Reflection on the Group Dynamic (1)

Last Friday, we had the group meeting to prepare for our presentation on power and social influence. Before this face-to-face meeting, we created a Google+ group and throw out ideas. Honestly, I do not think that the online discussion was very productive. While it did help with brainstorming since no idea was shut down, there was not many practical and specific ideas that could help us develop the framework and  the content of the presentation. Also, because of our different schedule, we didn't have a time to be online together and chat lively. To some degree, I believe, it interrupted the natural flow of minds, and create barriers for us to build on each other's ideas.  Therefore, after a week of online communication, we made little progress and still feel lost about the assignment. 

During this period, there was not a leader in our group. April created the online discussion group,  but there was no authority associated with it. We relied more on personal motivation, peer pressure and the pressure from our grades in this class. At this point, we were still a loose-organized group, or we are experiencing the forming stage, 

In the class on last Monday, seeing the progress in other groups, Melissa began to panic. I also felt a little nervous, and realized the urgency of a fece-to-face meeting. Actually, I thought we should have the meeting in the beginning of the process, but I reserved the idea because I knew that both of my partners works full time, and an extra meetin might be too demanding. Since they believed that we could accomplish the task online, and we still had time to try it out, why not give it a shot. Even if it did wort out, we could fix it in the last week. However, when it came to the last week before the presentation and our online discussion was not fruitful enough, I made up my mind to propose and schedule a face-to-face meeting. 

It turned out to be quite easy to settle the time and location for the meeting. There was no resistance or reluctance to it as I expected. I think the reasons might me the urgency of the task and the unsatisfactory  result of the online meeting. I do not regret that I didn't propose the meeting in the beginning. If I did that, probably someone would feel resistant to it because there might be more efficient to do it online. It could be my problem with the technology, and the other group members might do perfectly well with it.   If this was the case, I should try to catch up with the group, but not ask them to accommodate me. After we tried the online discussion and failed to accomplish the task, all of us were on board that we need a real meeting. The commitment to this decision wipe out any potential resistance to it. Also, maybe we were not ready to have the meeting in the beginning yet, and the online brainstorming provided some grounds for us to start with in the meeting. 

When settling down the time and location of the meeting, April acted as a cheer leader. She brought into our group her personality and the experience of preparing for presentations, and assured us that we would nail it. Her enthusiasm contribute to our confidence, and prepared the group for a positive and productive meeting. 

At this point, I think we had finished forming stage, and moving into storming and performing.

About Open Space Technology

Last week we had experienced Open Space Technology (OST) as participants and reflected on the process and the result. What I was surprised about were how the dynamic was promoted among us, and how the relevance and the urgency of the topic mattered.

As stated in the book, OST is good for a group of two as well as a group of two thousand. I was skeptical about that, especially about how it might work in a small group and how it would inspire ideas from a limited number of group members. The facilitation we had last class wiped away my doubts and convinced me of the adaptability of OST. We have seven students and two of them were instructor that night. We had no idea that three of the left five group members would not show up until the beginning of the class. Knowing that there were only two of us and Dr. Hurst as the group members in the facilitation process, we got in a slight panic. I was not sure how we would conduct a one-hour meeting without nearly half of the classmates.

Since the morale was low, the facilitators tried to cheer us up by quoting the book "whoever shows up is the right person", and began to lead us into the process. Once we were able to start the conversation, it began to flow naturally. Group members selected the topic they were interested and abandoned those bored them. It was so obvious that once the energy drained, the group would sense it and try to gain it back by negotiating and switching to another topic. In the process, the number of participant did not seem to cause problems. Oppositely, it helped in several ways. First, it helped eliminate the chance for chit-chat. Since everyone was “under the spot light” in the small group, we were all focusing on the core issue. There was little irrelevant chat. Second, it entitled each member enough time to develop her ideas as thoroughly as possible. Extra time for each member allows not only chances to speak, but also chances to think. We dug into our minds and tried to contribute to the topic in a more sophisticated way.

One key element to keep the conversation flow is the choice of topics. Only when the topic is relevant, urgent and clearly identified, will the OST process be productive and meaningful for the individuals. In our last class, the facilitators prepared two topics, and we didn't react to them passionately because they were too general. We had problems narrowing them down to one specific aspect that is relevant and urgent to us. Then I offered a topic based on a story of my friend. It seemed to be a little more concrete, but still caused a lot of silence because none of us was a part of the organization. Our conversation was energized when we switched the topic to the branding of our AL program. All of the people presented are part of the organization, and this issue directly affects our social identity. We want people to understand this program so that they will understand part of who we are as graduate students from this program. All of us were contributing to this topic and a lot of interesting ideas were generated. I could see how ideas were not just exchanged, but actually building on each other.

