual World
Andrew Hargadon and Robert I. Sutton, May 2000, Havard Business Review, Building Innovation Factory
Price, Deborah Evans,10/23/2010,COMMUNITY CHEST. Vol. 122 Issue 42
