INTERPERSONAL GROUP PROCESSESS 1.

Session 5: Negotiation Black melons

In the activity Black Melons I was given the role of an observer. While observing the other two participants who were given the role of Dr. Chitnis and Dr. Nathan, I observed that how people ignore the crucial information when they just want other person to loose and dont want to follow the collaborative approach. If the negotiating parties try to find out a way that is win-win for the parties than that is the best outcome for any negotiation. Like in the activity as one party needed the peel of the melon and other needed the juice, their needs were not complementary and could be satisfied simultaneously. But many groups did not realize this fact and many left the discussion without reaching any solution. For good negotiation we should be clear in our mind about: What I need? Why I need? Am I satisfied if I dont end up getting what I wanted? Whether our needs are complementary or not? Is there interdependence and both the parties can not fulfill their needs without each other or is it only you who can not fulfill his/her need without the other party? Do you have something that other party values? What is the best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA)? While negotiating you should also think about whether this is a one time interaction or you may need the other party again in the future. It is best to follow the collaborative approach where you make sure if one party is winning this time than, needs of the other party should be catered next time. The learning discussed above is surely going to help me doing a better negotiation, In short term I can say for the salary and other benefits whenever I will go for a job interview and In long run whenever Ill negotiate the contracts with other companies on behalf of my organization. As a manager sometimes you need to convince your subordinates to take up a task that is not very lucrative and for that also you must have good negotiation skills and It is going to help me develop better negotiation skills, because I am surely going to spend some time thinking about all the questions that have been mentioned above, before sitting for any negotiation. I can recall an incident when I appeared for a Job interview and I got selected and was offered a package. I didnt negotiate with them and asked them to give me a day to reply. I talked to some of my friends and came to know that an ex-employee used to get much more

benefits than, what they were offering me for the same job; knowing this I just refused them and took up another offer I had in my hand. That time I simply avoided the negotiation and did not negotiated with them. I think my poor negotiation skills were responsible for that. Having learned from this session I am sure I can better negotiate now.

2. Session 6: Strike in Space

As the class was divided into four teams (Skylab-1, 2, 3 and the Ground staff) to discuss the case Strike in Space; I was in the Ground Staff. This case gave me a good understanding about (1) power and how to use that power to influence the other person (2) How to evaluate the performance of others without being biased? (3) The criticality of an enriched job. (4) Relationship between norms and team cohesiveness. Initially as all the teams were asked to grade each others performance and give a critique about that and answer the cribs of other teams whom one has graded, I learned that while evaluating the performance we should look at overt as well as the covert behavior. What I could conclude about power from the discussion we had in case is that power is to control of valuable resources, capacity to affect another persons rewards and costs and ability to control what happens to another individual and influencing the other person means using power to change another person in a desired direction. But to influence the other party one must look for the right time to use the power, at which the other party is more likely to accept your terms and conditions. The discussion we had in the class was about Job enrichment I can recall the factors that are considered crucial for an enriched job such as Task identity, autonomy, Task significance, meaningfulness and feedback; were missing in that case. I learned that before assigning jobs to people a manager should consider all the job enrichment factors while designing a job. Because an enriched job may lead to satisfaction and absence of enrichment me lead to conflicts and even strikes of this kind. Also if you face such a problem how you can use your power at right time to influence the person was an important learning for me. The relationship between norms and cohesiveness helped me understand that to build more cohesive groups we should have positive norms and that help us to give high performance as in the case Skylab 3 had similar characteristics that is why they were considered the best performers unanimously. I faced the similar problem of Job

enrichment In my second Job, They provided me various facilities that were not there in my first job but the job autonomy was missing, We were supervised closely and there was an overload of work, time schedules were very tight and sometimes I had to skip my lunch to complete the task provided to me. I talked about it with my boss, they didnt reduce the workload but he made sure that I get sufficient time, to take my lunch on time. All the learning from this session is going to help me to be a good influencer and better team player.

3. Session 7 and 8: Transactional Analysis

We learned about the three ego states (1) Parent (Critical Parent, Nurturing Parent), (2) Child (Natural Child, Adapted Child and Little Professor), (3) Adult. Where Parent is our 'Taught' concept of life, Adult is our 'Thought' concept of life and Child is our 'Felt' concept of life . In the first session using the scores in the questionnaire that we filled before the class; we drew an Ego Gram. Using the Ego Gram and as interpreted by Prof. Vohra I was able to explore my personality. As all the bars in my ego gram were relatively of similar height except a spike was there for Natural Child but that was also not too high as compared to other bars; I interpreted that there is god mix of all the ego states in my personality but more often I act like a Natural Child that is bringing together creativity, intuition and curiosity; enjoys life, expresses freely its feelings of happiness, sadness, anger and fear depending on the situation, and is spontaneous. And as the bar for the adult ego state was very close in height to natural child; it means my all characteristics which are like that of a natural child; are well supported by the adult ego state that is related to rational decision making. By understanding the ones ego state he/she can manage the ego states that helps alter the pattern of conversation. One should use adult that can use feelings (Child) and what has been taught (Parent) to reach to a decision which is rational. We also discussed about the Negative and positive conditional strokes and the Stroke Economy. Generally people dont give positive strokes to others and dont ask for strokes and dont give strokes to their own self. People cant say no to negative strokes but if somebody gives a positive stroke many of the times they discount the strokes. As a manager it is very important to give positive strokes to your subordinates as it boosts their morale and to live a happy professional life you should also give positive strokes to yourself whenever you do well