It was a great learning experience. I am thinking about how to incorporate what I have learned about OST to my class with freshmen. Maybe I can present what they need to achieve in the end of the semester according to the curriculum, and ask them to decide how they would like to work towards it.

The Paradox of Authority and Some Political and Social Issues in China

Last class we taked about the paradox of authority. It is a very democratic idea that authorizing others is the best way to solidify the authority of oneself. I use the word "democratic" because it reminds me of some political and social problem in China.

We are a group as a nation, and the government is the group leaders in power. To facilitate the group development, the leader should create a open communication with the group by empowering the members and  inspire the best performance of them. I wish this is what we do in China now, but it is not. We are experiencing the opposite of democratic open communication.

First, the leaders should recognize the importance and benefits of open communication and diverse opinions, and be consistant in their words and behaviors. The chairman and other top leaders of China has expressed how much they value the voice from the people in public speaking. However, the national and states policies are telling a different story. Those policies promote the conformity to the central government and eliminate critiques to it. For example, more than one major international website, including Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, have been censored by the government to tranquilize the voices that challenge its authority. On Weibo (Chinese Twitter), those messages that disclose major social events that are against the government and criticize governmental behaviors will be deleted by the order from the government. In this way, the group leaders are not using their power to facilitate communication and healthy group development, but silence the members to maintain the appliance of stability. Unfortunately, the repression of open communication does not help reduce resistance, but actually promote it. People may be silent, but they will be rebellious in their minds. In a society, the hint of rebellion is usually the seed of a influential revolution.

Second, according to the chapter, smart leader will authorizing group members to act on themselves in order to solidify their leading position. However, the Chinese government seems to be more interested in de-powering the people instead of empowering them. There are some important sign of the empowered citizens. They should be able to select the leaders that represent their intrest and de-authorizing them when they are not. They should be motivated to contribute the best to the society because of a fair rewarding system. Their personal assets should be respected and protected by the laws. Sadly, most of what I see is how the laws and the government are striping the rights of the people and centralizing the power and maintain its control over the people. According to some Chinese law, individual should never own any land. We can purchase an apartment and use it for 70 years at most. After 70 years, the real estate property will automatically belong to "the country" as public asset. The worst part is, despite the fact that we see how these policies affect the people negatively and does not serve to inspire the best of each social member, there is no way for us to veto it. The leaders seize the power in their hands and protect it from the people.

I believe these are part of the reasons why many Chinese people, especially the younger generation, are disappointed by the government, desire for change, but do not know how to change. The centralization of authority drains the energy and creativity of the group members, which should be the rich sources of ideas and possibilities. I really hope that the country leaders will see these points earlier and spare no efforts to work out effective ways to empower the people and promote sustainable development.

Competition within a group

This week we talked about competition and cooperation, which is also a pair of paradox. On one hand, we want to be in a group and cooperate to achieve our common goal better, while on the other hand, we want to stand out from the group and be the star. Either too much competition or too much cooperation will hurt the efficiency of the group. Therefore, we are often in the struggle to balance cooperation and competition in group life.

In our discussion of the negative effects of competition within a group, several aspects were brought up. First, it confuses member about the group's goal. Competitions with in a group are partially resulted from the differences between the group goal and the individuals' goals. When competitions get intense, group members may care too much about the realization of their personal goals  and neglect the big picture. As a result, the group goal may be blurred. Second, it hinders the honest communication and normal interaction among group members. When be in competitions, individuals are usually reluctant to share information and afraid that others will use those information against them. Instead of working as one group, people may form several sub-groups to compete on their interest. Consequently, the group's energy will be distracted. When the competition is between the leaders of the group, it hurts much more in both the two aspects.  I had experienced that in our Students Union.

As I mentioned in our class, I served as the Vice President in the Student Union in my college, and was in a competition with the President, Chen. Since the first semester in that position, I tried in many ways to show my leadership and authority over the group by leading meetings, taking part in making decisions and implementing them. When the competition got intense in the end of the semester, I sometimes made decisions without her permission in advance, but just informed her about the decision aftermath. I knew that it upset her a lot sometimes, but I felt good when I was the one who contributed the most to my beloved organization and enjoyed the appreciation I thought I deserved.

