Group E6 | Section E | Group Leaning Paper | 18-September-2012 The evolution of our study group very clearly demonstrates some

of the stages in the Tuckmans model of group development. Some instances that surprised us earlier now make perfect sense in terms of the development process defined in this model. Forming: The ice-breaking stage in our group was a rather amusing one. To makes things cordial, we praised each other endlessly, never complained directly and did not take direct leadership of any task so as not to seem pushy. The stage was also characterized with everyone conversing in English with each other all the time! Storming: Soon each of us found our own grounds within the group and started expressing our opinions more openly. We had big arguments on petty things such as the report template or wholl present the analysis in class. This stage was also characterized by a very strong push of ideas by individual members that were not acceptable by the majority and failure to accomplish any assigned task without a verbal clash. Norming: With soon realized that there were many inadequacies in our processing that we needed to iron out. With trial and error, we worked out the best ways to collaborate over certain projects. For instance, we started setting out precise agenda before conducting any meeting. This phase resulted in group cohesiveness, a critical event being our first successful class presentation! During a WAC presentation, our group was called and we did an excellent job according to the instructor and our peers. The feeling of being in a group finally arrived. Emotion gave way to reason and group meetings became a place to collaborate and learn. Performing: Since then, we have continuously remained at this stage. We tend to assign tasks based on capabilities and interests, show strong communication and bonding among ourselves and enjoy the task of solving class assignments and cases together. We also retained our group Page 1 of 6

Group E6 | Section E | Group Leaning Paper | 18-September-2012 entirely due to a marked improvement in our group and individual performances since we reached this stage. Managing time The group has evolved over time to ensure that the most proficient and efficient usage of time is made. Initially, due to their high want for inclusion, all the members insisted on working together throughout the whole task. This often led to redundancy and inefficiency in accomplishing the task and often culminated into long drawn group meetings and discussions. However, once the members settled in the group, the group realized that proper allocation of work in certain areas and collaboration over specific areas was the better way to utilize time. Even after following this norm, many a times some of the members who had a high want for control insisted on reviewing the modules worked upon by others. This could be attributed to the initial lack of trust and control between members. This phase soon came to an end as the credibility and strength of all the members were established. The group settled down and the roles and responsibilities of each group member were clearly defined with equity in task quantum and difficulty. With a thorough understanding of their assigned modules, the group members contributed more effectively to the group meetings. The group meetings were generally followed by trivial chit chat in this phase where we also spent some time sharing our common joys, problems and cribs! Many a times, collaboration over projects was done considering the synergy between the members skills. For instance, marketing assignments which needed spreadsheet analysis as well as creation of a presentation were executed most efficiently by assigning the two modules to two subgroups. The division not only saved time as each of the sub groups had an in-house expert but also provided learning opportunities for the other sub-group members working with her.

Page 2 of 6

Group E6 | Section E | Group Leaning Paper | 18-September-2012 Managing conflict There were occasional occurrences of conflict in the group and these occurred only when one or more group members deviated from their adult ego-state. The conflicts arose mainly due to abnormal deviations from desirable ego-states, working style or ideas; and on rare occasions, prioritization of personal tasks over group tasks. Most group members consistently maintained their adult ego-state and their rational approach was instrumental in resolving conflicts. In one instance, a group member acted using his little professor ego-state. He wanted to experiment and analyze the problem at hand in depth using his own evaluation criterion and frameworks. However, another group member acting as a critical parent negated her viewpoint and authoritatively instructed to only follow the problem solving tactic demonstrated by the instructor during the lecture. The conflict that ensued was quickly recognized and acknowledged by the adult state group members. They factually stated the pros and cons of the two approaches and the group then managed to arrive at a consensus of going with the conventional approach in the interest of time and feasibility. Two work group members didnt have any work experience beforehand and had virtually no understanding of team working and dynamics. They preferred and gave their 100% to the individual work allotments but were under the impression that they were not responsible for the collective group outcome. This was raised during our fortnightly process review which the two members positively accepted and agreed to taking on collective responsibility of all outcomes. Conflict of ideas had an evolving behavior during storming, norming and performing stages. At initial stages it was very difficult to unanimously come to a consensus and majority of effort was consumed in the storming stage instead of performing stage. However, one or another group Page 3 of 6

