BEST WISHES!!

To my instructor and colleagues,

I feel as if I am living what we have all learned throughout the past eight weeks. We are here at the "Adjourning Phase" of our collaboration!! I am so excited for all of us to be moving forward on our journey towards our Master's Degree. However, I will miss each of you so much! I wish each of you the very best and I look forward to seeing you all at graduation because we are one step closer to our destiny. Keep up the wonderful work and I will see you soon.

Kindest Regards,

Berdetta Clark

IT'S SO HARD TO SAY GOODBYE!!

Saying, "Goodbye" is always so very difficult for me. I can remember how difficult is was to say to my Comrades when leaving Basic Training, and just recently when we relocated to North Carolina from Virginia and I had to leave my team from the Child Development Center and Academy I managed for six years. Our team had gone through the forming, storming, norming and performing stages and now the adjourning stage was upon us. I can remember when I was first hired as the Director. I came into a situation that was very volatile. There was a high turnover rate and many of the staff members didn't take pride in their work. Then there were those with very strong personalities that almost took on a dictator role in the center. They felt since they had worked there for so long, they were in charge. I must admit, the forming stage was very difficult because I had to evaluate the team's current performance and decide if a new team was necessary or if we could continue with the current team. Depending upon how you look at the process, we had to form a "new" team which meant keeping some of the current team members but changing their mindset and hiring new staff members. The storming stage where, "They have different opinions on what should be done and how it should be done - which causes conflict within the team. As they go progress through this stage, with the guidance of the team leader, they learn how to solve problems together, function both independently and together as a team, and settle into roles and responsibilities on the team (Abudi, 2010)." was especially difficult for those who were very opinionated. I can remember having to have several one on one conversations with individuals in order to curtail the intimidation of others their strong personalities caused. In the end the norming and performing stages were very successful. The employee turnover rate decreased tremendously which caused the enrollment to increase. During our adjourning stage, there were a lot of tears. I felt as if I was leaving my family. When I go back to visit, many of the same team members are still there and I can proudly say that they had learned so much from my leadership style because in essence, they had moved on to their various areas and appreciated how I made the vision clear, managed very difficult situations and was never afraid to model expected behavior for them. I miss them so much but it is like a reunion when we all get together. I can honestly say this team was one of the most challenging but most rewarding teams I have every worked on.

When I think about my team at Walden University, I have had a wonderful experience with this group of wonderful people. I think those of us who will meet face to face for the first time at our graduation will be super excited and experience a new level of unity. I never thought I would feel such a closeness from attending an online University because I am a face-to-face person however, I was so wrong. This has been a very unique experience for me.

Adjourning is a very important stage of a team because at some point the individuals must branch out and put what they have built to work. We must learn from one another and move out to teach others. Also, adjourning is important because sometimes we must be careful not to establish cliques and splinter groups that will deter others from appreciating the teams contributions to the project.


References:

Abudi, G. (2010). The five stages of team development: A case study. Retrieved from http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-five-stages-of-team-development-a-case-study.html

Non Violent Communication

This week we are learning about nonviolent communication. As I thought about my week, I realized I am experiencing a very unusual conflict in my personal life. I must admit, I was perfectly content with severing ties with this person simply because I feel as if I have been struggling to have a meaningful relationship for many years. I have tried many strategies, to no avail. So, I had finally resolved to just severing ties. Realistically, this would certainly be one to the hardest things to do because this person is my mother. Yes, my mother. For so many years I have been in conflict with my mother concerning how she enables my older brother. I personally believe it to be a generational habit that has been passed on through our family. For some strange reason, the women in my family have enabled the men in my family. They deemed it necessary to take care of them well into their adult lives which, has made it impossible for the men to take the role as the head of a household. Therefore, there are men in my family who are well into their forties and fifties who have never been married and although they have moved in with several women, have quickly moved back in with their mothers simply because they did not want the responsibilities. I find this to be very unfair to the health and well being of my mother because of the stress that she is constantly under as well as the stress it puts my sister and I under due to the fact that she wants us to “understand” why she continues to bail him out even to detriment of herself.

I honestly thought I just needed to give up on ever having a “normal” relationship with her until this week. “It is important that we do something because whether we like it or not, conflicts demand our energy. In fact, an unresolved conflict can call on tremendous amounts of our attention. We all know how exhausting an unresolved conflict can be. It is not always easy to fix the problem but a great energy boost can come when we do (Conflict Resolution Network, n.d.).” I decided to resolve the conflict by calling and talking with my mother after five months. I decided to use these two strategies:

1. Win/Win which states: “I want to win and I want you to win too (Conflict Resolution Network, n.d.).” I decided to take this approach and in the end, we both felt so much better about the decisions we made to make life much better for ourselves.

2. Go back to needs states: “The most important win/win maneuver you can make is to change course by beginning to discuss underlying needs, rather than only looking at solutions (Conflict Resolution Network, n.d.).” I understand that my children want and need their grandmother in their lives. I also realize that I want and need to have a relationship with my mother. Her feelings were mutual and she realized that she needed to allow my brother to stand on his own two feet so that she will have the time and energy to do exactly what she should be doing at this phase of her life which is enjoying herself and her grandchildren.

I am so thankful for this course and I am excited about the start of a new journey in our lives.


Reference:
Conflict Resolution Network. (n.d.). CR kit. Retrieved from http://www.crnhq.org/pages.php?pID=12#skill_3