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On conflicts that happen when we least expect it

Sometimes I just like to be right. Despite what might be happening I take pleasure in knowing that I did not go wrong in what I said or did. While this may be good in being precise about some stuff, there are times when being right may not be the best after all. This realisation came to me during a Brain Hacks workshop session when all of us were figuring out how to use a new software to prototype our ideas. It was all new, the concept, the technology and the software. So we had to ask our instructor for help whenever we got stuck at something. Halfway while helping my group debug the prototype, some lady (perhaps from facilities or administration) walked into the classroom and demanded to know what was going on in the class as there had been a clash in the booking of the exact location we were in. While our instructor immediately clarified that the location had been booked months ago and should not have clashed with any other bookings, that lady just looked as if she wanted to clear the room for the other group which had booked the room for some facilities maintenance. In that situation, my usual course of action would be to insist that the room was booked and made sure that everything was clarified there and then. I would have wanted to be right in that I had booked the room and that there should not have been a clash in the first place. Interestingly, my instructor just calmly requested to meet that lady in her office at a later time to clarify the issue and was very amiable about it. She didn’t insist that she was right, she didn’t demand to correct the bookings right away, but her priority was to make sure that the class went on while still solving the problem at the same time. This small incident showed me that not everything has to be immediately dealt with and one has to weigh the priorities ahead first. Also, while interacting with others, even in a tense situation, one should keep their cool and not strain any relationships even if the other person might be a stranger. While that lady was walking out, my instructor flashed her a smile and asked for her name in a very friendly matter too. The whole thing happened in the span of less than 2 minutes but it was that encounter that showed me conflict management can happen in more ways than one. Another time, in a Forces Frozen class, while most groups consisted of undergraduate students and graduate students, an elderly man approached our group and wanted to work with us on a precedent research of frozen structures. He turned out to be an alumni of MIT from the 70s and just wanted to be involved in the IAP activities that were going on during this period. Again, me being me, I wanted to be right in my own perspective and do things in ways that I felt were right. So I started to do my own research and developed some of my own ideas. Initially, it seemed that the elderly man had many of his own opinions that he kept sharing with everyone, seemingly ‘interrupting’ the flow of our discussion. While I felt slightly annoyed that he kept ‘imposing’ his ideas on the group, I still tried to do things my own way in the beginning. However, while observing the behaviour of others, I began to get insights on how people dealt with situations that they were in, many times in ways much better than my own. It was natural that everyone would be excited about having their own ideas and finding precedents that they felt would be interesting, However, my group mates showed the utmost respect to the elderly man and his ideas even though he kept talking about what he knew. Even though they were excited about finding precedents that they felt were interesting, they still listened intently to the experiences of that elderly man and sought advice from him on how to go about describing the precedents that he had shared. Towards the end, one team mate even offered the elderly man the opportunity to take the presentation time to share his story with the class at the risk of possibly not even having time for himself to share. Through this experience, I feel that I sometimes jump to conclusions too soon and don’t take enough consideration of what others might feel. The elderly man probably wanted to contribute as much as he could to the group in terms of his knowledge and experience but I just jumped to the conclusion that he was sharing too much. Instead, I should have taken a step back to consider the position that everyone is coming from and respect what they have to bring to the table. My initial approach to certain situations may not be ideal but hopefully through observations, I will be able to slowly change my perspective on how to deal with them better. So some insights on conflict management could be; it may not be the best to immediately solve every conflict head on but consider the priorities and relationships involved. While it is a good thing to be right, being right all the time may not be such a good thing after all. And while working with people of different backgrounds for the first time, I found that it’s good to take some time to understand the context of what they are doing before forming any solid impressions of them. It is ideal also to give the utmost respect to our team mates even if we may not agree wholeheartedly with the way they work. Just some little titbits and anecdotes from the IAP classes I’ve been going to! Signing off, Janice

#janicetyp #observation #conflict #human interaction

Upward Spiral (Introduction)

Because things can only go higher and higher (: #Culture #Communication #Teamwork #Conflict #Interaction #Reflection #Observation

Johari Window

The Johari Window is a fascinating concept that got me curious on how can I bring as much information from the Blind and Hidden sections as quickly as possible to the Open section?

Now why would that be important? And why should you care?

The Johari window provides us with a framework to understand how communication results in the distribution of collective information towards the Open section. Lets say there's a lot of information in a team in the Blind and Hidden areas, it would be such a waste if such valuable input into the project would not have been discussed since they were not shared across members.