Group E6 | Section E | Group Leaning Paper | 18-September-2012 member always behaved as an adult to resolve the obstacles and pushed the discussion to next stage of performance. Managing problem members in the group One of the group members remained introvert in the initial group meetings and this created an impression of disinterestedness in group activities. Some members dominated the meetings with their excessively articulate oral skills. After a few meetings, startled by her lack of contribution, the other group members directly questioned her for her opinions. When this member began participating in the discussions, it was realized that she had different speech characteristics. Then on, dominant members gave larger inter-temporal gap in speech phrases to facilitate the member to speak conveniently. Another group member had the attitude of working just before the deadline and being too finicky on choosing the section he wanted to contribute to. This made it difficult to get other members contribution as per the willingness of team, as the team objective was a timely and high-quality submission in all assignments. This approach of the member decreased the team synergy due to conflicting work style. The group considered this attitude to be that of a competent jerk and thus, to avoid direct confrontation, began ignoring the member. This indifferent attitude of the group was grasped by the member and hence he was compelled to change the working style as per the group requirements. The third problematic member denied attending presentations of perspective recruiters which were mandatory to be attended by the study group. Such presentations were considered to be wastage of 3-4 hours with no value addition. The group was thus overburdened with responsibilities to attend all presentations to avoid punitive charges by placement committee. Page 4 of 6

Group E6 | Section E | Group Leaning Paper | 18-September-2012 The group negotiated with the non-complying member by threatening exclusion from the group. The group meticulously considered its BATNAs (bringing dependable and steadfast replacement in the next term) before such confrontation. The concerned member finally relented realizing his position and agreed to share the load of attending these presentations with the group. Positives & negatives of cohesive behavior The group members have always tried to appease everyone else through their words and actions. Since disintegration is not an option, some group mannerisms have developed over time to improve cohesiveness. We have involuntarily switched our functional roles in the group meetings depending on our areas of expertise. The members performing task-facilitating processes and group-building processes have been markedly defined. Several other norms such as always being on time for meetings, adhering to deadlines and being supportive of each others ideas have been observed in the group. Such adherence to norms has also given rise to high degree of conformity within the group. This has given rise to the phenomenon of groupthink which has slightly hindered the flow of path breaking ideas. Attitude towards innovative ideas The group has had varied experiences while dealing with innovative ideas. Everyone in the group tries to supportive of each others views in order to maintain cohesion. But, only those ideas have been accepted that are found to be convincing by a majority in the group. We would like to share two specific instances to bring out a contrast. In the marketing course in Slot 2, one of the group members came up with an idea of making a slightly unique PPT to explain an assignment. Since the idea was new, she presented it to the other group members. During the discussion, all group members acted from their adult states, Page 5 of 6

Group E6 | Section E | Group Leaning Paper | 18-September-2012 weighted the pros and cons of moving forward with such an arrangement and decided to implement the idea. In another instance, a group member suggested that we do need not meet in person to discuss class assignments we could use Google hangouts instead. He behaved from a little professor ego state. If his idea was accepted, it could have serious implications on the functioning of the group. The other group members first behaved as adults and decided that a lot of work is best accomplished through face to face discussions. Then, to convince the group member, the other members behaved from a nurturing parent state and explained him the infeasibility of the idea. Group dynamics due to women and men working together in group The male members of the group took long to realize the credibility and reliability of the woman team member due to their pre-conceived notions about the workings characteristics of the gender. There were frequent interruptions by group members when the lady contributed to the group discussions and at most times the interruptions were discriminatory. However, with time, the group realized that the performance and output level was independent of the gender and the gender gap eventually vanished. In order to make-up for the prior misplaced notion, the group developed a soft corner in terms of the responsibilities and workload assignment to her. The lady however embraced the flexibility and support; with her appetite for challenge she demonstrated her willingness and can do attitude within the group to override any false perceptions of being less motivated to work and contribute to the team. To summarize, the perception of male members and the lady towards one another shifted to neutral from resistant and unfavorable, over time.

Page 6 of 6