My goal of paraphrasing members of my team is going very well. I’ve been successful at paraphrasing at least one member at every meeting. This adds to the natural flow of conversation and helps clarify ideas for me and the rest of the group. I have not encountered any challenges when it comes to this goal nor have I had to make any adjustments to it.
My goal of asking quieter members to share is a little bit more challenging. I am mindful that I do not want to spotlight any quieter members and I acknowledge that everyone functions differently. Asking introverts to share with the whole group in a way that feels unnatural to them is unfair. But this goal has helped me look at these members while at meetings to see how they are interacting with people. I noticed that the quieter members do still talk and share, but just with smaller groups or just one person, sometimes after the meeting. I think that creating alternate ways of sharing, making sure to leave ample wait time, and asking permission to share a quiet share with the whole group helps get these quieter voices heard. That is how I’ve started to adjust my own habits in these meetings. I’ve purposefully positioned myself near our quieter members so that I can hear what they have to say and I’ve been adding more wait time to our discussions. With this adjustment, I’ve been able to be successful at this goal in 80% of our meetings. I’m not sure what this will look like for the remainder of our team meetings as they will be digital, but that may open up some alternative ways that group members can participate.
Taking the conflict self assessment showed that I use a variety of strategies when faced with conflict. The most clear result was that I hardly ever use the aggressive/confronting. The other three styles I used almost the same amounts with avoiding being my highest by a small margin. This makes sense to me. When I experience conflict, I often assess the degree of conflict and how much it matters to me. If the issue is important to me, I will feel the need to either respectfully stand up for myself or use empathy to see the other person’s point of view in an attempt to find compromise. If an issue is not important to me, I will avoid. Not all battles need to be fought.
An example of using assertive/persuasive style that worked well for me was just recently with the coronavirus outbreak and our school’s response to it. The technology team was not including librarians in the discussion of how to support our community and they were giving incorrect advice in terms of copyright. (Actually being too restrictive). I spoke up about this and we were included more and our advice was used to help inform teachers on best practices for online learning. A time avoidance helped me was a time when I did not jump into a conflict between the technology coach and another librarian. Rather than a group argument, the two parties were able to work it out on their own. Avoidance can cause a problem if used when really something needs to be said. One way I need to grow and not use avoidance is when teachers try to get me to use my budget for their own classroom needs. I try to avoid the issue rather than have a conversation about the purpose of the library budget and how it makes me feel like they are taking advantage of me. I need to find a way to voice this rather than ignore it.
When it comes to decision making, almost all of my meetings could use a better discussion about it. I think that the equity team I am on would benefit greatly from this discussion. There is a tendency to have great discussions and brainstorm amazing ideas, but then no decision is made on how to move forward on any of these ideas. If we had a better protocol for decision making, we might see more work accomplished. I also think that deciding on decision making protocols like consensus, could also help with conflict between factions and help members have a greater sense of our goals and a greater sense of ownership.
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