145800

The Enterprise Work Placement-Reflective Writing.

Regnum- 145800Word count- 3590

1

145800

Reflective Writing-First piece-In the preliminary stages commencing the Enterprise Group Task, I felt uncertain and anxious, as I was unaware who I would be working with. The reason behind these doubtful thoughts as I am a slight perfectionist with my work and always want to complete tasks with my best ability. Additionally, as the it is vastly marked as a group I found its hard trusting unknown peers with such a percentage of my grade. According to (Lasater, Stiles, and C, 2010), trusting peers within a team is one of the hardest aspects for group work, however if done correctly it can enable the team to work smoothly and effectively. I knew, If I didn’t get a similar grade to last year, I would not just blame my self but privately blame my peers, which unfortunately is horrible trait to withhold. Using last years Psychometric Launchpad results states that I scored a 1 for my mood stability, and scored 5 for dominance. I do find it difficult to handle people who aren’t contributing to the team, but as previously mentioned I find it hard to trust people with designated jobs, therefore I tend to take control and get the work done. Conversely, I am conscious of this, and that it is not the appropriate way of working in a team as I end up doing the majority of the work and holding grudges on my team mates.

However, before arranging the groups Amanda asked if there was anyone in particular we wanted to work with, mine was Emily. The reason behind this, was due to the point we have worked well and together for nearly three years and both of our aims is to achieve the grade we deserve and desire. Emily, is practical, logical and an organised thinker where I come up with the ideas, planning and a creative thinker. Therefore, this is the reason we work well together and having a diverse team with strengths in different areas. We are both very dominant and often in a team we end up teaming up, so its important that there is a diverse team so we can work together (Hoisl, Gruber and Conti, 2016). I felt extremely reinsured I was with Emily as I knew then, there was at least one team member I worked well with.Dimple is another group member, who I only met a week prior to the task. Dimple seems relatively quiet and keeps her self to her self. However, this doesn’t mean that she wont put a lot of effort into this task. Additionally, she has also stated that she is creative and imaginative. Again, more positive traits to have. The last member of the group is Lilla, she seems extremely hard working member who is also fair and will listen to other people’s ideas as well as expressing her own, she also is theoretical, logical and organised.

I believe that we have a strong assorted team, and will hopefully bounce of each-other. Having myself and Dimple being the main ‘imaginative’ people will aid us as a group for this particular task as we will be able to express our ideas in an imaginative manner enabling us to stand out. Which of course what a marketing campaign is all about. Also, having two practical and logical thinkers will mean that the task gets done correctly and efficiently without letting the imagination take over. As a group, our listening skills are at a good level, as from the first meeting we were all listening to each others opinions and ideas, as well as taking them on board. Having good listening skills is an imperative to complete a group task to a high standard. (Marcic and Daft, 2013), believe that “groups who are unable to listen to one and other can often lead into misunderstandings, disagreements and not completing the task”.

Furthermore, I believe that I have a wide range of skills to offer to the team, as well as a reasonable amount of knowledge in marketing due to experience and lectures last year, meaning that I am aware of what a marketing plan requires. I consider my self as an

2

145800

extremely hard working and dedicated to achieving set goals, so I will not allow one member to take control of this. As well as this, I am also a good planner and well organised and wont leave anything till last minute. It is argued that teammates who “initiate structure for subordinates have higher producing work groups, then leaders who are low at initiating structure”, (Filley and House, 1969).

One of my worries, is that I know myself and Emily will a put a lot of hours in to the task to ensure that it is completed on time and too a high standard. I am not the type of team member who will do the bare minimum required, but due to not working with the other team members before I don’t want myself nor Emily being the only two working hard. Its only fair that the work is divided out equally and evenly. I am extremely confident in pitching my ideas to other, but I am also happy listening and comparing other ideas, so I don’t come across over-powering

One of my issues with myself, is that when I get into a task I can come across as dominant which is not what I want, because as a group we decided on mutual leadership grounds. Additionally, using Dimple as an example, she seems quite shy and quiet, so I will make sure I tone down my enthusiasm for the first couple of weeks so she doesn’t feel neglected, intimidated and ensure she feels at ease. According too (Wardhaugh, 1967) “dominance is off putting to other team members, and can de-motivate them”. My dominance tends to come through, when I’m enjoying something or I am enthusiastic towards a task, so I’m going to try and tone it down to enable a successful team.

