Thank You Dr. Dartt and Colleagues

Dr. Dartt and Colleagues,

I want to take a minute to thank Dr. Dartt and all of my Colleagues for sharing their thoughts, comments and providing me with questions that have caused me to learn more about the communication process.  I have definitely learned that there is much more to communicating effectively than what I thought previously. With the knowledge I have gained, I will be able to look at situations differently as I now have a better understanding of how things may be interpreted differently.  Further, I will take with me the knowledge I have gained about working in groups that I previously was unaware of.  As I move on to my specialization courses, I look forward to working with some of you again and I wish all of you the best as you move forward.  Once again I thank each and every one of you for helping me to grow in the area of effective communication. 

Randee 

Adjourning

Adjourning is an essential stage of teamwork as it allows the team members to reflect on accomplishments and failures (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012). Further, the adjourning stage provides the opportunity for team members to decide if they will continue as a group and take on different project or if they will dissolve the group (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012).  As I reflect on the groups that I have been a part of I can honestly say that when the time is over that we will meet in a group is often sad.  A group experience that comes to mind is when I was taking an undergraduate class and our class was broken into groups for the entire semester.  In these groups we worked together to complete mini skits that we performed for the class.  Our group worked well together and even met outside of class time in order to work in our groups.  When the semester came to an end we had a big get together celebration as we knew we would be moving on to other classes and the group would officially dissolve (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012).  This was hard as we had all formed and developed friendships as we worked together and we knew more than likely we would not see each other on a regular basis.  We would have to independently contact each other in order to be together.  Even though we no longer work together on class studies many of us formed friendship and will occasionally meet up for dinner (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012). I imagine that I will adjourn from the colleagues that I have formed by wishing them the best of luck in their future endeavors.  I also believe that I will be able to keep in contact with my colleagues through email and other online sources.

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication: An introduction. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Conflict

The most recent conflict that comes to mind is one that has occurred with my husband and me. We have some rental properties and recently there are some tenants that have not been paying their rent properly.  This is a very frustrating issue for me as I strongly believe when individuals do not pay their rent they need to get out as I do not think that we should pay for others to live in our rental properties.  This generally is a sensitive subject and I tend to get strong headed and just continuously state, “You need to get rid of the non-payers and those who do not pay their rent in full.”

In this situation, I think that it is important for me to take the time to respect and listen to my husband’s thoughts on the situation instead of just insisting on kicking them out.  I personally want to kick out all of them and my husband’s suggest that he agrees but it does not make sense to kick them all out at once.  That we need to start with the ones that are not paying anything because at least we are receiving some rent from the partial payers.  When I am calmed down I can see his point on the situation and that a compromise would make the situation much better.  NVC would play an important role as it would allow me to differentiate feelings from thinking so I do not judge or blame him for the situation (The Center for Non-violent Communication, 2007).  After all it is not his fault that the tenants are not paying their rent in the manner they should and he also does not want to allow the individuals to reside in the home if they are not paying appropriately.    

Reference:

The Center for Non-Violent Communication. (2007).   Nonviolent Communication is.  Retrieved

            from https://www.cnvc.org/Training/NVC-Concepts