But to understand the situation better, the Johari window is not enough. I realised that in order to bring information from the Hidden section to the Open section, I must give my feedback/contributions to others. To bring information from the Blind section to the Open section, I must collect feedback/contributions from others.

The Johari window only represents a snapshot of the communication relationships in the group. To answer my initial objective of being able to bring as much information from Blind and Hidden sections over to the Open section, I realised that is a question regarding the mechanisms the relationships instead of the state of those communication relationships.

I also realised that although there are physical limits to the speed of communication, the effectiveness of communication never depends on the ability to "vomit" information at the other party, but rather relying on the strength of the relationship to continue the perpetual desire to exchange information.

So if I were to communicate with a complete stranger, the key is to establish communication and gather enough interest to maintain information exchange. It's kinda the same way how during student orientation, instead of just introducing yourself with your name and class, you could add in an interesting fact that no one knows about. That single interesting fact now becomes an incentive for people to maintain the information exchange. There's no need to pour all your information out.

In addition, I remembered what Jane said about how highly influential people behave. I am starting to see how a personality of openness to ideas and conversation would help channel information to the Open section of the Johari window much faster.

But once again, I have to agree with Jane; There really isn't a "one size fits all" fastest way to bring information to the Open section. You probably need to bring all your communication tools with you and pick and choose the best ones depending on situation.

#joshch

Stages of Teamwork at Play (Part 2)

This post is a continuation from the previous one because it focuses on the actual execution phase on a different day from the first one.

The last day of Forces Frozen was markedly different from the earlier sessions as the only overall goal was to create a model we were interested in trying out. During the previous session, my team had already prepared all the materials required to create the life sized, artistically shaped tunnel of rings. With that, we began the last day just trying to rig the structure.

Here's the rest of the stages of teamwork at play:

6) Pivotal UH-OH Moment - Bursting the Dream

Plans don't always work out

However, when we reached the actual day of rigging,we accidentally burst one of the two ten inch balloon. There was an awkward moment of staring at each other and wondering what to do.

7) Change of 'common goal'

No longer about building one structure together, but on building many individual structures while still supporting each other

It would not be possible to re-rig the structure we had planned, so we tried to do a similar structure together, using bamboo poles to support them. However, the material needed lessened by half, and we could choose to build a second structure. The team then split into half to do two individual but complementing structures, with some members supporting the building of both. The team would still work collaboratively to rig structures, but no longer on the same one.

The team split into 2-3 groups naturally, depending on the ideas and interior of the structure, while my team (Nate and I) waned to try the original, We realised later on that it was impossible and we would need to compromise and revise it. The interesting thing was that once the common goal of the original structure had changed, especially for each mini group, everyone gave up on creating the original team idea, we silently agreed to do our own thing yet support each other's structure . It was alright in this case since no grades were at stake and team members wold help each other.

The structure Nate and I rigged in the end looked like an organic wall.

On the overall, I feel that the work in Forces Frozen was an interesting mix of collaboration and individual work, giving a flexible kind of dynamic to the way teams worked

- Wenya

#Reflections #Collaboration

Talking with other cultures

As one assignment for our class, we were asked to talk to other people at MIT who grew up in different cultures to get their perspectives on a few different questions. I talked to 7 different people. (I'll identify them with their initials for their privacy.) I especially enjoyed talking to them about the values their parents and teachers worked to instill in them. I think it's interesting how different and similar their answers are!

Remember that in this post, I'm giving my impression of what each person said, so I may have misunderstood things! Don't take me too literally.

S grew up in the US, but her parents grew up in China. One of the concepts her parents tried to teach her doesn't really translate into English, but she says it's a bit like a special kind of politeness. The key concept is that you protect your family and yourself, but that you're kind to others in the process. One example is that when you are a guest, you never ask for something (such as more food), but when you are a host, you always offer things. Then the guest should say no, but the host should give the thing anyway. There are other rules to this type of politeness that I wouldn't understand, and a lot of things that don't get said directly, but that have an underlying meaning.

D grew up partly in the US and partly in France, with one French parent and one American parent. She said her parents emphasized always doing your best and living up to your potential. Even when she had the best grades in the class, her parents would ask what she could have improved or if she had tried her hardest. This is different from S's Chinese parents, who emphasized always doing better than your parents and building on their foundation to something better.

V grew up in the US, but his parents are from Mexico. The first thing he mentioned as a main value in his family is religion. With his mother, crossing yourself is very important. When with his grandmother, his family prays the rosary daily.

