Favorite Concept

I enjoyed learning how to provide constructive feedback. For years, I have tried to sandwich any criticism I make between two things that are complementary to the person I am critiquing; however, properly doing constructive feedback takes this even further.

The authors of our book write, “offer constructive feedback that uses descriptive statements without judgment, labeling, or attribution of motives." They go on to provide guidelines for providing effective group feedback, which include, in their words:

• Talk first about yourself, not the other person
• Phase the issue as a statement, not a question
• Restrict your feedback to things you know for certain
• Provide positive feedback as well as negative
• Understand the context
• Don’t use labels
• Be careful not to exaggerate
• Do not be judgmental

All of these guidelines make sense to me. I like the concept of constructive feedback because it will help me when I am providing constructive feedback to my kids, my husband, my coworkers, even my boss. If I do it correctly by adhering to the guidelines, there’s much less of chance of offending the person to whom I am giving feedback. And there’s more chance that the person will take some of what I have to say to heart and possibly work on whatever behavior I am critiquing. In addition, when someone is critiquing my behavior, I will recognize that if they use these guidelines, they are trying very hard to give me truly constructive criticism, and I’m more likely to listen.

Looking back at this course

In this class, I learned to look at the groups to which I belong with new eyes. I find I sit in a board meeting and think, “he’s this type of leader” and sit in a newly formed group and think, “I can’t wait to get over the forming, storming and norming phases to get to the performing stage,” and yet now I now that all of these stages are necessary for the effective functioning of the group. In meetings at work, I watch how the members interact and the different roles they play. I watch how I interact and evaluate whether it’s effective.

My favorite thing about this class was actually attending the group for our group process. I have never been a part of a support group and really didn’t see how a group could help people. Through my observation, I saw how extremely helpful attending and participating in the group was to people as they learned that other people also shared their same issues and heard fresh ideas of how to cope and learned new skills that might help them with their issue. In addition, I enjoyed seeing the concepts I learned in this course in a real-life situation. It sure would be helpful to long-term retention if all courses had an opportunity for a practical application!

My least favorite thing in the class was studying for the quizzes and tests; however, I know that through the process I gained better retention f the material.

As far as how this class can be improved, I would only suggest that it be required that the first three postings be completed by midnight Wednesday so that the rest of the week would provide the opportunity to read all postings before responding to the required three. So many good postings came in on the last day to which I would have liked to respond; however, I’d already completed my responses by then and moved on to other work.

Group Observation Project

I thought the Group Observation Project was extremely useful in that it provided an opportunity to observe in real life what I had been learning. I learned that a structured group allowed the group to know what to expect, which put everyone at ease. I observed that five to seven group members really does make an effective group, whereas a group with two members definitely was counterproductive. I observed effective active listening being modeled by the group leader and adopted by the group members. I watched as the diversity of the group members helped the group come up with creative solutions.

The good part about the project was being required to attend at least two groups. If it hadn’t been a requirement, the learning I did while in this course would not have been reinforced. It was quite interesting to see the concepts we studied this semester played out in a real group. As I observed, I would say to myself, “Oh, that went well because the group is cohesive,” or, “he’s saying one thing, but his non-verbal language is saying another,” and so on.

As to how the project could be improved, I believe perhaps requiring three meetings rather than two might be helpful. Then if one of the two meetings is less than successful due to whatever reasons as happened in the second meeting I attended, the two more effective meetings would provide enough first-hand experience to use when writing the paper.

Total Quality Management (TQM)

I feel one concept that was interesting to me and needs more discussion than what is in the book is Total Quality Management (TQM), because putting it into practice has such potential for making an organization more effective. I read about it years ago and it made such sense to me. The authors of our book write that TCM “involves a comprehensive intervention that focuses all the organization system on the continuous improvement of quality.” The authors go on to explain that teams previously focused internally on the needs of the organization and externally on the customers of the organization, but now teams are more proactive versus just trying to fix problems.

Either way, I like this approach. As we learned, systems are responsive, interactive and interdependent. An organization is a system within a larger system. The actions an organization takes affects people in the organization, people with whom the organization deals, its customers, etc. If things aren’t going well in the organization, it makes sense to involve everyone in the system in finding ways to continually improve—management, employees, customers, suppliers, other organizations with whom the organization does business, etc. As we learned, diversity leads to more creative solutions, so the more people involved in continually improving, the better. As I wrote, TCM makes so much sense to me.

Collaborative conflict resolution

A collaborative conflict resolution I have been engaged in was with my husband. I was tired of doing most of the work at home. I was tired of having to always ask him to do something. I expected him to see what needed to be done and do it; but that never happened. So we had a discussion. I carefully defined the issue, that I was tired of doing most of the work around the house and couldn’t understand why he didn’t see what needed to be done and do it without me nagging him. Then I listened to his perspective, to what he had to say. It amazed me to hear him say that he was honestly clueless about what needed to be done and that if things went undone, it didn’t bother me as it did him. We were both open, careful and considerate in our conversation. He agreed with me that it wasn’t fair that I did most of the work. I asked him what we could do about it since it bothered me a lot. He suggested that I write down what I’d like him to do each day. I started writing it down and putting it on the refrigerator. That didn’t work since he said he didn’t notice the list. I asked him where I should put the list, and he suggested the bathroom mirror. Now it’s a rare day that I do all of the work anymore!

Forums, panels, colloquiums and symposiums

Forums, panels, colloquiums and symposiums are all means for making a public presentation, but each serves a different purpose. Forums enable a group to have full audience participation and are useful for speaking and listening to a larger audience. In a forum, a group presents to the larger audience and then the audience exams what was presented. Panels consist of a small group of experts discussing an issue or decision in front of an audience. The audience doesn’t get involved except possibly in a Q & A session after the discussion. Colloquiums entail a small group of experts with different views discussing a problem in order to identify, develop and work through solutions in front of an audience. The audience participates and benefits from the discussion of possible solutions to problems. Symposiums are the format for a few brief speeches on different aspects of a generally complex and difficult problem to help the audience understand complex technical information about the problem.

I prefer colloquiums. To me, this type of public presentation combines the two things I enjoy—listening to people who know what they are talking about and having a chance to participate and benefit from a discussion; hopefully resulting in finding some viable solutions to a problem.