Short assignment (revised version)

Content brief introduction:

Scenario 1 depicts a relatively depressing group discussion. It is a more traditional group discussion because the supervisor is responsible for controlling the pace and has the power to decide and judge. When we do the exercise, Tianxiao was the supervisor of the group. She demonstrated a strong and tough image who can interrupted and broke anyone’s word so as to control the pace. Naijia played the role of M1 and Chen played the role of M2. At the very beginning, Chen wanted to state his opinion while the supervisor designated Naijia as the first member to speak out her opinion. However, the supervisor mercilessly interrupted her speech and let Chen to talk next. Every time a member came up with an idea, she would always find some disadvantages which was very annoying.

Scenario 2 show the totally opposite way of discussion. Everyone in this group can speak out any ideas they’d like to say without anyone’s permission. We played the roles of 3 group members. We were more relaxed in the discussion and lots of good ideas came out. It is not stiff at all and everyone was willing to express. So the idea of promoting an innovative kitchen was presented and then the other members started to think about the pros and cons and finally they reached an agreement.

Movie Script:

 Scenario 1：

S：today, we will have a meeting on how to sell our melon cutter, which I direct whole process. Without my permission, nobody could speak randomly, everyone has 30s to present your ideas. If you do not obey the rules, there will  be a bad record.

M2: S, Shall I state my opinion?

S: Nope, In order, M1 speak first.

M1: Well…… summer is coming, watermelon is on a good sale, that the people want a tool which can cut the melons conveniently. Here is the time that we can satisfy the public needs. I will introduce the specific function of our newly developed device: First of all, melon cutter is another kind of knife, which has the same function but more professional. As a knife, the biggest advantage is sharp and durable. Our……

S：Stop! Time’s up, it is M2 turn.

M2: Okay, our melon cutter is safe that there is a separation between your hands and blade. In other words, we add a handle to the melon cutter. Moreover, we exploit stainless material which is not easily get mold no matter how damp the weather is.

S:  Well…let me do a brief summary for you first and I will comment on M1 then. You mentioned safe handle. Won’t it raise the cost? How much is a melon cutter? And How much are 2 handles?  And that accounts for a good feature? I really doubt that. You should have found a better selling point.

M1, Knife must be sharp, and you are talking nonsense. You do not need to say it in the report. And you speak too slow and without highlights. I really can’t see your point.

Next I will give you one chance to speak, M1, you first.

M1: Our melon cutter has automatic mode. You just need to put it on the watermelon and it will automatically move downwards until the whole melon is done.

M2:That’s right, this function is the most fascinating one!

S:  M2, I didn’t call you…..

Scenario 2:

M1: Hi, I have a good idea about our new product.

M2: you always have lots of ideas.

M3: Come on, speak out.

M1: last week, my wife invited a lot of friends to our home. I cut two watermelons for our friends. You know, watermelons were so juicy that each time I cut the juice was splashed out everywhere. And it was hard for me to cut each piece equally. Then I have watched a TV show, I saw a tool that can strip pecan shell easily and quickly. So I start to think if I can design a device that can cut watermelon easily and equally.

M3: wow, it’s a good idea. Now it is summer, it’s the peak season of watermelon selling. We can take this chance to push our new product to the market. And we are the first company to product the cut watermelon device. We can make money.

M2: is it safe enough when people use it?

M1: of course, it is. We will match protective sleeve with this device and when people use it, where people tough is handle not the device itself.

M2: we need to calculate the cost of producing this product and find out if we can reduce the cost to the lowest.

M3: well, my job is to do a good advertisement and make this product reach as many as potential customers.

M1: I believe it will be very popular this summer in China.

Inhibition of arriving at the optimal goal in team work

 A positive atmosphere is crucial to team work. If the team members are not allowed to laugh out when it needs, it must be spiritless. Also it may not enlighten other member to generate creative ideas.

Motivation is also critical to the team work. If the supervisor is capable to give positive comments rather than bad judgments, which may excite the team members and make them enjoy their job.

In the first pitch, I was inhibited by the order of giving speech. I have to get the permission of the supervisor and share my thoughts. While, many times the thoughts are flashed which cannot be caught, when I asked for share the thoughts almost gone. In other words, the restriction kills ideas.

