Reflection Paper 1

Team Forgotten

 Reflection Paper #1

 Forming the Forgotten

             We’re going to focus on our first formal meeting as a group. The seven of us met on the 3rd floor of Milner library on September 12, 2013 during our usual class time. We met to work on this paper as well as our group proposal, webpage and mission statement. This meeting serves as our first true meeting as a group and is a perfect example of the concept of, “group forming.” 

             Forming is a concept we covered in chapter 5 of our textbook. In the forming phase, group members meet with everyone to face issues such as inclusion, dependency and group work ethic. Members ask themselves questions like, “What will the other members think of my ideas?” and “What will the group ask of me?” At this point the text tells us that we will not entirely trust each other. Discussions are of an exploratory nature and members try to find their place and confirm their perceptions of the other people in the group. (p.94) The text also states that conversations at this point are usually superficial and may not focus directly on the task at hand. 

             All of these components manifested in our group in various ways; since this was our first time spending a substantial amount of time together. For example the issue of inclusion appeared in our way of assigning work to various members of the group. For everyone to feel included dividing the workload became a necessity. If we were to try to do one task at a time with the whole groups input we would not have gotten the work done in a timely manner. We think it worked out really well because although everyone was working on separate assignments, we were still helping each other by having group discussions about the material. 

             The next component we found happening in our group was the issue of dependency. Since we were all relatively new to each other we did not know how dependable others would be in sharing the work load. For instance the basic issue of when and where to meet came up. Not only were we unsure of where to have our meeting, there was also the question of whether or not everyone would even show up to the location. We initially did not know each other well so there was a lot of apprehension obscuring our initial communication. This led to questions of whether or not people could be depended on. When we met at Milner library for the first time group members arrived at all different times but we all showed up eventually. Even this simple problem led to uneasy thoughts as to the dependency of each other. 

             Our group work ethic mattered to us a great deal from the moment we met each other. We wanted to be sure that everyone would work as hard as possible. We knew if everyone carried an equal share of the work there would be no cause for conflict in terms of who should be doing what. We also divided work up in a way that was fair to everyone. We also remained positive with each other so no one got overwhelmed with their individual efforts. There was a huge push to get all the work done quickly so we did not have to worry about it throughout the next week.</o:p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:26px;">             Forming was involved in literally every step of our first meeting. When we read the material initially it was hard to see how all these aspects would play out in reality. As it turns out the steps that go into forming do exist in the material world. So I suppose we do in fact agree with the text, at least in the case of our group. In Facilitating Group Communication in Context it states, “The role of groups is important in every segment of society.” Learning how to work in groups is essential for future business work. We learned a lot from this experience. We learned how to work together as well as what kind of people we are. We gained a better understanding of each other and how this project will play out in the coming months. This first meeting established some of our norms and how we will perform as a group. This was a good time to get to know each other and learn more about each other’s personalities and work ethics.