Improving Group Working Skills

This article discusses the importance of improving group working skills and provides insights on how to enhance teamwork abilities. It highlights the challenges faced in group projects and offers strategies for better collaboration.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
SOCIOLOGY
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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SOCIOLOGY
Table of Contents
Section 3 - Critical Log......................................................................................................2
Critical Incident Log – Presentation Skills......................................................................2
Critical Log – Critical thinking skills................................................................................3
Critical Incident – Leadership skills................................................................................4
Reflection Statement.........................................................................................................5
Introduction.....................................................................................................................5
Overview of personal development................................................................................6
Group working skills.......................................................................................................7
Presentation skills..........................................................................................................8
Critical thinking skills......................................................................................................9
Career management skills...........................................................................................11
Leadership skills...........................................................................................................12
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................13
Future Orientation Action Plan - – Objectives for further self-development.....................0
References/ Bibliography...................................................................................................0
Appendix............................................................................................................................1

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Section 3 - Critical Log
Critical Incident Log – Presentation Skills
Log the event - the facts regarding what happened and why.
While working as a supervisor in Bergin Oil Field Service Company, I had to
initiate a presentation for setting up our team goal for the upcoming year. The
format of the presentation was nice and I divided each of the subject of the
presentation in groups for the better understanding of the participants or the
audience. I spend more than a week for preparing this presentation and I
really thought that my speech and the delivery of my presentation was
positive, professional and nice, though I got nervous while one of the
audience started to ask questions regarding the information of presentation.
But after the completion of the presentation, I found out that I scored the
lowest from the participants and the audience which constitute of the general
manager of the company, the directors of the company and the other
stakeholders.
Record your reaction – note down what you felt, how you thought and how
others felt and behaved.
I was very disappointed since I felt that I gave all the relevant information in
the presentation and expected my presentation to be the best among all.
Furthermore as tested in INTP, I realized regarding my weakness of
presenting since I am not at all confident during the presentation and being an
introvert I seek approval and appreciation from my close friends to gain my
self confidence regarding my presentation.
Think about what you have learned. What might have influenced the event
– previous experience, external factors, the situation?
After the conduction of proper refection, I have summarized some of the major
points.
 I am introverted and usually unaware of the surrounding environment
 I am a taciturn and shy whenever I need to speak in front of public
 I hardly make friends and I have luck in persistence in general
 I was not confident at all and found it difficult to communicate with the
audience as well as use body language appropriately during the
presentation
What changes you are going to make? Pull out your learning experience –
what would you do differently next time, how have your values changed.
I am supposed to be confident enough for people to trust and or rely on me. I
need to work on my communication skills to forego my habit of introvert and
shyness for communicating . I need to be a good listener.

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Critical Log – Critical thinking skills
Log the event - the facts regarding what happened and why.
I have good critical thinking skills from my school days which has helped me
write an essay and solve any of the issues smoothly. Though I used get a lot
of marks in my university due to my critical responses but my work and my
action used to consume a lot of time. This had been a major issues since I
could not finish my semester assignment from university on time.
Record your reaction – note down what you felt, how you thought and how
others felt and behaved.
I was feeling sad and frustrated with the fact that despite of delivering quality
assignment equipped with innovative and critical thinking I was not able to
initiate any significance of the improvement of my skills of completion of my
assignments on time. I furthermore realized that these flaws of mine are not
only affecting my performance and grade in my university but also my hard
earned reputation for my critical thinking skills. I compelled myself to work on
this particular are as my first priority.
Think about what you have learned. What might have influenced the event
– previous experience, external factors, the situation?
Regarding my reflection, I learned that though I have a very critical thinking
mindset and set of skills which have been beneficial to me for doing the
assignment, there lies some of the major issues regarding my concentration
skills. One of the form of the procrastination of mine has been my inability
towards focusing and concentrating over one of the task and I tend to switch
my range of thoughts which are sometimes not linked to the topic, thus
wasting my time.
What changes you are going to make? Pull out your learning experience –
what would you do differently next time, how have your values changed.
Some of the major changes that I am going to make are-
 Using of better tool for recording my assignments and my readings to
the aim of optimizing how much time I am investing in one assignment
or task.
 Maintenance of the focus over the task or the project while working
over the assignment.

