2.

As working adults and part-time students, what are the issues dealing with and
managing your group members?

As working adults and students, I am pretty sure we may face or facing or faced many
challenges in dealing with group members in our daily lives.

In our experience, one of the main issues in managing group members is disagreement.
Disagreement is when there’s no acceptance of thoughts between people. In a group work
of 2 and more people, disagreements are common but how they deal with them and how
long they last is what matters. To our mind, the reason disagreements happen is mainly
because different people have different opinions and mindsets. This may turn into a conflict
one day if it is difficult to communicate or convey what we think to members who do not want
to listen and accept other people’s ideas. Any university, unites people with different
backgrounds, temperaments, experiences, and preferences. We usually don’t make friends
with everyone we meet and we can’t be everyone’s cup of tea either. Even the people we
are friends with or the people we think we can be friends with may have different perceptions
and thoughts than us. For an example, some people believe that government programs such
as welfare foster dependence and destroy the incentive to work. Others believe that
government benefits programs are always a good thing necessary to help those who are
struggling. Often, these differences can escalate to conflict if there’s no give and take
attitude and if there’s no 'intermediary' that provides a balanced view of things in a team. In
our opinion, having diverse opinions in a group actually lead to better outcomes where good
ideas and divergent views are served to improve and strengthen a particular plan. First
things first, in order to achieve a solution or come to a middle-ground, one must allow and
listen to what others is thinking and their reasoning for it and then from there, the team
representative or the team leader must choose the best and suitable idea fairly to get a
better or best outcome.

In addition, lack of cooperation is also an issue in our group since every one of us are
working. Cooperation is a core life skill and defined as the act or process of working together
and helping each other to get something done for a common purpose or to achieve mutual
benefit. Cooperation demonstrates the ability to work effectively and consistently with
diverse people, make compromises, build consensus in decision-making, assume shared
responsibility for collaborative work, and value the opinions and contributions of individual
team member. Hence, when someone does not cooperate, the whole process slows down
and obviously it will be difficult and unfair for other members of the group who give their
hundred percent. It seems to us that lack of cooperation may be due to competition,
laziness or limited time, skills and resources. Examples of how a member should be
cooperative are taking effort and collaborating to find solutions to problems, sharing as much
information as they know, working together to meet deadlines, making suggestions, helping
one another and giving constructive feedback. If members do not have these qualities or
follow any of these examples, problems can arise such as communication can break down,
lead to a lack of understanding and a decrease in productivity. But, by working together
towards a goal, teams can develop more sustainable strategies that may otherwise be
overlooked. This can help foster understanding, leading to less interpersonal conflict and
better communication over the long term. Not only that, but collaboration allows for more
efficient decision making and the ability to come up with innovative solutions to challenging
problems. Also, students who know how to cooperate in a team tend to have a positive
attitude about their roles and able to achieve goals successfully and easily in the end of the
day.

Last but not the least, another issue in dealing with group members is over competition or
jealousy. While some level of competition among members can be motivating and beneficial
in completing tasks successfully, with friends encouraging one another to perform at their
best. However, some people may be too competitive. When members are overly
competitive, they may be less likely to communicate or to help each other, which can
increase the chances of mistakes happening and decrease productivity. Group members
may try to hide their envious feelings to themselves but we can find it by their actions such
as belittling other people’s accomplishments, ignoring other people’s ideas, refusing to
speak to someone and saying nothing when a colleague or friend is congratulated or when
someone shares their good news. A perfect example as a whole can be, if a member reacts
to someone else’s success by saying, “Oh, they just got lucky” or “Anyone could have done
that” then that could be a sign of jealousy. In contrast, this issue can disrupt the team
dynamic, resulting in tension and distrust between team members. When this occurs, the
team may become unable to effectively collaborate, leading to a decrease in quality of work
and a decrease in motivation. Thus, it is important to acknowledge and address any feelings
of envy that arise in a team setting. Open communication and respect between team
members can help make sure that jealous feelings and over competitive attitude do not
sabotage the overall success of the team. Also, managing student competition requires a fair
application of reward structures from universities and a continued emphasis on collaborative
work which can help them work together and build healthy relationships.