However, one thing happened in the beginning of the second semester and changes my attitude. I texted all the leaders of the Student Union and each department about the meeting arrangement, and Chen replied saying that the time had to be changes for some reasons. Automatically I thought that she replied to all those who I texted to,  and felt offended. I texted her to explain why the meeting had to be at that time, and sent another message to all leaders to ask them ignore Chen's message and to reaffirm the meeting time. Soon after my second message, anther Vise President called me and pointed out my mistake. At that moment, I felt so humiliated and ashamed, because I just realized I was tearing my organization apart.

Looking back to the period of our competition, I realized how much confusion and miscommunication I had caused in the group. When in the competition, one of my individual goal was to outshine Chen, and be the super star in the group. Therefore, although I loved my organization so much, and want to do whatever that served it best, my judgement was severely biased because I didn't want to implement what Chen said. Inevitably, I rejected some very good ideas from her, which might have a negative impact on the organization. The competition confused my judgement, but also other group members'. In the text message mistake, the receivers must had been confused by the two messages because the second did not make sense to them. They might not be sure about when the meeting should be, and might wonder what had happened between Chen and me. In a word, the unhealthy competition led to a series of misunderstand and questions.

While there were questions, no one asked them or tried to clarify them because of the obvious tension among the two leaders, Chen and me. Chen and I never had a open conversation about our competition, and always maintained a smile in front of others. We communicated less and less when co-leading a project, which resulted in poor quality and pointless effort. Gradually, it became apparent that although we are both competent for our tasks,  whenever we need to cooperate closely, we messed up the task. The negative feelings went beyond our work place and reached our personal life. Before we got the position, we were close and hung out together with the same group of friends. However, due to the escalating competition, we hung out much less and had separate groups of friends.

With the realization that how I was not contributing to the group but destroying it, I decided to step back and respect her position as she deserved. What made me delighted was that when retiring from the position, I was appreciated for my contribution no less than Chen or other Vise President. It was a fantastic learning experience, and I feel grateful that I had it in my college but not my real job.

If I Had A Second Chance to Deal With the Change

In our discussion, we talked a lot about change strategies. It not only benefit a change agency in understanding how to promote and process a change, but also help people ideal with changes in their lives.  One point emphasized in our class discussion is that we need to be open to changes, and try to adapt to them if it has been initiated. If we keep resisting those inevitable changes, it may bring negative effect to the organization and ourselves. One example is my second semester in high school.

In the first semester, I was in a Level-B class. In the beginning of the second semester, I choose to be a student of liberal art, and got upgraded to a Level-A class. It was a big change for me, and I messed it up in that semester. Most of the 64 students in this new class were originally from other Level-A classes, so that they knew each other and they were generally recognized as the smartest and most promising students in the school. I felt honored, but also margined when joining this class. I was embarrassed about my background and thought I was less intelligent than my classmates. What was worse, I had no friend here, and felt uncomfortable to make friends with those studying machines. Therefore, I resisted to the change, to the new teachers and classmates hugely, and always went to other classes to see my old friends. In the end of that term, my grade went down severely, and I felt lonely and stupid.

If I had a second change to deal with this change, I would do it differently. First, I will make myself understand that this is a change I have to embrace, and I will benefit a lot from it. At that time, my mind was so locked in my small circle that I gave up many changes to see the world outside. I should have been more open-minded and step out to meet new people and try new ways of learning.  Second, I will better define my position in the new class. I was very unconfident about my learning ability when comparing with other students from Level-A classes. However, I should have known that since I was selected to join them, I was fully qualified for this. Also, I ranked in the middle, but not the last in the beginning of the semester. If I had had analyzed these facts and evaluated myself properly, I could have an optimistic attitude in the new semester. Third, I will avoid my biased assumptions about the new classmates and try to know people around me better. At that time, I just assumed that they were studying machines that were only interested in taking exams. Therefore, I decided that we would have nothing in common and could not be friends.  Apparently my assumption was not true. Only when I began to communicate with them later did I realize how similar we were and how much we enjoyed the company of each other. The stereotype of the best students colored their images in my eyes and contributed to my resistant to the change and the new group.