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Critical Incident – Leadership skills
Log the event - the facts regarding what happened and why.
While my employment with Alatia, the super market as the general manager, I
was given a project by the company for improving the skill and the knowledge
of the trainees and the employees on –board. I was given the project for the
improvement of the training by reshaping and restructuring the program and
the materials of training for addressing the current challenges targeting the
production and job readiness. I took a week to plan out the schedule and
planned for the implementation of the strategies. While taking the approval of
my senior managers and the directors of the company, I faced
disappointments and questions regarding my leadership skills. The results
from my senior managers were negative since they thing that it wont be
appropriate to implement the plan and rush so much.
Record your reaction – note down what you felt, how you thought and how
others felt and behaved.
At first I was disappointed. I didn’t realized, what was the point of assigning
this project when I was not even considered as the leader and my
suggestions were so negative to be implemented. Furthermore I realized that
I might be overreacting. I thought I might have gone to pushy regarding my
own aims and objectives due to my result oriented aim for dragging out the
best from the group.
Think about what you have learned. What might have influenced the event
– previous experience, external factors, the situation?
I realized that being a “Team worker and a coordinator” on Belbin’s
framework, it is my responsibility to clarify the objectives and goals of the
group and to help identify and set agendas. Furthermore I need to find a way
to achieve my desirable outcomes and ways to deal with people with strong
personalities.
What changes you are going to make? Pull out your learning experience –
what would you do differently next time, how have your values changed.
I will definitely seek some of the valuable feedback from the employee and the
trainee and also from my manager for a better understanding regarding my
strategies and what exactly is causing the conflict.

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Reflection Statement
Introduction
I have been working just after leaving my intermediate school from the year
2002. Having working I completed my secondary school, my graduate and post
graduate degree. I am currently employed with KFC of United Kingdom a casher and
burger station on a part time basis. At some of the point I felt that I was reaching the
glass ceiling of the development of the future career by balancing both my working
experience and knowledge skills. I decided to pursue Masters in Business Management
in the year 2018 from Oxford Brookes University since I felt that this course might help
me gain a new and innovative perspective regarding my current and ongoing thoughts
of management and will definitely open some new ways and opportunities that will help
e to improve and look forwards my career prospects.
Through the busy schedule of daily life, it has been more than hard for me to
think regarding the amendment of the challenges and practice for the improvement of
the techniques. I conducted my personal SWOT analysis together with critical incident
log and personal action plan for exploring the areas where I am strong and weak. I drew
evidences from Belbin, MBTI and some of the other sources for underpinning my self-
analysis. I took up these assessment task as an opportunity for increasing the self-
awareness and working over the self-improvement and the acquired skills towards my
habits. Furthermore following the framework off the enhancement of my career I have
aimed to maximize and increase my personal abilities and skills together with increase
in my value to the organization for making sure that their performances remains on the

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top. This reflection essay argues that the identified skills and the challenges from the
assessment tools and my personal SWOT analysis needs to be improved so that I can
proceed in the path of the development of my career management.
Overview of personal development
According to Moon (2007) some of the key components of personal development
are the development of the self-awareness together with the self-improvement by
learning the practices and the skills that will eventually lead towards the emancipation
and empowerment. The author furthermore illustrated the need for the development of
the capability for behaving in different manner as per the current needs.
The concept of self-awareness can furthermore be broadly illustrated by Kolb
(1984) and later by the learning cycle of Gibbs (1988). Self-awareness has been
explained as the reflection of a concrete experience and the feelings associated and the
analysis and the evaluation of the events. The concept of self-awareness includes the
action regarding the self-improvement.
The practice of reflection has been very new for me. I have a great help and
value by the expression and the writing of the critical incidents logs (CIL) ( Cook 2017).
According to my personal insight, the values of writing includes the fact that I can freeze
the moment on my head, reflect over the frame , run the moment backward and forward
in the light of the reflective practice. I could not have done this by talking over phone
with someone since it would not have made an sense.
I can thus conclude in the context of my personal development that the CIL
technique has helped me to build and develop my objective and aim regarding my self-

