{"id":89,"date":"2007-10-28T07:29:20","date_gmt":"2007-10-28T12:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ashokkarania.com\/blog\/?p=89"},"modified":"2007-10-28T07:29:20","modified_gmt":"2007-10-28T12:29:20","slug":"tips-for-working-successfully-in-a-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/tips-for-working-successfully-in-a-group\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips For Working Successfully In A Group"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Randy Pausch<\/a>, for the Building Virtual Worlds course at Carnegie Mellon, Spring 1998<\/p>\n

1. Meet people properly.<\/strong> It all starts with the introduction. Then, exchange contact information, and make sure you know how to pronounce everyone\u2019s names. Exchange phone #s, and find out what hours are acceptable to call during.<\/p>\n

2. Find things you have in common.<\/strong> You can almost always find something in common with another person, and starting from that baseline, it\u2019s much easier to then address issues where you have differences. This is why cities like professional sports teams, which are socially galvanizing forces that cut across boundaries of race and wealth. If nothing else, you probably have in common things like the weather.<\/p>\n

3. Make meeting conditions good. <\/strong> Have a large surface to write on, make sure the room is quiet and warm enough, and that there aren\u2019t lots of distractions. Make sure no one is hungry, cold, or tired. Meet over a meal if you can; food softens<\/em><\/strong> a meeting. That\u2019s why they \u201cdo lunch\u201d in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

Let everyone talk. <\/strong>Even if you think what they\u2019re saying is stupid. Cutting someone off is rude, and not worth whatever small time gain you might make. Don\u2019t finish someone\u2019s sentences for him or her; they can do it for themselves. And remember: talking louder or faster doesn\u2019t make your idea any better.<\/p>\n

Check your egos at the door.<\/strong> When you discuss ideas, immediately label them and write them down. The labels should be descriptive of the idea, not the originator: \u201cthe troll bridge story,\u201d not \u201cJane\u2019s story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Praise each other.<\/strong> Find something nice to say, even if it\u2019s a stretch. Even the worst of ideas has a silver lining inside it, if you just look hard enough. Focus on the good, praise it, and then raise any objections or concerns you have about the rest of it.<\/p>\n

Put it in writing. <\/strong>Always write down who is responsible for what, by when. Be concrete<\/strong><\/em>. Arrange meetings by email, and establish accountability. Never assume that someone\u2019s roommate will deliver a phone message. Also, remember that \u201cpolitics is when you have more than 2 people\u201d \u2013 with that in mind, always CC (carbon copy) any piece of email within the group, or to me, to all members<\/strong> of the group. This rule should never<\/strong> be violated; don\u2019t try to guess what your group mates might or might not want to hear about.<\/p>\n

Be open and honest.<\/strong> Talk with your group members if there\u2019s a problem, and talk with me if you think you need help. The whole point of this course is that it\u2019s tough to work across cultures. If we all go into it knowing that\u2019s an issue, we should be comfortable discussing problems when they arise — after all, that\u2019s what this course is really about. Be forgiving when people make mistakes, but don\u2019t be afraid to raise the issues when they come up,<\/p>\n

Avoid conflict at all costs.<\/strong> When stress occurs and tempers flare, take a short break. Clear your heads, apologize, and take another stab at it. Apologize for upsetting your peers, even if you think someone else was primarily at fault; the goal is to work together, not start a legal battle over whose transgressions were worse. It takes two to have an argument, so be the peacemaker.<\/p>\n

Phrase alternatives as questions. <\/strong>Instead of \u201cI think we should do A, not B,\u201d try \u201cWhat if we did A, instead of B?\u201d That allows people to offer comments, rather than defend one choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Randy Pausch, for the Building Virtual Worlds course at Carnegie Mellon, Spring 1998 1. Meet people properly. It all starts with the introduction. Then, exchange contact information, and make sure you know how to pronounce everyone\u2019s names. Exchange phone #s, and find out what hours are acceptable to call during. 2. Find things you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}