Reflection on collaboration

Our group was constructed with five members with diverse skills and capabilities where we
are given a tough assessment to complete in a matter of time. Personally I enjoy working in a
team environment where I can get along with people and get to know each other. We started
our group project early as possible to finish it in a more meaningful way where our goal was
to attract our lecturer. Three of our members had conscientiousness working style while
other two had extroversion. While working on our group project we had to come up with
some major issues. We were not able to thoroughly discuss ideas amongst team members
and it reduced team accountability, our members were not focusing on the same direction
and also some members were not contributing for the project where conflicts aroused within
our team against free riders. As well as we didn’t have a proper way of communicating with
each and we had a lack of trust among us. I couldn’t think of a way to make things right
because I’m not person who think of other person’s point of view and I had a lack of self-
awareness.

I couldn’t make a way out of this problem because I m an extrovert. Being and extrovert I tend
to rely only on positive feedbacks and it may make a person offensive or annoying as well as
had a feeling of strain to make consistent passion. (ROTHMANN & COETZER, 2003) In order
to make sense out of this situation and to solve it I preferred to be socially active with our
group members. I called out a group meeting because we never had one though we started
our assignment. We Arranged a specific time and a date for the meeting where everyone was
able to attend. Members had a brief discussion about our group project and what’s really
needed to be done and took every person’s ideas and thoughts. This was really helpful for our
team to understand each members’ perception. Our group delegated the tasks and
responsibilities between our team members according to their skills and we developed a
sense of our own identity. We analyzed our assignment time scale and preferred to have a
meeting once in a week to discuss about what each member has done. To make our
communication more effective one of our member’s suggested creating a whats app group
and an email distribution method to share what is needed and to be updated. We regrouped
at the end and reviewed the whole assignment, did everything that is required and finished
our group work successfully with a day to spare. Finally one of our members’ submitted the
group work before the deadline. However I gained many experiences from this. This
sometimes led to uncomfortable situations while I’m working in a group but what was good
about it is, that I understood working in a group is not easy because I have to work with
diverse range of people and I had to compromise in certain situations.

Assuming that if the same problem occurs, now I know what is required to do. It is always
better to familiarize with the group first by conducting a meeting to understand about our
group’s strengths and weaknesses and delegating tasks according to them.
Always make sure to plan and prepare for the work ahead of us and most importantly to have
an effective communication method. To make the most out of anything you are attending or
dealing with, I recommend it is always better to understand the nature of the work before
starting it.
References
ROTHMANN, S., & COETZER, E. (2003). THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND JOB
PERFORMANCE. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology,, 68-74.