V also emphasized the idea that people have to work for what they have, and shouldn't expect anything. C also talked about this concept. She grew up in the US with a mother from Trinidad, and a father from Saint Kitts and Nevis (those are all Caribbean islands). She thinks that this idea of working hard, growing up beyond what your parents have, and not expecting to be given things is actually an immigrant value, not a cultural one.

C also talked about the importance of the nuclear family. Her family is very large, but every recognizes that true loyalties lie with the closest relatives (her mom, dad, and siblings). She says the family always does what's best for the close family, which might not be what's best for the extended family.

D grew up in Venezuela. She also emphasized family values as important. She says it's always expected that you put your family before others, and recognize that your family cares about you more than anyone else in the world. This is very different from how my family operates, where personal happiness is much more important.

N is from Russia. Her family values family, education, and traveling. She says at every big event in her family, someone stands up to say how important these things are for them. Most of their money gets spent on these three things. All three are also tied together, since her family believes that traveling is about learning about other cultures, and they also use travel as a way to visit family members who have moved to different parts of the world.

L is from Britain. He says that respect for authority figures is very important. This was also mentioned by S, V, and many of our group members from Singapore. In his school, it was very important to refer to teachers as "sir" or "ma'am", and to stand when a teacher entered the room.

Overall, I think it's really interesting that different people from different parts of the world have different value systems. In general, I think all the things everyone mentioned are parts of my own value system, but were emphasized much less strongly.

-Shante

#interaction

Differences in Culture

Differences in culture and background that can cause misunderstanding:

- Ethnicity and Religion

- Nationality

- Academic background (level and background)

#Reflections #Cultural Differences

-Michelle-

Going to a New Place

Going to a different country, to a different school... it just seems so exciting. However, the uneasiness of the unknown can dampen even the thrill of a new experience.

At first glance, the differences in culture seem significant - we will be travelling halfway across the world and will be meeting new people from different backgrounds. However, if further thought is given, one can see some similarities. Both countries have English as the dominant language, SUTD has tried to inoculate MIT's culture and with globalisation, the culture of the West has spread through people and the media to all parts of the world.

So we all need to put on a brave face and except - no embrace - all experiences that will come our way and make the best use of our time here.

-Michelle-

#Cultural Difference #Reflection

Stages of Teamwork at Play (Part 1)

During Forces Frozen this week, I saw how the stages of team development played out in my group of mish mash of a new team. The end goal was to rig ice shell structures for a showcase at Kesage Oval. Just to give you guys some context, this is an example of a structural ice shell:

It’s cloth that’s frozen in water and stands on its own!

In this course, we were given the liberty to work on as many individual projects or group projects as we liked. However, on the first day when we were to work with the groups at our own tables, I started to see that the characters of some were strong, especially in wanting to implement one’s own idea rather than consider the team’s. It did not sit well with me even though I tried to suspend judgment! I came into class on Day 2, telling myself to sit at another table where I could have more interesting conversations with the people near me. I ended up sitting at another table and meeting Jessica, a Chinese girl that was studying in MIT’s High Performance Structures course, and Nate, an American with civil engineering background. The last two members were Janice and Kevin from SUTD.

We weren’t sure exactly what to do, so we started with individual brainstorming. At that point in time, we could still choose to make structures individually, or as a team but I reckoned that doing things as a team would be more effective. Besides, collaboration the more meaningful thing to lean towards! Here are my observations on the stages of collaboration in a newly formed group!

1) Individual Brainstorming

Moving personal information about what made each person motivated in the project from the Hidden box to the Open box

Firstly, we started out by brainstorming individually what we felt was meaningful to us. This was a really long process, as we searched the Internet for inspiration and there were some *omg moments* when each person said his or her opinion, and waited for everyone else's response. It could be seen as the critical stage for buy-in of the common goal that decides whether the team would be formed, given that students were free to work as individuals. I observed that it is not easy to get your own idea across effectively unless it has been well-thought out as all members hail from different backgrounds and have different perspectives that have been framed by their past. I realized that many a time, it is insufficient to just raise an idea without a purpose because nobody can read your mind and build on it based on a short sentence.

Individual brainstorming allowed everybody to express what mattered to them and how they themselves envisioned a structure to create. These ideas ranged from miniature mountains to giant life-sized walls. What mattered to some was the simplicity in design, while others cared about how large the project would look.

