Reflective writing

At the beginning of my final year when I was introduced to this module (Professional
Accounting Skills for Business Decisions) I was a little paranoid about the name of the module
as I felt that it will be difficult and it will not help in developing my skills for the future. This
was my first impression and thoughts when I came out of the lecture as this module involves
tasks and activities working in groups. As I feel uncomfortable working in groups as it can
leads to conflicts. I thought that I have already developed key skills in the previous years of my
degree which would help me in the success of my accounting career.

However, in reality this module helped me in developing my skills in depth and provided me
with extra knowledge of how people work in practical life and overcome different problems. I
was also excited with the assessment and nature of this module as it was purely coursework
based and there were no set final examinations. This would give me extra time for preparing for
my other exams.

The main objectives and outcomes of this module were to develop and understand creative
approach to problem solving, develop communication and presentation skills and to develop
our ability to work in groups and to assess quality of my work with my other group members. I
believe that this module has developed new skills through group working experiences and I am
much more confident and satisfied to apply all these skills in the real world. This also helped
me understanding of my strengths and weaknesses and the ways I can improve my self
interacting with other people.

In this module five students were selected randomly to form a group and work together on the
given case. This was a challenging task for me but as I posses a very social, friendly and
talkative personality, which made it easier for me to contact my other group members without
any hesitation or fear. According to Five Factor Model (Digman1990) my personality posses
high degree of Extraversion, which states that “These people are often assertive and energetic.
They can do many tasks successfully at a time. Extroverts prefer to lead others”. Also I devote
myself fully in finishing the tasks and assignments well before the deadlines either I work as
an individual or in a group. I was very confident after the first meeting with my group
members as we introduced each other and everyone participated in the discussion. For me, the
most important element was to split work between the members in order to complete the task
well before the actual presentation.

I noticed after couple of meetings that my group members were discussing the ideas and trying
to ignore set plan and format for the presentation. The individual roles and responsibilities
were unclear. According to Bruce Tuckman’s 1965 Forming, Storming, Norming,
Performing and adjourning team-development model, our group was at the stage of
Forming. “At this stage, consideration is given to the hierarchical structure of the group,
pattern, leadership, individual roles and responsibilities and codes of conduct. There is likely to
be considered anxiety as members attempt to create an impression, test each other and establish
their personal identity within the group”. At the Storming stage Therefore we realised that
we were lack of a good leadership which was necessary for effective teamwork and completing
our tasks on time. Bass and Ryterband (managing resources) identify four distinct stages in
group development which include mutual acceptance and membership, communication and
membership, motivation and productivity, control and organisation.
As none of my group members were willing to take the responsibility as a leader, I took this
role as I thought that I can manage to work with all the members. Specific tasks were shared
out amongst members of my team. Initially, however, the tasks were not seen as equally
difficult by all team members. As a leader I had to gather all the information from my other
team members, put all the material together so that everything make sense, participating in the
discussion and write all the notes and update in the next meeting. The final decision was to be
made by all members with consensus. I strongly believe in “action learning” as stated by
Coghlan and Brannick that ‘the purpose of (action) research and discourse is not just to
describe, understand and explain the world but also change it’ by the effort of data gathering,
discussion, action planning, action, reflection and review. Thereafter I kept the details of all
meetings and progress and I realised that I can best fit as leader for my group.

My personality also influenced me to lead the group and take the responsibilities to achieve
our goals. Ross and Hendry’s (1957) studies found that, ‘any comprehensive theory of
leadership must take into account the fact that the leadership role is probably related to
personality factors’. Being a team leader, I have significantly improved my understanding of
how a leader work and co-operate with other team members in the real world. Furthermore, I
have gained better problem solving skill and different approaches for effective teamwork.

Ultimately, our group achieved a successful outcome because we were providing mutual help
and support to group members, giving each other feedbacks and regular meetings were held
but to improve our achievement, we perhaps needed more cooperation when tasks and
individual responsibilities were shared out. Additionally, our group was lack of creativity and
I think if we would have provided with more approaches to solve the problems, we would have
got better results. As Boden suggested that “creativity draws crucially on our ordinary
abilities i.e. noticing, remembering, seeing, speaking, hearing, understanding language and
recognising analogies; all these talents of everyman are important”. Furthermore, suggest that
“actively creative people have a talent for getting to the heart of a problem. They are not
confused by detail and by the need to invoke standard approaches”. In future group work (on
the course and at work), I would probably recommend these factors to achieve our goals.

As I had a great experience of working in a group, I felt that it will be same for my other
assessed presentation. However, it was completely different to what I thought as the new
members in my group were lack of motivation. (Motivation theories) Also two group
members could not communicate properly as they were from different background (Cultural
differences theories). It was very difficult for me to communicate, cooperate and bringing the
ideas together. Furthermore, I had conflicts with my other member for team role as a leader
but than I realised to keep everything safe and sound to finish our presentation without having
any conflicts. I tried to bring all my group members together them through emails and

As I had previously experienced

However, we did the presentation and it didn’t go very well due to the fact that we did not
work as a team
In the group report writing element of our module, I had to negotiate with other group
members for the part of the report that I was suppose to research and the marks distributed by
the group as they thought that I didn’t participate in the meetings (theories on negotiation). As
I reacted to get all my marks same as my other group members I believe that I am a great
challenger as stated by Howard and Howard (2001) that “your strong reactions qualify you as
a challenger”. I had to present all the evidence of the research and notes I made for the report
and the part that I completed which was assigned to me.

There is a strong similarity between the Honey and Mumford styles/stages and the
corresponding Kolb learning styles:
 Activist = Accommodating
 Reflector = Diverging
 Theorist = Assimilating
 Pragmatist = Converging

Most people learn by all four, but tend to have one or two dominant traits. Extroverts
tend to be activist/pragmatist and introverts reflector/theorist.To be a really effective
learner you should also develop the ability to learn in other styles - ones that are
'alien' to you. In doing this you will develop useful skills that will equip you for a
career or the workplace. Doing this will also help you appreciate the skills and
qualities of those with very different personalities from yourself.
Conclusion:

It gave me a vehicle to analyse my self. It made me ask my self, “What am I? What do I