Hello all,
Since the
beginning of that winter cession I am working with a group I had never worked
with before in another class. I knew those people from last cession so I really
thought everything would go smooth and well. During our first group meeting
three weeks ago I realized that we were not efficient. Indeed, it took us five
hours to do a work I could have done in two with a group I was working with during
the previous session. I started to feel frustrated but we all thought it was
because we just came back for our one month Christmas break so we were not very
motivated. During our next meeting things got worst we were even less
efficient! I realized that one group member didn’t have the same way of working
than the others – she was very perfectionist, too much for me. Into my mind I
started to think she was the only reason why everything was going so slow. When
I saw her I wasn’t very constructive when we were speaking, I was always thinking
“you’re ruining our team project” so I was cold to her.
I decided
to fix an in person meeting with her for that assignment, it was a good pretext
and I feel like we really needed it in any case. First I was judging. I was
just thinking “whatever you say, I will not give up, I think you’re too
perfectionist and not pragmatic enough”. At the beginning I didn’t realize I
was, to me I was just right. I was thinking my working method was better
because I had better grades than her at the first semester. I kept saying to
her “I understand your point, but…” and suddenly I realized I wasn’t
understanding anything I was just saying those words (“I understand your point”)
as a robot to fake I was paying attention to her. But I really wasn’t. When I
realized that, I tried to take distance from myself and fully realized I was in
a deep phase of judgments which was blocking all my reasoning capacities. I
realized that usually I was better at stopping that vicious circle. So I
started to tell myself: “stop thinking she is wrong and listen to her, don’t
associate her whole personality to the fact she is more rigorous and
perfectionist than you. That may be a quality, how many times professor/bosses
said you were not rigorous enough and that it was a shame??”. A shift started
into my mind, I really wanted to stop being stubborn and learn who she was. I
wanted to see and not to download anymore. I started to notice that even if she
had different working methods form the rest of the group, they may be interesting
and complementary. Moreover I realized I wasn’t “loosing” opening myself, I
wasn’t giving up anything. The main risk was just learning more about her and
making the whole group feel better. I realized that the aim wasn’t to prove my
method was better over hers but combine both of them to have better results. In
a nutshell it wasn’t a fight and keep fighting could only bring a loose/loose outcome,
opening myself could only bring a win/win one. The choice was easier to make
now!
After I was
aware of my thoughts I really want to understand her! I was in a better mood
and I wasn’t cold anymore. I’m sure she could feel it because she had fewer defensive
reactions. The dialogue was more constructive and got deeper. For instance I
started to share with her what I was thinking using the I-I technique: “I think that sometimes I am frustrated because we spend too
much time on details, for instance on PowerPoint designs”. She answered me that
she worked in a consulting agency where she learnt those details were very
important and they could make the difference between a good and a very good
work. She told me that was the reason why she was very picky now. Before her
job in the consulting field she was less perfectionist but she worked on
herself to become such a person. I realized that now, I was actually listening
to her and understanding her point of view. Now It was making sense. I was
starting to see her as a strength now and wanted to use her strength and build
on it for the interest of the whole group.
We have
another reunion next Wednesday. I’m sure it will go better that time…
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