Professional & Academic Support Skills

Reflective Role

REFLECTIVE ROLE.

INTRODUCTION;

An organisation without proper management of teams and groups (human resource) is made of
chaotic collection of people with no sense of direction and doom to failure. The management of teams
and groups contributes to a large extent the achievement of realistic objectives and the sustenance
thereof. Group management and solo assessment are all important to the achievement of group goal.

Team leaders have an important role of not just directing the direction of the team towards the
goal but also must be ready to lead and direct change in the team’s position and in order to inhibit any
conflict that will arise.
Let's first acknowledge that in some ways, team and solo presentations are alike. Both rely on the
same fundamentals—setting objectives, preparing, structuring, and then presenting with the right skills
and techniques.

But the similarities pretty much end there, and the recognition that you're now part of a team becomes
all-important
Being in a team gives me much more confidence and challenges my ability to affect my colleague
team members in a positive way. It’s like the theory of specialization and the division of labor where
each individual is stronger and conversant with a particular area of the operation whereby he/she enjoys
competitive advantage over others that do not have such strong skills and also become very vulnerable
in areas where the opposite is true.
Studying the professional Academic Skills support gives me an in-depth understanding of how
teams are formed and how they are task assigned to achieve group goals. Group presentation was
absolutely new to me since I have not participated in any. I have done solo presentation in school as a
student leader where I was called upon unprepared to give speeches and present the way forward for
student bodies.
Group presentation was always a marvel to me but i have not participated in any.

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 Initially this gave me doubts about my other group members’ ability to stand in front of people to
talk and more so to answer questions. I was utterly shocked this could lead to so many confidence
building as well as self harm.
Having a little experience in presentation gave me an urge over my rather new group members
who have not. I instantly was chosen after a few minutes of discussing how we could go for the case
study and present it.
Knowing that other students in other groups will be presenting on the same case alerted me to tell
my colleague that getting the right theory and practice is not just enough but we will have to perform to
very well and professionally.
Making things more difficult was when I accepted that my group present first, most of my
members did not liked the idea but I encouraged them that we will have advantage of the floor and will
not be led to change anything in our plan when we go second or first. We will also have the opportunity
to set a standard for others who will come next.

Team forming,
This was as a result of position in class and the direct discretion of lecturer. Our team the by
name the HAND was formed when we were divided into groups for the purpose of delivering a
presentation on the assessment of a case regarding the organizational position of an entertainment
company in terms of performance and profitability
There was no form to be filled out and the group was but informal and unofficial but has certain
traits that make its existence quite formal.

Team Norming,
We decided on our first meeting to restructure the state of the team to be more formal to have
meeting days /times, Place and leadership positions made bare and awarded to individuals on
consensus. We made official the name the hand which assumingly was to be our brand name and put a
barrier to the entrance of a new member into the group to protect the object of our name the HAND.
We are five (5) in the group which means our values and rituals should signify the five fingers making
a hand.

Team Dorming,
We introduced a new area as to dorm the group .We stated that we are to be positioned always in
class and seated around one another in order to monitor our individual assertiveness and contribution in
lectures. This will help us to know the depth of knowledge of our team members regarding the class
module and general overview of the theory of Participatory and involvement.

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 Team Storming,
The leadership of the team broke down roles and structures and shared among individual
members and given timescales requiring each team member to meet deadlines and submit for
assessment and suggestions. We did not talk about rewarding and appraising individual members due
to our inability to commit ourselves of any thing that kind but we motivated each other through
recognizing achievements and target meetings in order that members are induced to carry out research
on the modalities of the case work with maximum zeal and effort.

Team Performing
We envisaged that should all members contribute their quota and meet targets which we will
effectively arrange with synchronic harmony to present a clear task and how it will be achieved.
It was a wonderful scene to sit down quietly to analyze every individual view on a matter and
how diverging they all are. This presented a common problem of who is right and who is mostly right.
We carefully listen to all contributions and weigh them with availability of its economic or finance
theory/practice and decide whether to use one of it or all or unusually none of them.
Diverging view on a matter I realize was a very important aspect of broadening one’s mind on an
issue and giving alternate answers to a question. This contributed to my knowledge immensely due to
the fact that I was the main speaker for the group. I gathered so much information that I could not have
done in a solo presentation and the depth of the information gathered during this period was
unbelievable massive which we had to downsize to enhance precision and concision.
After a series of meetings, research, participatory observation of other groups we were fine tuned
and properly organized taking into consideration the competitiveness of other groups and decided to
make the style of our presentation unique and different.
Changing the manner of our presentation took us to the drawing board all again. We structured
how many minutes each group member will take in presenting a portion of the total presentation style.
We finally had the exact role to be played by everybody and hoped that was kept and rehearsed
regularly.

Actual performance
The presentation was very good and as expected followed exactly as planned but there were mix
marshes in some of the materials and the technology chosen failed.
This meant we need to change strategy and to use our stronger tools to over shadow the lapse.
This really worked but the timing was bad since it demoralized some of the members who could
not adjust to the change.

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 After the presentation I had the chance to compare our actual performance to the plans lay down
and checked what went wrong. Even though we had plans laid down to combat any unexpected issue,
our contingency measures were not enough to neutralize the tension.
Human resource failure could not be easily sorted without not properly analyzing to the root, the
main causes of the problem and looking for the best action to take.
It is complex to solve problems without its analysis and even when analyzed could lead to other
complexities that could not be easily dealt with.

Performances during the presentation were not up to standard and most of the members were
dithering and could not stand the stare of the crowd. This led to poor performance and affected the
general expected end.
One of the major constraints I realized was the inadequacy of time. The tasks involved was big
yet there was not enough time to present the findings of the organizations position and how its been
dealt with by our group. This led to shortening of the presentation materials which could not bring the
real findings.
Time management and time taken from preparation to presenting is very essential to any
successful group presentation. Without the usage of both successes are not assured.

My final assertion was that, groups can achieve more when effectively formed and normed. This
will lead to members taking their tasks assigned more seriously individually with the group’s aims in
mind, working together with a leader who will coordinate all efforts to attain laid down plans.
Our group was coordinated but without clearly defined targets and time limits to achieve them
and most importantly little contingency methods to deal with any unexpected occurrence.

Conclusion
Of all the presentations I have done in my whole life, I realized that solo presentation is much
more easy with no one to suggest anything and the targets are easily achievable but group presentations
to a large extent brings together collective ideas and diverging views which when properly assessed
could give a good cause of action to achieve more objectives than the solo.