The first group decision that was made was deciding which task to select. Due to Dimple not been present, we narrowed down two of the tasks and Dimple would get the last say. We did it this way, so that we have all had an even say on to what task we wish to complete. Once minimising, the tasks down to two, we discussed our strengths and weaknesses as a group, as myself and Emily have marketing experience and knowledge, and Dimple and Lilla mentioned they are good at sketching and filming the task was then chosen. Having a team with diverse strength and weaknesses gave me hope that we will be able to work well as a team. When working as a team, it is important that we are all satisfied and enjoy the task we have chosen. If not, the work ethic as a team may be effected (Becket and Maynard, 2005). Even though, I feel that my group has potential to create an imaginative and an original presentation. I feel that we are lacking a male’s insight within our group, and having a male present could add a diverse set of skills, that we were unaware we was missing. With men and woman having different viewpoints and ideas it could enable better problem solving (Bharadwai, 2014)As a whole, we didn’t have any major problems, we listened to one and other, shared our ideas and opinions. As we are still in the group forming stage, it is a crucial stage to lay your cards on the table. State what each member is good and bad at, what they enjoy and what they don’t (Egolf and Chester, 2007). However, in a personal opinion I do feel that two of the group members are not putting their full potential into our group meetings. Already, it is beginning to feel as if Emily and I, are the only group members that are wanting to complete the task to a high standard. Emily and Myself are voicing out opinions both in person and in the group chat trying to get Lilla and Dimple involved but are seemingly getting ignored buy the others. However, this could be due to no group leader, using (Burns, 1978) he states that having a group leader to dictate tasks, and have authority can help encourage groups to work better. Upon reflection, I do feel that not speaking to the other members directly was a bad idea, as what was saying could have been a positive but also, if Dimple and Lilla had

3

145800

any negative comments to why they aren’t contributing they could be addressed in an appropriate manner.

I’m intrigued to see how our group will pull together, and how well we will work together as the weeks go on. To manage the fairness of work levels being completed, my aim is to mention something in our next group meeting, after speaking to Amanda about these issues previously mentioned. However, I have some worries about doing this due to Emily and I being friends, I don’t want it to appear like I am picking on the other group members.

Second Piece-As the weeks went on the group didn’t bring their selves together, with my self and Emily doing the vast majority of tasks. Within the group, meetings were always organized on either a Tuesday or a Wednesday. These were always organized a week in advance so everyone could get there. When the due date to present was getting closer, I began to stress out. We had all these ideas but because my self and Emily were the only people doing the work it was going to be hard to reach the deadline. To express our worries, we went to Amanda at least once a week, to speak about our worries and keep her in the know with what we are doing.