Facilitation of arriving at the optimal goal in team work

For exercise A1, our supervisor has very rich working experience in this industry so that he can make the right decision most times based on our ideas or suggestions. Besides, each time the supervisor decides something is a good idea he also has to point out two negative aspects. That means he has a long-term perspective and debate positive way of thinking.

For exercise A2, everyone can speak out his or her ideas and opinions freely. Like a brain storming, we can have many creative ideas from different aspects in a short time. This way encourages innovation. After the discussion, we can get the optimal idea and all the team member can learn from each other through the discussion. 

The facilitation of group discussion

In exercise 2, the rights of sharing opinions are equal to everyone that each of us can give suggestions. The sparkles of hot discussion collide and generate more new ideas.

Communication skill is more significant than that in exercise 1, since it is a collaborative discussion.  In the case, team member should not only expresses his own opinion but also listen to other suggestions or judgments.  Making a note to record the meeting which is more convenient to make a decision to a new product.

feelings and perceptions

In exercise A1, when deciding the order of the speech or controlling the pace of the discussion the supervisor may feel the power, while we members would feel frustrated. I think in the deep heart people need to be recognized, which can derive strength for them. However, when you are not recognized, what will happen? That’s right, people will gradually lose passion or enthusiasm. Then who wants to say anything?Can’t we just be straight from the heart and not to be disturbed? Sure. In exercise A2, people just say what they want to say and there was no uncomfortable feelings at all when we do exercise A2.

 Contradiction

Actually there do exist contradictions. In exercise A1, no one liked the supervisor because she was so mean on everyone and so picky. But on her perspective, everything she did was aiming at the goal. She was the boss and she was the one to responsible for the whole team.

To solve this kind of contradiction, the understanding of the group members as well as the personal communication skills of the leader are equally important.

Another contradiction that cannot be ignored is the rule of the company. The supervisor has to point out disadvantages of every good idea. And that contradiction was not from the supervisor herself but the environmental factors. Here is the rule, you can talk and I must pick holes.

Anticipation and expectation

The supervisor in exercise A1 wanted to control the discussion process and to be the decision maker. Her duty was to provide smooth progress and constructive comments. We members in the group just wanted to put up our ideas. But only supervisor got what she wanted. Personally speaking, I didn’t feel respected. Besides, I felt really nervous when she called me.

On the opposite, I felt relaxed and burst of inspiration when in the second situation. What I expect is to speak out my idea smoothly, being respected and trusted. I got what I wanted.

Understanding of the readings

First of all, Collaboration is the basic need for most of the team to work well. Actually writing blog is also a type of communication. When we want to do the pitch,  I think the most important thing lies in whether we have a common sense to work as a team. That is to say, we devote ourselves to the team instead of working individually.

 

But how to build collaboration? I think the essential need is trust. The thing is when do you choose to trust someone? There are many factors that influence trust between people. Risk tolerance, Level of adjustment, Relative power, Security, Number of similarities, Alignment of interests, Benevolent concern, Capability, Predictability and Integrity and Level of Communication.

 

So in a team of obvious power difference like in exercise 1, trustees of lower authority will feel less comfortable to trust. So maybe in this situation team members' ideas will be oppressed which will not be conductive to the creativity of the team. But if the team leader show benevolent concern for others and are of high capability. what's more, if team members share high alignment of interests and can also communicate freely in this team, things may become different. In exercise 2, there is no supervisor. And the members will feel more similarities between each other. And there is no relative power between them which indicate that they will be more likely to trust others .Under this kind of trust, people are more willing to express their own opinion, for they won't be criticized by people of authority. And that will help to establish an environment that everyone can speak freely which may contribute to the creativity of the whole team.

Under conditions of high trust, problem solving tends to be creative and productive. Under conditions of low trust, problem solving tends to be degenerative and ineffective.

R. Wayne Boss, 1977

Harvard Business Review,

Trust plays an important role in:

 Anticipating the emotional effects that decisions and actions might have on others.

Responding tactfully and respectfully in emotional situations.

Eliciting the perceptions, feelings, and concerns of others.

Recognizing that conflict is inevitable and using it to strengthen relationships.

