Saying Goodbye!!

This journey started over a year ago and it has been very inspiring, challenging, and has caused me to grow in ways I never knew possible.  I was very scared of beginning this journey in an online graduate program, but I am very glad that I started because of the colleagues that I have gained over the past year.  It seems kind of bittersweet to be saying goodbye as we move to our specializations.  I will miss you all and I wish you all the very best as you continue your journey of life long learning.  If you want to stay in contact you can email me at soto.jill@gmail.com.  I hope to stay in contact. 

Good luck and best wishes to you all!!!  Thank you for being there for me over the past year!

Jill

Adjourning

As I was thinking about the last stage of groups I realized that I have rarely gone through all the stages of team development.  There have not been many times that I have experienced adjourning.  The time that comes to mind for me was when I completed my term as President for the Early Childhood Association of Oklahoma and I was leaving the board.  The hardest part of saying good bye was not working with the people that I became close friends with during my time on the board.  Everyone always says they will stay in touch, but the reality is that people get busy and they loose touch.  I am currently the Past-President of the National Registry Alliance and my term will end at the end of September.  I am really struggling with this adjourning because I have been on the board since the organization was founded and have put a lot of energy into this organization so it will be difficult not to be an active part of this board.  I have deep connections with the mission, vision and goals of the organization so saying good bye is going to be difficult for me.  Additionally, I have made life long friends across the United States being a part of this group.  Last year at the annual conference I was able to make my closing remarks as President and they gave me a parting gift so I was able to have some closure. 

The next part of the question about how to say good bye to my colleagues I have formed while working on my master's degree.  It is going to be different because there are some people that I have had in all my classes up to this point in time.  I know that we are saying good bye in the class because we will be separating out into our different specialities so that is going to be different.  There are some classmates that I know will always comment on my posts and we have been there for each other through all of the classes.

I think adjourning is a critical part of the teamwork and I am sad that I have not had many situations to be on teams that successfully moved through all the stages of development.

Effective Communication

The conflict I had was at work with a co-worker that I have been friends with for a long time.  I am her supervisor and she was having issues with the fact that she felt that I was taking over some of her responsibility while out of the office attending her internship for her Master's degree.  There were lots of misunderstandings in this scenario, but the strategies that I chose to use were the 3R's and cooperative strategies because of our relationship we had the respect, but it was compromised due to the above mentioned conflict.

The two strategies that I integrated into my toolkit of effective communication is first keeping the 3R's respect, reciprocal, and responsive at the for front of all communications with others.  By utilizing the 3R's it will assist me in ensuring that I look at each person as an individual and avoiding stereotypes.  The other strategy is cooperative strategies.  Strategies that benefit the relationship, serve mutual rather than individual goals, and strive to produce solutions that benefit both parties are called cooperative strategies (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012).  These two strategies couple together again ensure that you are focusing on having a supportive climate for communication.  I was sitting in an ethic training session today and we talked about the importance of effective communication and focusing on the individuals needs and seeking common goals. 

Reference
O'- Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Communication Styles

It was very interesting reviewing the evaluations of the way that I evaluated myself and the way I was evaluated by my family and co-workers.  I assumed that it would be different for family and co-workers and I hoped that I was somewhere in the middle of those groups.  Ironically, all of them were the same.  The thing that surprised me the most is the fact that I am moderately aggressive in my communication.  I would have never labeled myself aggressive.  However, the description was more able verbally standing up for your beliefs and that does not surprise me.

Two things I learned this week include a better understanding of self-disclosure and becoming familiar with self-denigration.  With self-disclosure you are revealing yourself to others by sharing information about yourself.  To count as self-disclosure in a relationship, the disclosure must be important; telling someone you like snacking on raw vegetables is not self-disclosure, but explaining to them the deeply held reasons why you became a vegetarian is (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012).  The most negative assessment you can make about communication experience is self-denigration.  Self-denigration is criticizing or attacking yourself (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012).  In my professional life I feel that keeping self-disclosure in check is important so that you are maintaining a level of professionalism in your work relationships.  However; just recently in Oklahoma we experienced significant tornadoes and one of my co-workers lost her home and in those types of situations self-disclosure becomes critical in the relationship.  I was unfamiliar with self-denigration and I do not think I have ever experienced this type of behavior in either my personal or professional life.