Throughout this tough process, I have learnt a lot about myself and my abilities as weekly challenges appeared. Partaking in this project, it has allowed me to develop on my skills and knowledge. However, it has tested my patience and willingness to complete tasks with people I don’t know, but also who have not been exerting as much enthusiasm, energy and work as myself and Emily has to this particular assignment. Once we settled in to the group which is also called the ‘Storming Stage’ (Tuckman, 1965), I began to feel infuriated and bitter towards two other team members. This was because, I always completed my tasks to the best of ability, started new tasks and always did them in advance. Wherever, Dimple and Lilla were turning up to meetings late, not being able to stay for the whole time and their tasks either uncompleted or completed to the bare minimal standard. As my self and Emily, have worked together before we continued to work with each other to complete our tasks to exceed bare minimum. Despite the issues going on, I feel that I handled the situation in a calm and professional manner, which is not how i usually go about disagreements. I constantly expressed my worries to Amanda, to ensure my grade wasn’t effected by other team members lack of work. Amanda mentioned to my self and Emily, to not come across to harsh If we were to mention anything to them. However, we decided not to mention anything, but to do subtle reminders on the group WhatsApp, and mention the tasks that I have personally completed. The reason why we didn’t mention anything face to face was because confrontation, can make a dispute worse and discourage a team to make amends (Ryan, 2007). Due to this, my instinct carried on and I found it extremely hard to trust them both as they were not completing there tasks, nor being apologetic towards Emily and I. Because of this, I felt Myself and Emily, isolating our selves and completing tasks by our selves, and finishing other member’s tasks. I felt that Emily and I, planned ‘back up’ jobs if their jobs were no completed. Upon reflection of this choice, I was glad I did complete their tasks as this happened on several occasions they turned up with an uncompleted task. I began to feel more bitter towards them both as Emily and I completed the presentation, leaflet, poster and a mood board whereas, them two completed a sketch each and a 3D design. Instead of causing an argument in the group, I kept my opinions to myself, as I knew If I did

4

145800

voice them, not just myself, but the group would suffer. Even-though didn’t express my feelings to Dimple and Lilla, when group meetings came around I found my self not paying attention to what they were saying or listening to their opinions. This is an awful thing to do especially with in a group, but I felt they didn’t deserve a say as they weren’t putting equal amount of effort in to the group. When a group does an equal amount of work it aids the strength and closeness of a group, which is an important aspect to have when it comes to group work (Chia,. Et al, 2011). Reflecting upon this I felt that our group had more challenges and negatives, the highlights and positives. With being such a positive and friendly person, I found it extremely hard to be civil to members when they made me not enjoy something, I though I was going to love. The biggest challenge of this whole experience was the first dress rehearsal, as Emily and I were unable to attend due to a trip with another module, it was left in the hands of Dimple and Lilla to explain all the work we have done. I knew this would be a problem, because due to their lack of work and participation into the group, I feel that they didn’t have full knowledge of what we were presenting, which obviously is an issue when it came to presenting to Brian and Sharon. As soon as the dress rehearsal was finished, Lilla proceeded to inform us the feedback on ‘WhatsApp’. The first sentence which was explained was “everything we had done was incorrect” and “it has to be changed”. This was extremely frustrating for myself and Emily has we solely worked hard on the presentation and when showing Amanda, she seemed to love it. We felt that we exceeded the presentation standards and guidelines and were proud with what we completed. Hearing these comments, not only frustrated me but I was incredibly offended and outraged by what was said. Additionally, I felt that Lilla did not need to be so critical and criticise the work that Emily and I completed, as in the 5 weeks since the task began she completed one sketch. Lastly, I felt that if myself and Emily were there to explain the presentation, the feedback would be completely different as we understood the presentation as we created it. Once receiving this feedback from Lilla at such a late stage, with just two weeks to create a whole new presentation I began to panic and I felt that there was not enough time or hand to make some many changes to the presentation, logo, mission statement and an advert. As the group continuously began to disagree with one and other, causing disputes and arguments we decided to have a group meeting with Amanda and Sharon present to express our issues. This worked extremely well, as we decided not to change the logo, mission statement and to only change particular aspects of our presentation. Once the meeting ended, it was all agreed on tasks and the completion date.

Third Piece-Considering the problematic start myself and my group went through, I feel extremely proud of myself and my group when looking back on presentation day. As Emily and myself were the confident ones we volunteered to speak more then the other team members throughout the presentation. This was also extremely rewarding for myself, as I was extremely enthusiastic about our product that we designed I could express this through the presentation. Additionally, I do also find my self getting nervous and reading of notes but after the presentation was completed I has proud of myself that I made minimal mistakes and didn’t use my notes. With myself and Emily, volunteering to speak more I feel that this helped the overall pitch as Dimple and Lilla remained calm and could be concise with their slides.

