Critical Incident Reflection: Group Task

This critical incident reflection is related to a recent group assignment I had to do with a friend who suffered from a serious medical condition of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. For confidential purposes, this person will be referred to as J throughout this reflection. One of the primary symptoms of J’s condition was that obsessive thoughts distracted him from his work and, hence, his normal work process was much slower than usual. This also made it difficult and stressful for him to meet initial deadlines set within the group. To make matters worse, his symptoms deteriorated during the course of the assignment.

Even though we were assured by J that he would get the job done, we let our prejudice get in the way and were unable to rely on him. Further complicating the situation was the fact that this person was our friend. This led to a dilemma of involving the module leader, and having him removed from the group to avoid risking the chance of submitting the assignment on time, which in turn could affect our grade, or keeping him in the group. As it would have been too difficult to rectify the situation with the nearing deadline, we chose to take the risk and gave him the benefit of doubt. However, as J was not trusted to perform his task properly, we decided amongst ourselves, without his knowledge, to take on more than the required workload in case he was unable to do his part.

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At the time of the incident, I and the other team members were unsure if we would be able to finish the assignment on time, and were upset about the situation which was out of our hand. While we tried to cooperate with J, there was clearly a lack of empathy and positive outlook within the team as we didn’t fully understand his condition and found it hard to remain optimistic. The focus was on getting the task done instead of confronting the situation thereby causing me to struggle with the EI self-management competency of achievement orientation from the very beginning (ESCI-U Self-Assessment, 2017). Due to this frustration and the consequential demanding workload, there was conflict and tension within the team. Group meetings were mostly unproductive as I and other members were unwilling to face the problem and left things as they were. This affected our work and led us to lose interest in the assignment.

Nevertheless, to deal with the situation, I and the other team members adopted some aspects of the EI competency of teamwork by sharing responsibility of the extra workload, and demonstrated a certain amount of emotional control and empathy by dealing with the stress of doing this assignment (Boyatzis, 2009; Goleman, 2000 Goleman, 2000). We also made sure to control our impulsive feelings and emotions towards J so as not to pressure him too much as it would have hindered his ability to get the task done at all (Goleman, 2000). Instead of responding to the situation in an adverse way, I espoused some form of self-control by keeping my emotions under control to calmly handle the work burden and get the job done despite the negative emotions (ESCI-U Self-Assessment, 2017; Hay Group, 2010).

In the end, the overall team’s emotional self-control enabled us to complete the task despite the negative emotions and, surprisingly, J was able to finish his work well ahead of the actual deadline, and even performed better than expected. With counselling, therapy and medication, J overcame his condition and lived up to his assurance of providing high quality work. Though slightly delayed, his condition did not prove to be as unfavourable to the group task as initially thought.

My sincere regret in this situation was that while he was absolutely honest with us, this honestly wasn’t returned to him from our side, and while we were supportive of his distress, I wasn’t entirely empathetic towards him, and instead deeply underestimated him (ESCI-U Self-Assessment, 2017). Reflecting on my newfound experience from this incident, I would tend to consider more deeply about the most effective ways of working with team members that have serious medical disorders, and of being more socially aware about managing others’ emotions by being more mindful of their feelings and concerns during their time of need (Goleman, 2000).

Considering this incident from my own point of view and from J’s point of view has led me to arrive at a very different conclusion about working in challenging situations with team members struggling with OCD. From my own and my team members’ point of view, I could see the dilemmas that we faced, which included the possibility of performing poorly on our assignment, the stress of taking on the extra workload and missing the deadline, and the resulting tension this situation caused amongst us, which we were unwilling to have an open discussion about. From J’s point of view, I now understand how overwhelming the distress of his medical condition, the anxiety of doing his part of the assignment, and our lack of empathy towards his situation must have made him feel. Furthermore, it could have had negative consequences by demotivating him and affecting the quality of his work.

Equipped with these new insights, I researched extensively on a range of literature regarding J’s condition, and developing emotional and social competencies that would have allowed me to deal with the issue much more appropriately. I now realize that to undertake a task or group assignment, it is not enough to simply possess a strong intellectual ability to bring out a successful outcome (Hay Group, 2010; Boyatzis and Sala, 2004). It is extremely important to have the EI ability to understand our own feelings and situations and those of people around us, and have the capacity to manage these emotions effectively (Goleman, 2000). Had we provided a more hands-on support and guidance to J, our final group report could have been pulled together better and saved us the unnecessary pressure.

If I had to go back and do it again, I would try to develop my EI particularly by adopting certain social awareness, relationship-management and self-management competencies that would enable me to take on challenging roles in a team, and effectively manage my emotions during a stressful group task. Applying the empathy competency during the incident would have allowed me to be more aware of J’s feelings, needs and concerns and help him mange his emotions. Understanding J’s feelings and concerns at this time would have helped me better comprehend what he was going through, and how he intended to move forward instead of wasting time planning a response to a potentially negative outcome due to his condition, which never occurred (ESCI-U Self-Assessment, 2017; Hay Group, 2010; Boyatzis and Sala, 2004).

Additionally, a better application of some conflict management and teamwork competencies would have led to a more active participation in the team by all members. Remaining positive, putting the problem in perspective by confronting it would have better enabled me and my team members to remain focused and calm instead of being stressed (Boyatzis and Sala, 2004). As opposed to working separately on our own parts to avoid conflict, we should have team-worked more cooperatively and encouraged each other to bring the issues out in the open by having an honest and considerate conversation about the situation to promote an understanding climate (Hay Group, 2010). This would have reduced the negative feelings that were arising between the team members as a result of taking on the extra workload for backup purposes.  Moreover, it would have been more beneficial for us to have positive expectations of J rather than giving up hope, which would have probably motivated us to perform to the best of our ability on the task, and put together a much-improved final draft of the group report.

Although not expressed outwardly during the situation, my lack of emotional self-awareness competency may have may have led me to get irritated with J at times, which in turn made me unwilling to provide the necessary support (ESCI-U Self-Assessment, 2017; Boyatzis, 2009). By using the positive outlook competency, I could have seen the good in J and had faith in him to do his task properly. This would have also allowed me to view the situation as an opportunity to do things differently to secure a better outcome (Boyatzis, 2009).

In summary, this critical incident changed my thinking about the best ways to work on a challenging group task with people that have mental health issues. To achieve a positive outcome in such a situation requires a strong sense of receptiveness and openness to successfully carry out the task.  As a non-sufferer, I need to fully comprehend how mental health disorders affect people. It is never a good idea to undervalue a team member with a mental health condition without fully considering the impact of what they may be going through.

References   

• Hay Group (2010) The Emotional Intelligence Workbook.
• Boyatzis, R.E. (2009) ‘Competencies as a behavioral approach to emotional intelligence’, Journal of Management Development, 28(9), pp. 749-770.
• Boyatzis, R.E. (2012) ‘Emotional and social intelligence competencies: Cross cultural implications’, Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 19(1), pp. 4-18. doi: 10.1108/13527601211195592.
• Boyatzis, R.E. and Sala, F. (2004) Assessing EI Competencies 1 assessing emotional intelligence Competencies. Available at: http://www.eiconsortium.org/pdf/Assessing_Emotional_Intelligence_Competencies.pdf (Accessed: 17 February 2017).
• Goleman, D. (2000) ‘Leadership that gets results’, Harvard Business Review, 78(2).