And we make a comparison between case 1 and case 2 in trust from these aspects. First, in the case 1, if the supervisor has some emotional effects to one member in the team, his idea may not be accepted though it is a good idea. But in the case 2, everyone is equal and the last decision is made by the result that all the members discuss. That means, the supervisor should be a person who controls emotion well. Second, in the case 1, the supervisor is the god. He makes all the decisions so that he doesn’t allow the existing of conflicts. But in the case 2, the conflicts are the most common things. The more conflicts may lead to better ideas at last.  

Creativity		Case 1	Case 2
	Freedom	Somewhat restricted	No restriction
	Ego	Less self-concern	Self-concern
	Type of Consciousness	Tighter mode; convergent	Looser mode; divergent
	Emotional capability	Blocks/Vulnerability/Negative emotions	persistence, tolerance of ambiguity and intuition; willingness to take risk
	Encouragement	A supervisor who don’t support	No supervisor, Ladder of inference
	Organizational encouragement	A culture that don’t support creativity and communicates a shared vision of organization	Support creativity and communicates

We made a comparison between case 1 and case 2 from the view of creativity.

It is obvious that case 1 showed more freedom of case 2 since in case 1 everybody has to report their idea to the supervisor and then let the supervisor to make a decision. The atmosphere of case 2 seems more relaxed because “everyone is created equal “and people have fewer restrictions.

Another thing is that under this sort of supervision mechanism of case 1, people seem to “lose self”, for people maybe focus more on the whole team instead of themselves. While in the situation of case 2, there will be higher self-concern.

As a matter of fact, there are two types of thinking mode. People in case 1 are more close to the tighter mode while people in case 2 are more like the looser one. The difference is that Case 1 is more likely to produce a more convergent thinking whereas case 2 a more divergent thinking.

From the emotional view, there may have more emotional blocks for the group. The supervisor is sure to point out disadvantages of every good idea members come up with which will result in emotional vulnerability and cause negative emotions of members. Case 2 doesn’t seem to have this problem because members possess a higher tolerance of ambiguity between each other. And they are willing to take risk of speaking out different ideas.

Besides, encouragement of these 2 cases are totally different. Case 1 is actually under a circumstance of no support.  What the supervisor did is suppressing the opinions of members and they may feel frustrated. In case 2, there is no supervisor at all. Members can speak freely. What’s more, under a more relaxed and free circumstance, the group is likely to avoid arbitrary decision. Group members will have chances to illustrate and to avoid the listeners to jump up the ladder.

One thing we should not omit is that the culture of the case 1 actually doesn’t support creativity and communicate a shared vision of organization. So they lack organizational encouragement. Case 2 potentially created an environment of encouragement and that helps to bring out more creativity.

Teamwork		Case 1	Case 2
	reliability	Supervisor is dominant in the discussion, absolute authority	Need time to build competency in discussion
	Promise	Clear performer , clear team member clear finish line	Clear team member Routines  unclear finish line
	sincerity	Absolute power	Relative equal

Team work: 

Reliability: The supervisor has the dominant competency in discussion. Team members have to believe in him and have little chance to say “no”. When they want to speak out their belief, they had to get the agreement of supervisor.

However, in case 2, they build the reliability according to the analysis by themselves. By listening to the others’ ideas, whether the idea is practicable and predicable can be known.  The leader who allocates most reliability comes out automatically.

Promise: The performer is the supervisor, and the expectation and satisfaction condition is clear, since they are all judged by supervisor.

 The finish line may be not that clear due to their hot discussion in case 2. Finally, they may not get a result as a conclusion.

Sincerity: In case 1, team members may hesitate to speak out their ideas in the power of supervisor. Supervisor always deny them which may lead to unspoken conversation. It has the great possibility of keeping silence that everybody is reluctant to say a word.

In case 2, the problem can be solved by asking details openly, without fear for any power and punishment.

Some reverse thinking

We found some examples of videos that show good team work and bad team work.

From the bad example, we can see that although leader is very important in influencing the teamwork. But the members also have significant impact on teamwork.

From the good example, we can see that there still exist some good teamwork with good supervisor.

Conclusion

To build a good teamwork, we need the collaboration from both team leader and team members.

And we need to build trust at the initial step and give support and encouragement from emotional, psychological and technical aspects to both leaders and team members.

                REF: Motivating your team

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/motivating-your-team.html

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCS_99.html