5

145800

I believe that putting the negativity behind us was one of the best decisions we made as a group, as it enabled us to have fun while presenting, instead of considering as a chore. As we decided to do some baking, dance and dress up as fairies this meant that we did not spend our time focussing on our nerves and the negative attributes that went on a few days before. The whole group felt a sense of achievement when we set up to present, with the mood board, the hand-outs and our costumes, and for the first time in 6 weeks I felt as we were a group of friends instead of a random group. Once the deadline was becoming immensely closer, I began to experience a colossal amount of worry about the presenting element of the task, due to lack of practise towards the concluding week. I believed that we would not be able to pull it off and make a lot of mistakes. Due to these feelings, I began to panic about our grade as I knew what myself and Emily were capable off, and don’t want to end up begrudging the other team members due to our grade. Additionally, I also felt that if it was just myself and Emily in a group, I wouldn’t be in the state of panic as I was in. However, as the deadline day came closer and we presented, I was delighted with how it went, and felt that the hard work and all the hours that I put into the project was worth it in the end. Overall, I believe that my personal contribution to the task has inclusively been outstanding, and I am extremely proud of myself with the way I have handed these difficulties. I am an extremely hot headed person, and if something is not going as planned I can tend to lash out, but staying calm and professional throughout and taught me that it does work out in the end. I dedicated a huge amount of time to make the PowerPoint, the logos, the mood board, leaflets and poster, undertaking market research and finding the costumes to wear so that I could achieve the best possible grade. Reflecting on this experience, I feel that I got to involved with this project and invested too much time to complete this task, that I did not have enough time to focus on other modules that I am studying, nerveless, I did enjoy this project and the challenges it entailed. During this project, it has changed my career choice as I personally felt that I excelled in the marketing and creative side of this campaign, and wish to peruse marketing in future years. Because of this, this skills and experience I have learnt will not be wasted and I am extremely excited to test them out in a real life scenario. Emily and Myself gave up a lot of time, effort and money towards this project, to ensure the presentation stood out compared to the others. Although, this wasn’t an issue for me due to the type of person I am, I was disheartened that it was just me and Emily spending the money as we are a team and it should be equal. This was an extremely difficult project to undertake, and as I have previously mentioned it came with a lot of challenges. However, reflecting on my time as a ‘dream team’ member, I feel a humongous amount of pride, as I overcame many negative attributes that I withhold. Lastly, I also proved to myself that anything is possible and showed to myself that hard work and determination pays of and is one of the most important attributes for a successful team or a business (Ryan, 2002)

6

145800

Refrences-

Beckett, C. and Maynard, A. (2005) Values and ethics in social work: An introduction. London: Sage Publications.

Burns, J.M. (1978) Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.

Chia, S.H., Healthcote, J., Hibberd, J.M., Hibberd, A.J. and Heathcote, J. (2011) Group and individual work with older people: A practical guide to running successful activity-based programmes. Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Egolf, D.B. and Chester, S.L. (2007) Forming, storming, norming, performing: Successful communication in groups and teams. 2nd edn. New York

Hoisl, K., Gruber, M. and Conti, A. (2016) ‘R&D team diversity and performance in hypercompetitive environments’, Strategic Management Journal, . doi: 10.1002

Lasater, I.K., Stiles, J. and C, J. (2010) Words that work in business: A practical guide to effective communication in the workplace (nonviolent communication guides).

Marcic, D. and Daft, R.L. (2013) Building management skillsan action-first approach. Cincinnati: Cengage Learning.

Ryan, R. (2007) Leqdership development: A guide for HR and training professionals. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Ryan, R.M. (2002) Handbook of self-determination research: Theoretical and applied issues. Edited by Edward L. Deci and R. Ryan. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.

Wardhaugh, R. and Use.., S. our (1987) Languages in competition: Dominance, diversity, and decline. New York, NY: Basil Blackwell Ltd, Oxford.

7

145800

8