When a group consists of 5 people, 1 week to finish the project, and complete freedom to create a thesis, the act of creating collaborative responsibility is hard to achieve. Fortunately, I feel this particular group, myself included, understood the concept of our group experience from day one. That first gathering in the classroom early in the week allowed us to come together, share our ideas together, and draft what we thought would become our thesis. It was almost as if we fully understood that togetherness would avoid any stress and anxiety that usually goes hand and hand with projects, group or solo. I left that day feeling confident in our group and our shared vision. On day two, we took some time to talk in the cafeteria; this is when i felt tension in the group. After a night to reflect, we met a second time with stronger ideas that now were different from one another’s, and seemingly irreconcilable. It was just too overwhelming and frustrating that each individual had his or her own vision, which they would gladly contribute to the thesis, but when it came to another person’s idea, it was hard to get us to practice “deep listening.” Although ultimately we did come up with a compromise, we needed to improve our thesis. Because we all agreed with the need for a new thesis, we were willing to let go of individual ideas in order to organize a “shared vision” and submerge our egos, for the most part.
2. If you think of leadership as an activity (not only as a characteristic), describe when you were trying to lead. What strategies did you use and were they effective. Describe a moment when someone else in your group showed strong leadership.
For me, leadership came in the form of recognizing that one of my group mate’s shared my anxiety, and the tendency to control situations, which meant that I had to relinquish my place in order to facilitate collaboration. I must admit it was a relief to share the weight of the project with everyone equally. Rachel showed strong leadership when she emailed the group an outline of what we had already done and what we still had to figure out. It was her way of providing “timely, needed input that moved the group toward greater growth.” From that email we were able to write a collaborative summary and visual essay that we are all very proud of.
3. Looking at the “Commitments to Self” and “Commitments to Group” sections of the “Creative Collaboration” sheet, what were your greatest challenges in being a part of this group?
Even though I would have loved to have taken a bigger role in the actual photographing, I saw that there was another student with more talent than I, and I let her take the lead in that area. I decided that I could be more helpful to the group’s progress by offering to put together the final written product. I knew that with the help of Rachel’s thorough outline, I could create a clear written summary of our essay. Rachel and I were also able to see how we could create an effective communication style by “skyping” the weekend before the project was due, in order to complete our part of the collaborative project. The greatest challenge for me, and I know for others in the group, was to accept that no one person needed to “completely control the outcome” of our group’s project and to embrace the ideas that all the pieces would fit together in the end to complete the puzzle. We had to be “willing to be surprised and delighted by unexpected discovery.”
I look forward to more collaborative projects.
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