THANK YOU!

I want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for your time and effort throughout this course. This last year has been a whirlwind for me and these course have helped me steady each week. Your experiences and comments have brought to light new ideas and insights to consider during my professional career. I wish the best for each one of your and I hope to hear from you soon.

Team Development

This week while discussing team development and working in groups I started to reminsce about my time as a group leader for an overnight summer camp. This was an interesting group of women (it was a girl scout camp) working together to provide fun experiences for girls 6 to 16 years old. This group of co-workers and myself began working in 2004. We lost some members the summer of 2005 but that group ended up being one of the best groups I have ever had the pleasure of being a participant.

We went through all the stages of team development and became and extremely productive group. After two summers and living together our training week turned into a week of fun and preparing, not learning new skills or teaching others. This group was particularly difficult to leave but we handled the stage of adjourning through communication during the year and reunions throughout the years. As graduate students the adjourning stage is graduation and commencement. This is how we come together and celebrate the success of our class.

Adjourning allows a team to reflect on the good and the bad.

Nonviolent Communication and the 3R's

In my professional career I am currently dealing with staffing problems. Conflicts between staff members and different programs. In my recent learning I have found several strategies to help me through these conflicts.
The first strategy that would help is connecting with other's needs and values. This will allow me to understand where my staff members are coming from and how to negotiate an understanding. Another strategy is about emphasizing compassion. This will motivate better than instilling fear, guilt or shame in a situation.
In my situation, the best thing is to look at the situation from their view and see how I can explain what needs to happen for the greater good.