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awareness skills and knowledge by focusing my attention over myself as the object . I
felt like I am looking at myself in the mirror. According to my personal experience, I
found this technique and the CIL tool extremely useful since in some of the areas
identified and reveled some of the major areas that I really need improvement which I
was actually not aware of. I furthermore got benefited with the recognition of some of
the areas that were consistent with some of the previous feedback and still needs some
of the steps and actions for improvement.
Group working skills
Included in the part of my employment as the leader of the team of the intern and
employees on board, I have got experience on working with the teams as per my
previous employment experiences. Few months ago I got a challenges regarding
working on project with my peers which was very difficult regarding the conflict situation.
On one of the module we were being instructed for the improvement of the development
strategy for a company (Howard 2018). Due to my employment as part time employee
of the company I attended only two times with the group. During the negotiation day I
mixed up my note and was not prepared well which let my team feel unhappy regarding
my performance.
My performance gave a negative impact over my mind regarding the team since I
thought all the team members were selfish and was unsupportive towards me. I
furthermore felt that the team members were ignoring me and is not willing to work with
me anymore.

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Some of the lessons that I learned from reflection includes the main point
regarding me working towards my self-awareness regarding the framework for personal
development. Om the basis of the Belbin team roles it was explained that I was
suffering from lack of concentration. I feel that issues of balance of power and inclusion
as illustrated by Schutz framework is one of the major component of the stages of the
teamwork. I realized that I too quick regarding my decisions and tends to take on the
basis of my emotions rather than the reality of the case. As per the MBTI test being the
INTP, some of my traits include introvert, shy and lack of logical thinking in certain
scenarios. Another important observations regarding my personal challenges was that I
need to manage and focus over a particular thing. I should have taken some time at the
work for managing my preparation regarding the presentation. I am aware now that
empathy is not actually my strength and thus I should focus over mitigating of the
shortcomings by paying attention to feelings of the team and find appropriate methods
for enhancing my motivation.
Presentation skills
Throughout my employment career, my job role has always involved the
presentation to my senior manager and the director of my organization regarding the
performance of myself and my team together with the goal in the upcoming year
(Jackson 2015). From my previous experience I have observed that it is actually never
that my easy and I am not that much comfortable speaking before the audience. The
CIL technique regarding the presentation skills have identified some of the gaps that I
need to rectify and address.

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SOCIOLOGY
The critical log of presentation skills identified the fact that though I prepare my
presentation with lot of efforts and in a professional and positive manner, I have the
habit of getting tensed while delivery of my speech and presentation before my
audience. As tested in INTP, I found that I have a weakness regarding the lack of the
confidence and my trait of introvert have resulted me to appear weak before the public.
Some of the major points that I summarized from the SWOT analysis is that I have
difficulty towards effective communication as well as the proper use of body language
during the presentation process. According to framework of Belbin, being the sharper I
tend to get frustrated easily and my lack of awareness of the surrounding has led me to
face difficulty. Thus it is needed for me to be confident enough so that I can gain my
self-confidence and people will trust and rely over me. The MBTI test recorded me as
an introvert which I need to work on for the improvement of my nature, approach and
my communication skills.
Critical thinking skills
One of my major strength among the set of skills is my time management skills
and critical thinking ability (Cottrell 2015). According to my personal SWOT analysis and
the critical log I have good critical thinking skills. In case of the critical situation, I always
tend to think from various points of view and identify the situation from a very big
picture. I furthermore master the skills of problem solving since I always tend to find
solutions for curbing the issues by my ability of the creative and critical thinking. This
strength of mine has helped throughout my career or employment , from instructing the
employees, writing essays in school and managing and resolving conflicts among the
trainees and the employees on-board under me. But apart from the positive factors

