More Bloody Meetings

The movie, More Bloody Meetings, helped to prepare me to meet my group. I found myself referring to the techniques in order to help diffuse the tension that was immediately present in my group. In this post, I will discuss how I used one of the techniques effectively in order to be a more cooperative group member.

One of the most important strategies was to "unite the group." This was important to keep in mind because if we were each trying to only represent our own needs, our group goal was lost. By allowing everyone in the group to share their thoughts, we were able to decrease the amount of tension. For example, at the beginning of the semester, one of our group members was very vocal about not wanting to work in groups. This was an issue that another group member brought up to that group member and s/he took offense. Because each group member shared his/her concerns, we were able to successfully move our group forward.

Normally, I may not have brought up this issue. I would rather have dealt with it in what ever form it took during our group assignments. Because another group member opened the discussion, I felt that I could express my opinion on this issue. I hope that our group will be able to start fresh knowing that we were able to address these types of issues.

I believe that finding ways to continue to successfully unite our group will be important in the upcoming weeks. I will return to the techniques described in More Bloody Meetings so that my built-up frustration does not negatively effect the dynamics of my group.