2) Discussion and Consensus - The Buy-In

Allowing for flexibility and compromise in the decision, giving each member some reason to hold onto the project

After that, we came to a consensus to create a life sized artistic structure that looked like rings standing together to look somewhat like this:

We would reinforce the cloth with wire attached to the edges to facilitate bending of shapes. The common vision of attaining this particular design sculpture triggered the desire in each team member to participate in the preparations. It even attracted one more MIT student, Amelia, to join us, after hearing of the idea, showing that if the idea you have is attractive, you are better able to persuade others to help. With 6 people on board the team, we began working on the project.

3) Short Planning Phase

Short, simple, decided to just try a few things

We had an uphill task - to cut and join 32 yards of cloth, then staple one long continuous wire along the edges of the entire cloth. After much deliberation, we decided to mark the areas in which we would staple or sew for convenience. The planning phase was really short because of the nature of the work, that is "you never know till you try".

4) Blur Beginnings of Working Together

Best phase to ask lots and lots of questions since the newly-formed team begins work not knowing each other's working style.

As we began attacking the cloth, it was tough as only 3 of us were doing the sewing of the bale of cloth. Soon, the other members joined us and we together to mark the cloth. As with all new teams where the half the team have never known the other half of the team before, it was rather difficult at first as the relationships began as just 'work partners'. The ice started to break only as the team members asked each other many questions about themselves.

5) Establishing Relationships and Routine

Asking questions about each other and moving more information from the Hidden to Open box and noticing the pivotal moments where routines are established

We had a good laugh about the metric and imperial units system as well - We were marking the cloth in centermeters, which was comfortable to the 3 Singaporean students and 1 Chinese student, but it totally threw off the American student for a while when he misunderstood which side of the ruler to use. When we re-explained what we wanted again and he understood it, I felt that was one pivotal moment where the entire team got into sync. After that, the group was able to establish routines in its execution process.

With much hand-eye coordination, we got 32 yards of long lined with clams.

We really enjoyed it and couldn't wait to rig the structure in the field!

I felt that the stages of teamwork at play may be quite obvious, yet not so all the time and it is important to be aware of how the team is developing! Watch out for Part 2 of this post - The process of actually building the structure.

-Wenya

#Reflections #Collaboration #Teamwork

Exploring at MIT

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

My Big Fat Greek Wedding- a cultural movie

This week in class I attended a showing of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I expected it to be a somewhat absurd comedy, but found it to be very poignant. The movie tells the story of a Greek American woman named Toula who falls in love a non-Greek against her parents’ wishes. Throughout the movie, she and her family struggle to accept each other for who they are, as well as to accept their new son-in-law and his quiet American family. The movie portrays many misunderstandings between the two families which, while humorous for watchers, are the kind of missteps that can make communication across cultures so difficult and awkward.

One of my favorite scenes portrays Toula’s family and her fiancé Ian’s family at dinner together. The large and boisterous Greek family encourages Ian’s parents to consume copious amounts of an unfamiliar alcohol, leaving them drunk and confused. I like this scene so much because it demonstrates two key ways of responding to culture. Ian’s parents are overwhelmed by the number of unfamiliar traditions happening around them, but they do their best to please Toula’s family by consuming the alcohol they are encouraged to drink. Though they are uncomfortable, they do their best to be accepting of what is happening around them. In contrast, Toula’s parents make no attempts to understand the culture of Ian’s parents, and at the end of the night, Toula’s father proclaims them as boring as dry toast. Though Toula’s family eventually learns to accept her decisions, their blatant desire to continue in their own traditions despite American culture around them is a very different way to interact with unfamiliar cultures.

By the end of the movie, the two families have come to accept and understand one another much better, and, most importantly, Toula has come to better understand and embrace her own culture.

-Shante

photo from http://www.mbc.net/en/mbc-max-delete/articles/My-Big-Fat-Greek-Wedding.html#comment%7Clist

The Iceberg Metaphor of Culture

Bernd Widdig Lecture Reflections

In last week’s class, Bernd Widdig gave a lecture about how culture can be thought of as an operating system of the mind; it runs in the background and informs our behavioral and perceptual inputs and outputs. According to Bates, culture is “a relatively organized set of beliefs and expectations about how people should talk, think, and organize their lives.” And, more simply put, it’s “the way we do things around here.” After discussing how culture in constructed and conceptualized, Bernd went on to emphasize that there are visible and invisible elements of culture, which comprise and define the concept. Out of these elements, we can begin to align ourselves with subcultures that represent our identities and influence how we interact with others in society. It is because of these foundational concepts that Bernd told us “culture eats strategy for breakfast, and then technology for lunch.” I think what he meant by this is that it is futile to try to dismiss or ignore the cultural component of relationships. It is embedded within us and has an extremely important influence in communication strategies, teamwork, and collaboration.

