Self-Reflection of the Collaboration of Forest and Ants

MGT 6209 High Performance Collaborations
Self-Reflection of the Collaboration of Forest and Ants

Huang Sudan, 52773196

1. Topic Choosing Experience

1.1 Detailed Information about This Experience

First of all, one of our teammates, who was regarded as our representative, sent an e-mail to our partner Ants. In this e-mail, we put forward that we should have a meeting to decide three points, including the topic (industry) which is the most vital one, main virtual approaches for discussion and schedule. And then we got the response which talked about virtual path from Ants’ representative. After, we established a QQ group which allows every member to discuss and share files together. From then on, we mainly used QQ as a tool to communicate. By using QQ, we talked about our topic and finally came up with a topic that everyone agreed about.     

1.2 Main Events, Reflection and Analysis

1.2.1 Points Neglect Issue

In our partner’s first reply, although they discussed with us carefully and sincerely, they still ignored two points included the topic and schedule.

The reason that I interpreted is that they thought that it was hard to discuss about topic and schedule through e-mail because of the limited length of e-mail. Therefore, they tried to determine the virtual communication method first.

My feeling was that why did not they made any comment about the other two points. And then I tried to guess the reason why they did so. Was it because of the carelessness or deliberate neglect? The reason of my reflection is that we knew nothing about each other. I did not know their personalities, working style and so forth.  Therefore, it was easier to result in misunderstanding. Another reason is that I supposed that even though responder thought it was difficult to talk about something by using e-mail, he or she should still mention these things in the e-mail. They could say that the topic and schedule can be discussed in the coming first meeting.

I think this issue can demonstrate a disadvantage and also a property of e-mail communication, the length of messages. When our team proposes multiple arguments in a lengthy e-mail message, the responder may concentrate only on those arguments that he or she found most concerning. These neglects may lead to some troubles. Mr. Friedman states that when a sender believes that the recipient has ignored parts of the message, the sender may suspect a violation of interaction norms. Misunderstandings can accumulate.[1]

I suppose that if this kind of misunderstanding has been accumulated from time to time, it may give rise to relationship conflict. Relationship conflict is a dysfunctional conflict that is usually detrimental to a group’s performance. We should avoid this type of conflict by setting group rules. The rule should set that the recipient should answer all points. Besides, other team members should point out this problem that if they discover something has been ignored. By this way, we can prevent accumulating misunderstanding, further, avoid relationship conflict.

1.2.2 Discussion Issue 

1.2.2.1 Email

Before we finally decided the topic within our own team Forest, one of our team members tried to discuss with us by means of e-mail. But eventually, this member said we did not use “reply to all” so that it was hard to discuss through e-mail and then we transferred to discuss through QQ.

The reason why did it happen is that some members including myself were not used to discuss through email because of different cultural background with that member who would like to discuss by using e-mail. Therefore, I was not familiar with e-mail discussion. I did not know I should reply to all when replied an e-mail. In the past, if I would like to discuss with a group of classmates, I tent to use QQ and Wechat. By this way, any message in the QQ group or Wechat group can be received by every members and I do not need to worry about who have not received the message.

I felt frustrated by this. I had not imagined that I would block the team discussion in terms of ignorance of using e-mail.

I think this issue indicates that technology cannot facilitate group work all the time. Only when people know how to use the technology and also use it in the right way can assist team work. So everyone should try to learn how to use the needed functions of the technology.  

I have learned a lesson from this event. If I find the information exchange is not effective, I will try to seek for the reasons behind. If it is because of the communication path and I know a lot about it, I can inform other members.  Additionally, Next time, if I work in a team, I will try to reach a consensus on informing every member all the functions we need before doing the team work if we require using a technology.

1.2.2.2 QQ

After we transferred to QQ discussion, we also encounter some problems. The main one and also the usual one is typing error.  One of our team members asked me to choose the topic from two options and then I chose one. And then this member said something that confused me and finally we found that it was because of the typing mistake.

The reason behind is that receiver unilaterally receive the information from the sender and the receiver usually assume that this information is correct in the virtual organization. But if this information is wrong, the communication will be hampered because recipient can hardly discover the mistake.          

I suppose that this indicate that correct typing is vital in the communication method which is focus on text. Typing wrong words can lead to difficulty in others’ comprehension. If the comprehension get into the wrong way, communication will also be blocked, further, the overall team performance can be influenced because of the time delay and the incorrect information exchange.  

I learn a lesson from this event. In order to avoid this type of mistake, I should check the message carefully before I send it to my team members. Moreover, if I find other members get my meaning or information wrong, I should review the messages which I sent so as to check whether there is some errors or not.

2. The Chosen Topic’s Detail Information Deciding Experience

After deciding the topic, we discussed about the location, target customers, main products, organization running process, union reason. However, we found it difficult to decide these things by using the QQ discussion group. Hence we transferred to discuss through video chatting.