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regarding my critical thinking skills , one of the negative factor involved in this is that my
critical thinking has been consuming a lot of time and I often fail to deliver my essays
and projects on time, thus hammering my reputation and marks. According to critical
log, there has been times I felt frustrated over the fact that despite of the delivery of the
quality assignment, my work and the project has always been degraded and I did not
get any sort of appreciation.
From the SWOT analysis and the reflection tool in the critical log it was evident
that apart from the beneficial factors one of the basic forms of procrastination of me is
my lack of ability towards concentrating and focusing over one particular task. I
furthermore have the negative habit of switching my entire range of thoughts and
insights which are sometimes not even relevant or linked to the topic. These variety of
thoughts in my head often make me to diverse from the topic of concern and induces
me to waste time (Ghasabeh, Soosay and Reaiche 2015). Thus from the reflection and
other assessment tools, I summarized some of the recommended steps of actions that I
need to take includes the development of my self-consciousness, self-control regarding
my diverse thinking abilities and focus over the task. I furthermore aim to use some of
the better tool so that I can record my assignments so that I can record and keep a track
regarding how much time I am investing in one task. Thus it can be summarized from
the CIL, being readily effective regarding the readings of my assignments has been not
beneficial for me and my ability towards critical thinking has resulted in consumption of
disproportionate of time. Thus I need to control my critical and over blatted thinking for a
smooth progress in the development of upcoming career.

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Career management skills
Career management has been one of the most essential area of focus for me
since I joined my bachelors program from University of Westminster followed up by the
master’s program from Oxford Brooks University. Working at the Alatia as the general
manager between my graduation and my master’s degree had been my one step
towards the development and the growth of the management of my career.
While working as a part time in KFC, I do face certain challenges. From handing
different categories of customers, placing their order and backing up for them
sometimes I am stuck with two jobs at the same time.
From the critical incident log, it is evident that I have the tendency to get nervous
and lack of self confidence in moments and scenarios of stress and critical condition. I
tend to get panicked regarding the customers complaints and the store manager being
upset over me and my unfulfilled service of sales of the day. The assessment reflective
tool furthermore made me realize that refunding from my pocket and taking the blame
over me all time to avoid stress on that particular situation of crisis is not a way for
resolving issues, t is just an escape. Thus I need to focus over the problem rather
escaping from it.
According to the CIL indicator, in case of similar incidents, I will be controlling
myself more effectively and will be confident with the disappointed customers and I will
manage my insights and my thoughts more effectively in an early basis. I need to give
more attention to the case for resolving with a positive and adaptable attitude. This is

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because I have learned from my reflection assessment tool that people have diverse
personalities, perspectives, culture and background.
Leadership skills
The leadership skills are one of the most important and most difficult areas for
developing since they consist of multitudinous definitions and a wide range of
constituent parts within it (Chen et al. 2019). From my personal SWOT analysis, it is
evident that I am a result oriented person with the main aim of getting the best from the
group and the lecturers. From the assessment tool, it can be stated that being the team
worker and the coordination as per the Belbin’s framework it is my responsibility for
clarification of the goals, the aims and the objectives for helping to identify the set
agendas. According to my research procedure, leadership is the process for influencing
a group of individuals towards a common goal. From my CIL, I realized that I tend to
overreact a lot more and my extra pushy attitude regarding the fulfillment of my
objectives and my aims due to my result oriented leadership traits.
I furthermore realized that as per the Belbin’s framework, it is my responsibility
for clarifying the goals and the objectives of the group of people I a supervising or
leading and furthermore set their agenda accordingly. Besides this, I realized that I also
need to discover a way for achieving my desirable outcomes and ways to deal with
individuals with strong and complex personalities. As per the discussion and the
reflection assessment, I should be continuously targeting myself to understand my team
members and make sure that their performances are making visibly positive effect to
the team.