I have thought about Bern’s lecture for a week now and I can see its application to my work with the MIT-SUTD collaboration. Prior to IAP, I had never met anyone from Singapore and I wasn’t sure what to expect. The culture of the country that I am from (the United States) maintains that society value personal responsibility and individualism, and perhaps this was a factor as I formulated my expectations and assumptions for IAP and this course. I was concerned with doing the best I could do to support the students while they are here at MIT while still allowing them to have freedom to explore and learn things for themselves. Now that I have had a chance to meet with the students and interact with them more, I am finding it easier to facilitate cross-cultural communication because we are all learning the significance of recognizing the role of culture in communication via the Collaboration Across Cultures class. Now I am able to see the two levels of communication that Bernd and Jane had mentioned; content level and relationship level. Gradually, I think we are all learning how to purposely communicate the content we want to say while forging a relationship that bridges cultural nuances. I think that this this is key for thriving in new cultures with people who do not necessarily share the same value dimensions that Hofstede defines (per our class discussion). And, relevant to our experience in this course, it will enable us explore the value of cross-cultural exchange at MIT and its implications for receiving a diversified education.

- Katie

#culture #communication #relationships #reflection

Reflections for Week 2 Lesson 1

Wow!! Handling conflicts is one of the hardest things!! When Jane asked, "What do you usually do when you have group conflict?", I became uncomfortable because I realised that I would usually remain silent. I suspect it may be better if I do not draw away from conflict but near to it. On average, it would be wiser for a group to flesh out their differing opinions and figure out plans for compromise, smoothing, or reconciliation. But once again, Jane made a solid point: the methods to resolve group conflict depends on the situation at hand, which is extremely unpredictable in completely variable group dynamics.

That's why I think the communication bingo would be super useful in this process. It would basically help people like me pick and choose the methods to resolve group conflict until I find one that works.

To draw back to Jane's earlier lesson, the idea of presenting vulnerability is also crucial to reduce animosity among group members and help start from a positive point of view for the storming process.

It is interesting to note that I learned the Form, Storm, Norm, Perform processes from my project management certification class I took just 3 weeks ago. I was studying for the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) under Project Management Institute (PMI). I found the information structurally useful to think about working on projects. Haha but once again, I remember what Prof Bernd says about culture - "Culture eats Project Management for breakfast" - No amount of structure in management would work if the lens of culture we see in is blurred out.

I am extremely excited for the work to do in this class ahead; Looking forward to the movies about culture that I'm about to see!!

#joshch #joshuacheong #reflections

First day...

The first day of Cross-Cultural Collaboration, we all sat there in expectation, not knowing what to expect. A simple exercise of writing our names and drawing something that represents ourselves led to learning points and surprisingly, our group name came forth. Upward spirals. I like that although we all seem to be going in circles, eventually we hope to be able to go upwards.

#janicetyp

What do you want to improve on?

On the first day, we sat down together to discuss something that we wanted to improve in, be it during the duration of the class or just in general.

Joshua

In the shortest amount of time, how can I make information unknown to others become known? From the "hidden" quadrant in the Johan Window to the "public" quadrant. Such that when I meet others, we can get to know each other well quickly and not just remain on shallow topics of conversation.

How can I contribute better to a team? Especially in programming/engineering teams. How do I take managerial distance into consideration? Power dynamics?

Shanté

How can I balance leadership and teamwork. How do I know when to lead and when to follow? How do you make sure that when the group changes, the people are up to speed? Balance between acknowledging experience and embracing new ideas?

Katie

How to find a balance and know what roles to play in a group?

Business and group projects may be different. Recognising these difference may be different too.

Guan Rong

How to optimise roles and group dynamics?

Understand why some people may not contribute, any extenuating circumstances? How can I understand such situations and deal with them?

Michelle

I want to learn how to be more open to other people’s ideas and to be able to listen to people better.

Janice

I want to know how to manage group dynamics - how to optimise the roles that everyone plays. How does the group ensure everyone that does their part and how to make the experience enjoyable. Such that the group feels an immense sense of accomplishment after the project and not feel that it was such chore.

Wen Ya

How to balance friendship and work? Managing group dynamics.

Between having pre-existing relationships, how to you get work done without straining relationships?

Finding a common goal that will motivate a team and not fall behind?

Hope that everyone gets to learn something these 2 weeks!

Janice,

on behalf of Upward Spiral

#janicetyp

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