7.

The group was a combination of people from diverse backgrounds, places and working
experiences. In the starting there was some friction between some group members as they found
it adjusting with new place and new atmosphere, but the group tasks started so soon and that
didnt let the group form an informal collaboration and bonding with each other . In the starting,
members like Mridul, Swati and Visesh (they were the low participators) didnt show up for
assignments at all or who showed up so late when the assignment was almost over. This was
mainly because they are unable to adjust to the new system and the group here. They wanted to
participate, but they felt some sort of discomfort and they are unable to adjust to the group and
assignments that were given. On the other hand, most of the times people like me and Santosh
(they were the high participators) did most of the work and this pressurized them more as they
had some other things to do as well. But they never complained about the people who didnt
showed up. I felt some sort of discontent with the low participating members (who didnt show
up for assignments and who showed up to do some last minute nominal work).
This led to some discrepancies in the group. There were no discussions on the case analysis and
work was distributed and these two people usually ended up doing most of the work. The other
reasons for these high and low participations in the groups was because of over enthusiasm of
people like Siva. He was so interested in marketing, he did most of the case not letting the people
to do anything who comes last to do the group assignment. So sometimes when people wanted to
do also they didnt have any part left in that assignment. We tried to talk to him about it but then
the next time these low participators didnt turn up and Siva again did most of the work. I wanted
a strong identity about himself among the group members, this happened with Santosh too. So
then we all discussed and came up with some norms to help solve this problem, with time I
emerged as one of the influential person in the group with his number crunching abilities and
strong love to marketing. Slowly with the improved participation of Visesh, Mridul and Swati
team started being better and everyone started sharing the work equally and there are compulsory
discussions planned for every assignment to ensure everyone was on the same page. Later there
occurred a conflict between me and mridul because of their ego problem. I was a bit angry with
mridul about his low participation in the starting and I dont want to let my ego down before
Mridul. Eventually because the norms which were explained below, there developed an informal
coordination among the group which helped the group members help each other and excel as a
whole
To increase the participation of low participators, the following steps were taken:
(I) Night Mess treat by the free rider of the day: People who didnt participate or who didnt
do any prominent work in the assignment should give a party in Night mess which worked in
both sides, by making group people more participative and helped some in getting free treats
(ii) Asking a low participator and a high participator work together on a single task helped
them to become even so soon and the high participator motivated and helped low participator to
come up with new ideas or think out of box

(iii) As group is so diverse, people usually preferred doing their favorite part. I used to take
numerical analysis while Abhishek takes the introduction and issues part along with mridul and
Santosh and Nirmala together used to do the analysis and frameworks for a case.
For the high participators, no specific actions were required as they were already motivated to do
the work. To keep the group performance at the level they always used to do their work with full
sincerity and offered help to other members as well in case they needed it.