![LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITY REFLECTIVE REPORT MODULE LEADER:- Dr. PHIL KELLY Submitted by: ATUL KUMAR JAIN (400407) HASMEET KAUR (409382) SREERAG T G (393609) MURALI KRISHNAN (393608) LAI KIAN WEI (381666) LEE SIOW WOEI (381717) Introduction This report is prepared by our group as a reflective work on our previous assignment for international business management for Master in Business Administration (MBA) course. During our assignment, our group went through the 4 stages of group development model which are forming, storming, norming and performing (Tuckman, 1965). During the formation processes, several issues occurred such as no critical analysis on the research and un-systematic decisions making in the group. In this reflection report, we are going to critic on the issue and find solutions to overcome the problems in future. Critical Incident I In our group of 6 (Atul, Hasmeet, Sreerag, Murali, Lee and Lai) diversity was evident as the members of the group were allocated using a pair-mixed approach (Mahenthiran, 2000 cited Kelly, P. 2008). The group had four Indians and two Malaysians, the cultural distance was statistically visible in Hofstede cultural dimension (Appendix 1). According to Social Identity Theory (Kelly, 2009) in the forming stage everyone were trying to fit into the team with each member of the group in accordance to their preferences and culture. To achieve positive synergy and create effective working environment we had set our standards of behaviour and ethics and included them in Group Contract to reinforce them (Appendix 2). Besides, there was an atmosphere of overweening politeness (Robbins and Finley, 2000) during group meeting. Our group do not have a “shaper”, would have empowered task to the group members to promote critical thinking as a team by using high commitment management (HCM) approach which emphasises on the need to develop group commitment among team members (Heery and Noon, 2001). We can promote critical thinking only by improving commitment among team members, and make them feel they are an integral part of the group. The first issue faced by our group was lack of critical analysis during research. This problem occurred because we divided our work into parts and assigned it to different group members which caused team to work independently. In group meeting, we did not actively comment on other member’s works because less research was done for every individual’s part. Besides, less criticism was the key to avoid conflict and ruffles with each other (Robbins and Finley, 2000). There was no critical thinking involved on any of the questions which made our presentation to look descriptive. After the presentation, we were not satisfied with our performance as we believed that we could have performed better and achieved higher grade. Later on we started to critically assess how adequate the justifications were given to the claims and evaluate the evidences (Wallace and Wray 2006). In order to overcome this we proposed to adopt Glaser’s Model (facilitative leadership model) to solving our group problems (Linstead, Fulop and Lilley, 2004). In this model, it stated that a group leader shall take initiative to group all the members together during team formations and then continuously delegate power and task to group members after team members get-to-know each other. By this, we can continuously promote critical thinking from each member by enhancing sense of belonging of each member in group. Moreover, we can also use Belbin’s test and personality test (Appendix 3) to understand our group in more detail before problems occur. By understanding group members more during group formations, we can allocate task more effectively according to their strength and try to support their weaknesses. Critical Incident II The second issue faced by our group was an un-systematic decision making process although our group consist of six members which is within an optimum size for a group (Bouchard and Hare, 1970). During decision making process, interruption was one of the major issues (Camacho and Paulus, 1995), as group members tend to speak out their opinion in between and disturb the member who was talking thus creating a disrespectful atmosphere for the members and hindering the quality of decision making. The cause of this issue is closely related to the previous incident where group members tend to be polite with each other to avoid conflict which results in less critical criticism during final decision making. This is because our group lack of “shaper” and “plan” category people which cause group meeting done in an un-systematic and un-structures process. To overcome this issue, there are two technique which can be applied which are brainstorming and nominal group technique (NGT). These two techniques were introduced to promote group member’s involvement in decision making process in-order to achieve effectiveness and efficiency of the group. However, brainstorming technique is more suitable to our group rather than NGT even though NGT outperforms brainstorming because it produces more and quality ideas (Osborn, 1957) compare to brainstorming. The reasons is because NGT needs involvement of third parties such as customers and professional people in-order to achieve outperforming decisions because third party people can provide independent and professional view to the group (Delbecq and Gustafson, 1976) and that is not applicable in our university group assignment. Hence we propose brainstorming technique for effective decision making, where the group efficiency can maintain the quality of work by having a systematic group formation as it affects more than 80 percent on brainstorming productivity (Stroebe and Diehl, 1991). Suitable level of conflict shall occur during group brainstorming process because it will promote more quality work being produced. As long as we have an efficient group, with brainstorming the group can achieve synergy, quality problem solving and innovative decision making compared to NGT. Beside, systematic team formation the group will learn to respect each other by not interrupting members when they voice out their opinions and answers. Conclusion As a conclusion, group problems solving skill is very important in this business world which closely related with human resource management and intellectual capital in enhancing company long term survive by sustain company sustainable competitive advantage. During period of working together as a team it taught each of our group members that only by having a systematic critical thinking and moderate arguments between the group members, the purpose of group formation can be achieved. It promotes combination of opinion, knowledge, and ability of each member to achieve quality work by empowers the group members as a whole. References Bouchard, T.J., and Hare, M. (1970), “Size, performance, and potential in brainstorming groups”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 54, pp 51-55. Camacho, L.M. and Paulus, P.B. (1995), “The Role of Social Anxiousness in Group Brainstorming”, Journal of Management, pp 691-710. ,[object Object],Delbecq, A.L., Van de Van, A.H. and Gustafson, D.H. (1976), “Group Techniques for Program Planning: A Guide to Nominal Group and Delphi Process”, 55(3), pp 154 . ,[object Object]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/reflectionfinal-12530345846759-phpapp01/85/reflection-report-dyson-case-study-1-320.jpg)
![Heery, E. and Noon, M. (2001), “Human resource management”, Oxford University Press, United Kingdom. Hofstede, G. (2001), “Culture’s consequences” (second edition), Sage, USA. Kelly, P. (2008), “Achieving Desirable Group-work Outcomes Through the Group Allocation Process”, Team Performance Management, 14(½), pp.22-38 Kelly, P. (2009), “International Business and Management”, Cengage Learning, United Kingdom Linstead, S., Fulop, L., and Lilley, S. (2004), “Management and organization: a critical text”, Palgrave MacMillan, New York, Unites State ,[object Object],Osborn, A.F. (1957). “Applied imagination”, New York: Scribner’s Sons. pp 152-154 ,[object Object],Stroebe, W., and Diehl, M. (1991), You can’t beat good experiments with co relational evidence: Mullen, Johnson and Salas’s meta-analytic misinterpretations. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 12, pp 25-32. Tuckman, B.W. (1965), ‘Developmental sequence in small groups’, Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), pp 384-399 Wallace, M. and Wray, A. (2006), ‘Critical reading and writing for postgraduates’, Sage, UK. White, R.E. (1995), ‘Building your team’, Koganpage, UK. APPENDIX Appendix 1 Hofstede Cultural Dimensions ‘Hofstede Cultural Dimensions’ [www.geert-hoftede.com] Appendix 2 Gamma-Group 2 Members Contract 1.0 Objective The main objective behind our group work is to understand how a group works, and to be a part of that group in order to critically analyse the case study given to us by understanding each group member and use the valuable ideas they generate for the overall success of the group. 2.0 Class Attendance I agree to attend all classes delivered by Dr. Phil Kelly in-order keep up-to-date information about the assignments and course work. 3.0 Group Meeting ,[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
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- 5. Practice Harvard referencing on each theory that we site in our works.
- 6. Try to understand the concept and theory on the text book and come out with an own and modified theory.