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Conclusion
Thus in the conclusion I have found that my journey on my personal development
has been extremely rewarding and useful. In the context of the personal development
cycle , I personally feel that I have progressed towards the improvement of my self-
awareness. The context of the self-improvement has been evident in the targeted area
of career management, leadership skills and the management of conflict. This course
has helped me to gain a new and innovative perspective regarding my current and
ongoing thoughts of management and has definitely open some new ways and
opportunities that will help e to improve and look forwards my career prospects. I
furthermore discovered from my personal assessment tool that I need to work on my
self confidence and communication skills. I have become a zealous enthusiastic
regarding the techniques of the critical incident log and I have recommended them to
my mentee. I will furthermore ensure to practice these techniques and the assessment
tools in the future for continuing my reflection practice regarding the improvements. I
have targeted myself for the achievement in the Action Plan.
Finally, I have also managed towards the appreciation through the module regarding the
benefit of the continuous development and learning that is highly recommended and
needed to achieve the leadership position and become successful.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Future Orientation Action Plan - – Objectives for further self-development
What do I
want/need to learn?
What will I do to achieve this? What resources or
support will I need?
What will my success
criteria be?
Target dates for review
and completion
Techniques of
presentation skills
(focusing on
presentation by
building up my self
confidence )
I will try to adopt the following
techniques-
 I need to rehearse
and practice my
presentation multiple
times before
delivering
 I need to transform
my nervous energy
during the
presentation into my
enthusiasm
 I will work on my
I would require some of
the planning tools namely
the calendar, the
electronic tools, the diary
planner.
I will also need the
perfect pitch, proper
gesture, eye contact and
the perfect posture while
getting prepared for the
presentation.
My success criteria will
be, to become more
efficient in the delivery
of presentation .
Review after 3 -4 months
in the current year

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SOCIOLOGY
introvert nature and
be aware of my
surrounding
environment while
planning to speak in
front of the public
 To be energetic,
flexible and
enthusiastic in nature
Techniques of
effective
communication
skills
I will try to adopt the following
techniques-
 I will learn the basics
of non-verbal
communication and
get over my introvert
nature
 I have to avoid
Some of the resources or
support that I will need for
improving my
communication skills are
 Peers and
friends and also
the audience
 Books and
My success criteria will
be to become open,
comfortable and develop
traits of professional and
positivism among myself
and get rid of my introvert
nature.
I will further initiate to
make friends to get rid of
Review after 2 months in
the current year

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relying over visual
aids
 I will engage in the
discussion with
audience and start
my communication
with key points
 I will use the PIP-
Purpose, Importance
and preview
approach.
recommended
readings
 Learning to
listen
 Being aware of
emotion of other
people.
shyness.
Management of my
fickle minded
attitude ( I should
focus on one
particular subject )
I will try to adopt the following
techniques-
 I will focus on one
particular object and
will be concentrative
over one particular
Some of the resources or
support that I will need for
improving my fickle
minded attitude are
The electronic too for
keeping a record of the
My success criteria will
be to be a non fickle
perso fu of self esteem
and self confidence. I will
also management my
time between my critical
Review after 3 months in
the current year

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SOCIOLOGY
thing I am doing on
that moment
 I will stop having
unrealistic
expectations and
boost up my low self
esteem
time I am spending over
one particular issues and
topic. I will furthermore
need devices, pen, paper
for keeping track of the
time I am spending over
my tasks.
thinking and completion
of work in time and will
not get carried away with
my irrelevant thoughts
which are not close to the
topic I am engaged to.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
References/ Bibliography
Chen, G., Huang, S. and Hu, X., 2019. Backpacker Personal Development, Generalized
Self-Efficacy, and Self-Esteem: Testing a Structural Model. Journal of Travel
Research, 58(4), pp.680-694.
Cook, T.A., 2017. Developing Masterful Management Skills for International Business.
Crc Press.
Cottrell, S., 2015. Skills for success: Personal development and employability.
Macmillan International Higher Education.
Ghasabeh, M.S., Soosay, C. and Reaiche, C., 2015. The emerging role of
transformational leadership. The Journal of Developing Areas, 49(6), pp.459-467.
Howard, M.C., 2018. Virtual reality interventions for personal development: A meta-
analysis of hardware and software. Human–Computer Interaction, pp.1-35.
Jackson, D., 2015. Employability skill development in work-integrated learning: Barriers
and best practice. Studies in Higher Education, 40(2), pp.350-367.
Johnstone, B., 2018, October. Developing career management skills within a flipped
course in Managerial Communication. In 4th International Conference on Higher
Education Advances (HEAD'18) (pp. 1003-1010). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de
València.

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Núñez, M.T.D.V., Romero, F.J.C., Sánchez, R.C. and Aránega, A.Y., 2018. Developing
management skills through experiential learning: the effectiveness of outdoor training
and mindfulness. European Journal of International Management, 12(5-6), pp.676-694.
Appendix
Group Working
Presentation Skills
Critical thinking skills
Leadership skills 0
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Current vs. desired personal development state
Start of module Current Status Desired State