Post #4 : Reflection on Meeting#1

Video recording of a meeting is an effective feedback for improvement on future meetings, and an excellent self-reflection for one to do some self-improvement, be it his/her body language, glaring weakness highlighted by the video itself.

In short, the meeting was generally productive because we had successfully covered most of the topics in our agenda. The meeting notice was sent out at an appropriate timing; this gave the team member adequate amount of time to go through the agenda and make preparations ahead of the meeting, as well as knowing what to expect on the content of the meeting. Prior to our meeting, each team member had to analyze the question and present their views at the meeting. As the leader of my team, I am responsible for leading the team in the discussion and allowing everyone to have equal opportunity in expressing their opinions about the project, especially since this is one of the biggest since the start of university education.

I felt I have done sufficiently in ensuring minimum digression. This was done by showing the agenda in a laptop placed in front of us during the meeting, so my teammates could make easy references to it throughout the discussion itself. As a result, we managed to spend considerable efforts focusing on the project and fulfilling our agenda. However, I thought I could have done better in my part on promoting the flow of ideas during the discussion. This was highlighted by the occasional pauses of silence in some parts of the meeting, where we were all stumped by the difficulty of the questions. Had I analyzed the question more thoroughly, I would be better able to lead the team along to decompose the problem into simpler sub-parts so as to prevent blackout of ideas.

Jason and Gulabi did a good job in helping me to ensure that we should focus on a detailed analysis of the situation and not rushing straight to the solution itself. Many times we thought that we had formulated a perfect solution, but either one among the 3 of us would initiate a rebuttal to make us reconsider our decisions. The two of them also assisted me greatly in time management, so that we do not spend too much time discussing a single problem. These, to me, are signs of good teamwork.


A situation to avoid when conducting meetings:




courtesy of http://www.wetherobots.com/comics/2008-06-16-MeetingTime.jpg

Post #3 : Resolving interpersonal conflict

Some personal insights so far in this module: as the weeks go by, the topics for the blog post every Sundays seem to be getting more personal. Is it only me whom is finding more ease in applying what I came across in the past 20 years or so into each topic?

Entering into conflicts with other people (not animals) has never been a strange situation to me, ever since as a kid I came to realise that there is a world existing around me. My theory is, with interaction there bound to be disagreements, and when it gets out of hand the magnitude of the reactions of the conflicting parties usually determines the outcome of the issue; isn't that how wars are started?

This conflict, which troubled me greatly to decide upon out of so many to write a blog post about, happened when I was working as a temp under a rather famous and hence huge company in Singapore. I got this job through my mother's connections with her colleague, whom happened to be the manager of a department within that company; an unorthodox method that I suspected led to the building up of the upcoming clash with my superiors. The scope was simple enough: proof-reading policy documents and ensuring that their information matches according to my data entry. However being in an office environment and being my first paid job, I was completely unguarded against any politics.

It was an unspoken truth in Singapore that while you are taught in schools that it pays to be honest and efficient, but in reality it backfires on you when you work in offices. My ‘high’ efficiency, because I finished my work too ‘fast’ and ended up doing nothing for the rest of the day, incurred the wrath of my superiors. In addition, I was neither brave enough to communicate with my superiors to build rapport, nor were they willing to take the initiative to show me the ropes around in the office. Not surprising, conflicts therefore arose and I was forced to resign, after a grand total of just 31 days into the job, including weekends. Until now I do regret that this short tenure with the company ended in a sour note; it imprinted within me a very negative impression about office politics, and I guessed my superiors, 3 of them, were not impressed either, especially since they too knew my mother.

I always wondered every now and then, will the scenario be different had I not stick to my own beliefs that clearing my work as soon as possible is the right thing to do? Or is it my apparently aloof, unapproachable attitude the root of all the problems?