There are some reasons for this. In the QQ discussion group, every one of us shared idea without any meeting recorder and summarizer. Some people said our company should be an international firm while some people said it should be a local firm only. When it comes to the target customers, some member said high-class market is better but some member said public marker makes sense. In terms of organization running process, some people preferred to set up a theme café to sell both products while some preferred to sell products through online shop. By this way, we could not reach any agreement. And also, typing words in the online chatting group was low-efficiency as well because every one of us had to type the alphabet one by one.  

My reaction about this was that this meeting was a kind of chaos and it wasted our time. Every member tended to come up with ideas but no one contributed to select and summarize all the ideas and ask member to vote for the final choice.

I think event is related to knowledge management. Every member’s idea is the original data. The original data is multifarious and some of them are useless or repetitive. To prevent collecting those useless and repetitive data, we need to manage data. Selecting the useful data and summarizing the repetitive data and then they are switched into information. The information can be used to make decisions.

             

Through this event, we have learned that knowledge management is significant so that we need to assign someone as recorder and summarizer at the meeting and imply this approach into the coming meeting. Therefore, I played this role in the coming video discussion and the precise process is as follows. First of all, we talked about the main points that should be decided in the meeting and then discussed one by one. Then, every one aimed at the specific point to share his or her idea with explanation. And then I tried to summarize all the ideas. If several different ideas had been proposed within the whole team, we voted for them and the one got most votes was regarded as our final decision. Eventually, I recorded the final decision for every discussing point and then sent to my teammates.

Because of this adjustment, we made our decision efficiently. We used less time but decided more things than before.

3. The Major Conflict

3.1 Relationship Conflict

3.1.1 Culture Factor

The first culture shock stems from different languages. Although all of our team members come from the same country, we still faced some culture shock in this team work. Some of us are from mainland china and some of us are from Hong Kong. Some of our members cannot understand Cantonese so that they need to communicate in Pongtonghua. So members from Hong Kong tried to speak in Pongtonghua but sometimes they did not know how to express their views exactly because limited Pongtonghua communication level. Hence I played the role as a translator at the video discussion because I am familiar with both of these two languages.

Initially, our feeling included mine was that it was interesting and exciting to communicate with different languages. But after half an hour, we found that we just had decided two points but there were still many points left. We felt worried since this kind of communication was inefficiency. Translating language wasted our time and we should seek for change. Finally, we changed to speak English during the discussion so that everyone can understand and communicate smoothly.

I think this event prove that the common language can help to communicating with teammates, further it helps to enhance the efficiency of team work and consequently benefits the overall performance of a team.

I have learned that people should seek one kind of language that everybody understand when they work as a team and also I should try to learn more languages in order to communicate with others fluently.

And another culture shock was about the culture background. The differences between cultures can differentiate the working style, communication style and so forth. One of the cultures tended to focus on the detail and people from this background considered and checked the detail things carefully. The other one of the cultures concentrated on the whole situation so that people from this background was more likely to figure out the structure or outline. Therefore, it was common that some people thought others focused too much on the specific parts and some of these did not need to be concerned while some people supposed that others put forward with something that was full of leaks. Sometimes this situation could make argument within the team.

I think that this kind of conflict can result in good outcome if we use the right communication or discussion skills. Before state our own ideas, we should praise the advantage of others’ ideas first. This type of skill can show that we come up with ideas on the basis of respecting and approving others’ views so that we will not make others embarrassed. A good discussion atmosphere is beneficial for decision making because everyone will be willing to share his or her ideas and accept others’ good suggestions, further reach a consensus.

3.1.2 Personality Factor

Some of our teammates showed some personalities that hampered the team work. For example, lack of patience. People who tend to present impatient are mainly because of the personality of impatience. Patience is important when people work as a team because lack of patience in listening to others can lead to misunderstand others’ views and also make others uncomfortable for being stopped frequently.

Therefore, I have learned that we should always try to listen to others patiently and also carefully. This can give other teammates a good impression and then help to build a good relationship with teammates. Hence they will more willing to share ideas and talk with us, further make the discussion smoothly and achieve a good team performance.

4. Conclusion

Overall, in this first stage, we made a decision about the topic together. We used the e-mail and QQ as the communication platform and we talked together frequently. During some of these meetings, some group members had made some commitments such as establishing a QQ discussion group and discussing within small group first and then discussing together. All these commitments had been kept perfectly. I think the first stage of our team work is good but there are still some improvements we should make.  And in the second stage, the communication platform transferred from QQ chatting to video chatting. I suppose that this group work is becoming better than before and we are more likely to complete a high quality project. In terms of the conflict, all of us make efforts to reduce conflict and eliminate conflict.

Reference

1. Raymond A. Friedman. E-Mail Escalation: Dispute Exacerbating Elements of Electronic Communication