Reflection on the Group Assignment

This article is a reflection on a group assignment for the module named “study and Research skills”. The author discusses the importance of cultural competence and effective communication in teamwork. The article also highlights the positive and negative aspects of working with members from different cultural backgrounds and provides an action plan for developing emotional intelligence, time management skills, and cultural awareness.

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Running head: REFLECTION ON THE GROUP ASSIGNMENT
REFLECTION ON THE GROUP ASSIGNMENT
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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REFLECTION ON THE GROUP ASSIGNMENT
Description:
For the module named “study and Research skills”, the entire class was divided into a number of
groups. The professor had instructed all the groups to conduct a research on the topic of
requirement of sleep in the student life and we needed to represent it within the deadline fixed by
the professor. This topic was quite interesting to us as were also students and could relate with
the importance of the topic entirely. Researchers have always stated that sleep pays an important
role in the life of the student. As a student, people have their own different schedules as well as
activities that they need to conduct throughout the days. This in turn affects their sleeping
pattern. Sleep is indeed very important as it helps in the restoration of the energy of the body and
thereby helps in improvement of the thinking procedures, reasoning and decision making in a
swift manner helping individuals to think more clearly as well as creatively. Sleeps helps
individuals feel less stressed and all these have positive impact on the studies of individuals in
the class that help them to internalize the knowledge imparted in class. Therefore, I was assigned
a classmate of Chinese background to work along as a group to find out the number of hours that
are required by students for adequate sleep helping them to give their best performance in the
class. For this topic, we had to conduct primary researches for understanding the viewpoints of
the students in our campus only and thereby analyze the duration of sleep considered by most of
the students to be important for studying properly in class. It was a quantitative research and the
total word cunt was about 1000 words.
Feeling:
When the project was introduced, I was quite excited about the project. The main reason of my
excitement was that I was able to research on a topic that was associated with the daily activities

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of our life and the result of the research would be helpful to us for developing our study skills,
patience and releasing of stress. However, at the same time I was also concerned that as I have
not conducted any primary researches beforehand, I might not be able to conduct the research
successfully or might make mistakes in the research procedures that may result in failure of the
assignment. However, I did not let my fear affect my courage and therefore I decided to move on
without being concerned about the failure of the results. However, one thing that had totally let
me down was thinking of the fact that I was allocated within a group where I was not
comfortable with the members with whom I have to work. I had to work with a Chinese member
with whom I had never communicated in class. I got no members in the group with whom I was
very comfortable and therefore I was highly disappointed. I also grew quite concerned about how
to develop rapport and work with an individual whom I know nothing about. I had become
fearful about the outcome of the research project as I started doubting on the abilities of my
Chinese group member. Therefore, I did not feel like attending meetings or developing
interaction with my team members as I was feeling that all my attempts would be in vain as my
members would not be able to work in a collaborative manner due to cultural differences.
However, as time passed on, we started interacting with each, spent time with each either, went
out on informal meetings and many others. My negative behavior was gradually being replaced
with positive feelings about the Chinese member and I started developing hope for the
assignment. We completed the stages like planning, conducting background research, devising if
instrument, conducting for researches successfully, analyzing of the reports and writing the
reports successfully in a collaborative manner. I was quite overwhelmed to see such achievement
even after being unfamiliar to each other and completely unknown to each other. Although we
could not get very high marks, but we managed to get descent marks. I was quite happy that this