and also you should not hesitate asking for strokes from others. I am a kind of person that always discounts the positive strokes given by the others. After attending this session I realized that I should accept the positive strokes given by the others and even should give strokes to myself whenever I achieve something because that will surely help me to live happier. We also discussed about the life positions one creates in his/her mind about himself/herself when he/she continuously feels bad or good about himself/herself. Having known the four life positions i.e. (1) Im OK- You are Not Ok, (2) Im Not OK- You are Not Ok (3) Im Not OK- You are Ok and (4) Im OK- You are Ok; I can recall one of my colleague who always used to say that making it to IIMA is very tough and Well not be able to make it, She was surely in the life position Im Not OK- You are Not Ok. My learning from this life position discussion is that one should try to get himself/herself in Im OK- You are Ok life position because people in this life position are highly motivated and achieve higher goals in life and this is possible only by understanding and appreciating your real strengths and by giving positive strokes to yourself.

4. Session 9 : The block building activity & Dr. Shekhawat

The block building activity helped me understand the importance of Leadership Support in an organization. As seen in the activity people who were given appropriate instructions, specific and accurate feedback and encouraged; performed well. And all these tasks are handled by the leaders of the team. The performance of a subordinate or a team depends upon their own ability, motivation and leadership support. Organizations that lack leadership support can not perform well. Sometimes leaders underestimate the abilities of their subordinates and they set lower goals for them and besides that creating a perception in the subordinates mind that only achieving the goal is what expected by the leader will always lead to a mediocre performance. Goals should be set with mutual consensus of the subordinate but it should be high enough to match the standards and harness the full ability of the employee. Also appropriate instructions, accurate feedback should be given and employee should be motivated to achieve higher goals. In the case Dr. Shekhawat does not value the prior experience of the doctors working under him. He used to criticize them, there was no goal setting and positive strokes and positive feedback was not there. The subordinates were dissatisfied with this behavior of Dr. Shekhawat

as he wanted the things to be done; by the way he does it. Dr. Shekhwat was unaware of this situation as there was no feedback taken from the subordinates. All these things led to high turnover rate in his department. As per my learning Dr. Shekhawat was following more of Critical Parent ego state; but if you be like this the subordinates will become dependent over you and will not be able to bring out their best and of course the talented ones will never be satisfied with it. I can associate Dr. Shekhawats behavior with the life positions we have learned he was actually in Im OK - You are Not OK position. One of my friends faced the similar problem with his boss he tried to communicate this problem with the boss but all in vain and ultimately he left that job. My overall learning has been that to be an effective leader one should focus on developing people and not unnecessarily compelling them to follow the status-quo.

5. Session 10 & 11: The movie- Ek Ruka Hua Faisla

The movie gives a clear picture of group development and it s dynamics. As the group was a formal group that was formed to perform a specific task that is to decide whether the person was Guilty or Non- Guilty. The group was heterogeneous with people from different backgrounds. There were people who wanted to take decision only on the basis of available information but there were people who challenged them and wanted to look at the problem from different angle, they wanted to challenge the available information. So, there was conflict between the group members. Then the norm of voting after fixed intervals was set to reach at the decision. Initially there were people who were dominating others, There were people who were stereotyped towards a particular social class and community and they just dont wanted to change their mind, there were people who does not understand the criticality of the decision, People who fears to change their mind because majority supports the other view. Initially people were accusing each other and looking at the broader picture and not the minute details. But as the group proceeded more people realized that their initial views about the problem were perceptually biased and group started to move towards a consensus and ultimately a rational decision was taken and the group adjourned. I could easily see all the stages of group development i.e. Forming, Storming, Norming, performing and Adjourning in

the movie. I also learned from the movie that one should understand and respect the individual differences in a group and while performing in a group one should not resist to accept the others rational views; should follow the group norms and should keep his/her perceptions and feelings separate to reach to a rational decision.

6. Session 12 & 13 : Group Dynamics

What I learnt from the group activity is that: most of the time groups focus on task rather than strategy, most of the time decisions are taken by majority and minority is ignored irrespective of the fact how valid there point is. Often good ideas get killed because the person could not articulate it well. Group has the power to inhibit a decision; although ones individual stand is different but still one goes by the groups decision. On the other hand sometimes people lock-in their positions because they think that their stand is right and ultimately groups performance decreases. Group members sometimes disagree privately and agree publicly that also leads to a mediocre decision. There are two kind of work that a group performs one is related to task and the other is related to processes involved. It is the responsibility of the group members to make sure that everybody is involved in the discussion including the silent members. Groups that give importance to processes also do better. In our group also there were people who had a different view about the usage of things that were there in the list and their views matched with that of the expert as narrated by the Professor; as a result their individual error score was very low as compared to group average. But these people were ignored because they were in minority. So, overall I learnt that while making a group decision it is important to listen to all members carefully, looking at the problem from different perspectives, focusing on strategy rather than task, and one should not try to impose his/her personal preferences on the group. Only then group functioning can be improved and group synergy can be leveraged.