Application plan and evaluation

As mentioned in this week’s assignment, we should consider applying the behavioral guidelines that are mentioned in the book so we can improve our skills when dealing with a critical situation.

So as a first step I’m going to mention the skills that are important to me. I actually have two aspects that I consider as my areas of weakness which I should work on and improve. The first one has to do with gaining power and the second one with having an influence on people. Right now, these are the two most important areas that I should talk about because I’m having a problem dealing with people who take advantage of the power that they have and I also find it difficult to like influence people (in a good way of course).

My choice came down to these two skills because I’m having trouble with one of my team members (not to worry girls, it’s not you but another group). Let me first explain the situation so you can get what I’m saying. I have a class in which all the assignments are made in groups, and the thing is that you can’t choose your team members because the professor thinks that we should get out of our comfort zone and get to work with people who we don’t particularly know.  At first it sounded like a great idea but everything has changed when one of my team members started to impose himself. All he did was talk about himself, about his work related experience, about the power that he has in the company that he works in and most importantly about his charisma and how this helps him to influence people and make them do all that he wants. Also, his behavior has a big impact on how the group's reacts because he likes to impose his ideas and he always manages to influence us into doing what he likes.

So you can notice that I am aware of the situation that I am in, but because of my lack of power (and especially the fact that I think that I don’t have as much experience or knowledge as him) and influence I find it hard to do something about it.

However, since this week’s assignment is about implementing the skills that I’ve been talking about, I have decided to apply them and see how it goes. So I had a meeting this morning with my team members in order to talk about our project and I kept in mind that I should at least try and implement the skills that I have studied. I had to engage some specific behaviors in order to apply this skills like showing my team members that I am a person who puts a lot of effort in what she does. I made it clear that I am a responsible person and I am willing to do what it takes to get a good grade. I have also stressed the fact that I am flexible, I like to improvise and do things differently. Then, I tried to influence my team members through reason (influence strategies: the three Rs) and I have presented some facts (direct approach) to show them that my ideas are reliable.

I can say that I was successful in doing so, I felt effective because the reaction of my team mates was positive and they were really supportive of my ideas. However, the ‘expert’ was very critical of my ideas.

For the evaluation part of the assignment, I can say that it wasn’t an easy task, I had to put a lot of effort in order to impose my power. I’m not saying that I succeeded in doing so but I feel better because I never thought that I would be able to stand up for my ideas, defend them and get my other team members to agree with me. I am happy because my ideas were implemented in the process and had a good effect on my team members (well, except for the ‘expert’). Also, next time I will try to gain more power and see if I can get ‘the expert’ to agree with some of my ideas.

Looking back on this whole skill practice and application experience I have learned that gaining power can be difficult and it demands a lot of courage. I was really surprised by the reaction of my team members, the fact that they were agreeing with me made me feel confident. This experience was interesting and it will certainly help me now and when I’ll get a job.

Have a nice week,

Zahra