Action Plan
In OLL Program
As an online cohort, our group projects are conducted through virtual teams. In the article Rethinking Teambuilding, Hart and Mcleod (2003) note the teams with the strongest personal relationship also exchange more task-oriented communications. Drawing insight from my experiences thus far, I found a certain level of personal exchange and relationship building is essential in building trust. I would argue it is even more important for virtual teams since the quality of the scheduled calls already determines the task-oriented nature of the exchange. When my teammates spend that few extra minutes before or after our project discussion to connect outside our school work, the teams grow closer.
One practical step for me to take is to be more open about my strengths and weaknesses based on the tasks. During the first set of group assignments, I felt a little shy to admit my hesitation to take the lead on the writing portion. I also sensed other team members were hesitated to claim their preferred tasks directly. It took us two group calls to came up with specific roles and deadlines for our R1 group.
Secondly, I also plan to initiate clearer communication during our group calls in the future. Due to the limitation of virtual teams, we could not always see each other during video calls; sometimes we had to do voice calls only due to the connection limitation. Because of the lack of visual aid and the inability to read my colleagues’ facial expression, there were times I did not fully understand our discussion point. Out of respect of the scheduled call time and my own value of efficiency, I chose to not to my team members to repeat themselves too much. Alternatively, I have emailed the group my follow-up question. The same principle applies to myself when I explain my expectations to the team. As Erica Dhawan and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic (2018) put “In our efforts to be efficient, we sometimes use fewer words to communicate” (p.4). As part of the team, I bear the responsibility to seek clarity with my understanding of the project and my part in it.
Another action step to bring into the next semester is the practice of reflection, critical thinking, and Q-storming (Adams, 2009). I commit to incorporate reflective moments not only during my weekly study but also in my teamwork. I challenge myself to ask “why” and all the other questions before I jump into actions. This program has already stretched my mindset on my view of workplace culture, leadership, and more. I plan to exercise my ability further to identify my thought patterns and my assumptions, especially when my study challenges my cultural perspective.
In the Work Place
With the help of the OLL program, I tried to bring change slowly to my workplace. Last month, I proposed a new method to request our fall quarter budget that allows us to explore our cultural enrichment programs for American scholars in China in a new way. During our meeting, I facilitated some reflection time by guiding the team through our past budget plans. Instead of budget per headcount as before, I suggested we budget per region and resource for collaborative events between the Consulates. My Chinese supervisor was skeptical, but the American team leader showed interest and support, she even invited me to share more at our section staff meeting. I plan to learn more about the role of facilitative leaders and lead future discussions with compassion (Schwarz, 2002). Though this will be a prolonged process, I will take this as a small victory on the long road to bring change to the workplace.
Furthermore, I plan to demonstrate better active listening skills with my work team during our daily interaction. Active listening has never b
