Post # 4; Reflection on meeting 1

We had our first group meeting for the CG1102 project last Thursday. Communication during the meeting was excellent, and we all played our roles effectively. Overall, the meeting went very smoothly but we forgot a few fundamentals.

Firstly, it was only during the meeting that we decided who our group leader and secretary would be. Moreover, we chose it without much consideration, based only on the roles we were temporarily playing at that time. Because of this, the leader did not get a chance to set and declare the agenda of the meeting. Even though we roughly knew what we would be doing, we did not exactly know how much work we would do on the spot and how much of it we would do later.

Secondly, we had not planned the meeting in advance. We had not booked the venue, had not thought of how to set up the camera and now that I think of it, we did not have any sort of back-up in mind. We did not know where to go in case the room was occupied, we did not have a spare camera, we had kept the meeting so late that we did not have the chance of a second meeting as one team member was going overseas soon.

Despite these glitches, our team performed very well. None of us felt uneasy in front of the camera. For me, the most likeable thing about our team is that everyone clarifies whatever they are confused about instead of passively accepting it. Anni noted everything down acutely and Michael steered the meeting in the right direction.

As I reviewed our video, I noticed that I presented my answer without asking others for theirs. We should have all discussed our solutions and come up with the best one. What I did instead was that I asked others to add on to my idea. This is one area I need to take care of in future meetings.

Post #3: Resolving interpersonal conflict

I recall an incident where two of my friends Vish and Mohit had a conflict because of their different personality types.

Vish is a punctual man. He has high regard for his and others’ time. He lives an organised life, rarely misses a deadline and expects the same from others in matters involving him.

Mohit, on the other hand, is a laid back person. He starts working only close to deadlines, often misses them, is often late for meetings, and is insincere about his work and life in general.

Whenever Mohit and Vish had to meet in order to go somewhere or to hang out, Mohit would often be late and Vish does not like it. He tried explaining it to Mohit several times, but Mohit wouldn’t change his habits. Vish finally gave up and decided that he would just save his time by purposely going late whenever he has to meet Mohit.

There was this time when they had to meet for lunch. Vish went there half an hour late, but found Mohit waiting for him. As Mohit had an internship interview right after lunch that day, he got angry at the fact that Vish got late. He started scolding Vish. Vish got upset and came back at Mohit for often being late and wasting his time.

I had to meddle to solve their fight. So, I know both sides of the story. Here’s what they told me.

Mohit felt that it would have been acceptable if Vish had gotten late for some valid reason. However, he was angry because Vish had purposely come late, assuming that Mohit would be late. And this was despite the fact that Vish kept “lecturing” him on being punctual. Mohit felt that Vish was reprimanding him by doing this.

Vish felt that Mohit was being unreasonable as Mohit himself was usually late. He felt that if Mohit was not ready to change his habit of being late, the only way Vish could save his time in his busy schedule was by being late for meetings himself. He could not afford to waste his time like that.

If you were in my shoes, what would you tell them?