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project gave me a scope of communicating with people of other cultures and allowed me to come
out from my comfort zones and explore new areas of relationships.
Evaluation:
The experience of working with members from different background and culture had different
positive as well as negative aspects associated with it. In the beginning of the project, we were
both shaky in our approach and could not interact successfully with each other’s. We were very
concerned about how the interaction would be perceived by the other and therefore our pre-
judgmental attitude was being the main barrier that was resulting in smooth workflow.
Therefore, the main bad aspect of this scenario was that it took us a long time for breaking the
ice between us and therefore led to delay of the work pace. Therefore, there was a rushing at the
end as the deadlines have come closer and we had huge amount of work left. It become a
pressure towards the end and we were concerned that whether we would be able to complete it.
However, we were successful after struggling a lot. The good aspect of the incidents was that it
helped me realize that I was culturally biased and did not have cultural competence in working
with culturally diverse people. This was a very negative aspect for those who need to work in the
business domains in the future and this experience helped me to realize the lack of cultural
competence that I had. I had realized that I needed to overcome such biasness in my approach
and have to develop a broader outlook to different culture and inculcate the concept of multi-
culturism in my approach. I had been able to overcome such biasness to some extent and had
tried my best to work in a collaborative manner with the other member. I had a positive
experience at the end and therefore I look towards further such scopes to develop cultural
awareness.

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Analysis:
The project that we had conducted went through a number of issues. The first issue was that we
had developed preconceptions about the other’s cultural background and therefore we were not
being able to freely discuss our feelings and ideas. These second issue was that he was from a
different domain of marketing business and therefore he had his own schedule and pattern of
attending classes and own set of individual assignments. Therefore, we were both engaged in our
own studies and were prioritizing our own studies and assignments that mainly resulted in
development of negative outcomes like delaying of the work, incomplete work, no proper
communication and lack of getting common time when we could sit with the assignment. The
third issue was that we were not being able to develop an informal relationship with each other
and therefore could not exchange ideas among each other. The idea that I provided was
overridden by his own ideas and therefore such conflicts led to the delay of decision making. We
were leading out actions based on ego and therefore no one was ready to compromise with their
own suggestions. Therefore, such conflicts were affecting our project as the date was nearing and
we could not understand how to resolve the issues. However, seeing that such actions might
result us in failing the assignments, I compromised my ego and decided to work according to his
actions. To this, he felt that his suggestions were respected and he put forward his best step by
accepting my proposal as well. This resulted in development of good relationship between us and
we gradually started overcoming the differences.
One of the most important aspects of the entire incident was my culturally biased approach to my
member. In the present generation, globalization is one of the most important aspects that are
bringing success to different organizations. Most of such organizations are trying their best to
develop an organizational culture that are influencing and encouraging intercultural teams for

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their workplace. This is important as such, members give lots of information to the organization
about the cultural preferences and inhibitions of other culture and at the same time provide
innovative and creative ideas to the organization to overcome different issues. Therefore, in the
future generation, I might have to work with such teams were being culturally biased would
affect not only my productivity but would also affect the entire team if I fail to work
comparatively with all members of different backgrounds. Moreover, another issue that was
recognized was the lack of bonding and trust with the team members. Researchers are of the
opinion that better, the relation among the team members, better will be bonding and hence trust
will be higher. More the communication, lesser will be the ego issues and hence, better will be
the productivity. As we could not develop bonding and trust in the initial stages, it resulted in
delaying of work and hence stress among us. Therefore, when I will be working in the team I
would focus on effective communication and relationship building so that proper teamwork is
ensured.
Conclusion:
If such a situation occurs again, I would develop an entirely different approach when I
have to work with team members of other cultural backgrounds. In such situation, I will never be
judgmental about the cultures of other people and would try to communicate with them in ways
by which I can show respect to their traditions and preferences. I would try to compromise my
ego and will develop effective relationship with informal outings and get together. I will develop
an emotional attachment with the other person so that we are comfortable in each other presence.
This will automatically help all the team members to work collaboratively towards goal. I also
have time management skills and self-regulation skills as I cannot mange time and become
stressed and nervous easily. I will also work on these attributes effectively.

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Action plan:
 I will join workshops to develop emotional intelligence mainly in self-regulation skills
 I will also undertake reflection based journal writing and learn the planning procedure for
effective time management skill.
 I will also undertake evidence based studies so that I can develop cultural awareness.
Different internet sites would also give me recommendations that I can use for this
purpose.

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