There are a lot of unavoidable changes in life. Despite our resistance to them, those changes take place anyway. Denial and resistance may be our first reaction to them, but never the best. The only choice leaf to us is to adapt to them. Beside our own effort to handle them, the organizations or the groups involved in the changes should also support individuals as much as possible in the change process. In the change described above, if I were a teacher in that class, I would do more to support students like me.  First, I will try to promote the new identity of the class. I will make it explicit that although students bring different backgrounds, they are equally important and appreciated in this group.  By creating a vision of friendship and mutual support, I could help eliminate some students’ sense of inferiority and union the class. Second, the specific issues with some students will be the hurdles in the change, and I will be responsible to help the students overcome them via communication. There are probably issues that are not addressed in large group communication and need to be discussed in a more private setting. As a teacher in the new class, if I notice that there is one mal-performing student, I would have an open conversation with her and find out the root of problem and help solve it.  Third, besides the fulfillment of the group task, I will concern more about the social relationship of the group. As a teacher, I will not only focus on the grades of my students, but the interaction among them. Although the people issue seems to be minor since each student study for himself, it could influence the dynamic of the class in a long term, and consequently affect the performance of each student.  Only when these issued are adequately addressed, can the group develop healthily in the future.

Paradox of sisterhood

This post is inspired by Smith's explanation of the paradox of belonging (1997) and our class discussion (personal communication, February, 4, 2013). In Smith's book, the paradox of belongs exams the link between individual identity and group identity. There are four aspects of it, including the paradox of identity, involvement, individuality and bounties. When talking about the paradox of individuality, we summarized that it concerns the balance of individuals and the group. On the one hand, it is a human nature to be in a group and pursue acceptance and company from others. On the other hand, once included in a group, individuals want to stand out from the ordinary. Here comes the paradox.

Someone in class brought the example of twins to demonstrate the applicability of this theory. It just reminded me of my relationship with my sister (more accurately, my cousin). Two of us are like a group, and suffer from the paradox of individuality all the time, especially when we were younger.

My sister is nearly 5 years older than me. She lives in a big city that is 3-hours drive away from my small city. We usually have chances to spend a week together during each Spring festival and summer holiday. We miss each other a lot when we are apart, and are excited about each time we meet. The first two days together are always sweet and warm. We chats a lot and share secrets. She likes to bring me cute accessories, while I am her loyal admirer and follower. We are like an inseparable pair. However, problems emerge later on the third or fourth day. We begin to disagree with where to go or what to do. We may fight for the chance to sit in the front seat in a car, the chance to sleep with our grandma, or the control of the TV remoter. Things change again in the last one of two days, when we realize that we are going to be parted again. We become close and appreciate each other again, and feel reluctant to say goodbye. As my mom says, we can neither be apart nor be together.

This is a typical picture of the group life of my sister and I. There are three clear stages. It starts with harmonious group life. In this stage, the “groupness” dominants our relationship. We form a group “to meet intimacy and social needs” (Smith, 1997, p. 101). In the group, we provide each other the sense of need and always make and commit to our group decision. We are willing to scarify individually to please each other and maintain the group. Two days later, when the excitement fades away and our individualities are over repressed by the “groupness”, we feel uncomfortable about the relationship and fight to express ourselves as an individual. This is the rebounce of individuality resulted from mal-proportioned sense of group. However, the balance hasn’t been achieved until the third stage, when we reflect on the first two stages and become more rational about our relationship. We express our love to each other with respect and appreciate both individual and the group.

One interesting fact is that this cycle of paradox repeats itself years until a few years ago when I went to university and my sister began to work. For nearly twenty years before that, we always entrapped in the same paradox and learn to solve it again and again. I guess on of the reason is that we were young and immature, so that it was easy for us to repeat some mistakes. Also, each time we met, things were more or less different. In this way, we were always forming a new group, which was likely to suffer from this paradox. Now, although we have less time with each other, we have formed a mature group despite the physical distance, so that we cherish relationship and appreciate our time together much more.

Credo

The only thing that does not change is CHANGE.

This is what I have learned in my high school political class, which echos with the theme in this class.

In all kinds of changes, the most powerful word is COMMUNICATION. Through communication, each element in a change will be organically connected and serves the big picture. 

In the beginning, through communication, people realized the urgency for change, share the vision for the change, union those who share the passion and the goal for change, and form the team that will lead the change. 

During the change, communication helps clarify the steps, optimize team work, promote changes in the larger group, share the experience of victories and concerns, and maintain the morale even the end is not clear at the certain point.

In the final phase, communication serves as a way of reflection and learning. People share and learn from their experience, internalize the change, and be on the lookout for new changes.