Reflection
On 14th of April 2019, I participated in ‘Gotong Royong Perdana’ organized by PERSAKA. This activity took place at school of computing. At 8am, we registered ourselves at the counter. I saw the students were very excited and eagerly waiting for the event to start. The lecturers and some students were preparing the items for cleaning process. I received a discount coupon for drinks and food. Each student we given tasks to do. To make the work even easier, we were divided into several groups. Students is responsible for the level of the building for the respective program. For instance, I am a network and security (SCSR) student who is responsible for level three of the building.
I was in a group of good and sweet friends of mine. They were very friendly and seems like very easy to go with. I moved to the lounge where I supposed to clean it. Some of my team members were painting a mural on the wall. The room was very dusty and untidy. I washed the window and wiped the dust on the table and chairs. My teammates were very helpful and responsible. The whiteboard seems like not in use. So, I wrote some motivational quotes on it which may inspires students. I enjoyed doing the chores because people around me are my friends who are jovial in character. A group of students and lectures were preparing food for the participants at level two. After some time, we had lunch break. I had tasty food prepared by our lecturers and friends.
After lunch, I continued my work at the lounge and later washed the drains in front of the lounge. I also did some decorations on the noticeboard. I pinned some important announcements and group photos of SCSR students. At last, I managed to pack up the things and moved to another building of our faculty for a closing ceremony. Lucky draw segment was arranged by the team PERSAKA. Some lucky students received gifts such as USB cables, headphones, umbrella and etc. It was not my lucky day to receive a gift. However, I learned a lot through this event. With a wonderful speech of our dean, the event ended successfully. At the end of the event, we took group photo together with our lecturers. It was a tiring and one of the memorable days of my life.
Before this event, I have participated similar events, but this event gave me satisfaction of joining. For this program, I joined with less experience on communicating with people and working together. Before this I was scared to meet people that I have never meet before and having a conversation with them was miserable. However, I managed to adapt to the culture of new communities and work because I was surrounded by awesome people. Even though, the cleaning process took about 4 hours and I was very tired, it did not stop me from having fun. In my opinion, events like this should be organized frequently because the bonding between the students becomes stronger and increase inter-racial unity. This is because, not only Malaysian students but also international students with different cultures will join the event. Students able to find their seniors and good friend of theirs.
I learnt to lead and influence team members to complete given tasks. My friends and I worked as a team to make the event more successful. This event changed me to a responsible student. I also realized that understanding one’s behavior and respect their ideas are very important to complete a given task. I thought that teamwork is the most important aspect in completing a task, but after the event I realized not only teamwork but understanding and having trust on each other are also some aspects to be considered. Before this I have worked with many teams and had some misunderstandings. However, I easily could manage it.
I was very proud of myself for joining the event and to complete the given task neatly. I also helped my team members with the knowledge that I have such as suggesting the motivational quotes and cleaning the room. I believe that everyone has their ups and downs. So, we have to help each other and share our knowledge which may help others to sustain their life. I open mindedly accepted my teammates ideas and opinions since it is their rights to give opinions. However, it doesn’t mean that we have to accept every single opinions of people, but accept opinions that can solve problems. This characteristic is very important especially for a leader. This will let the members of the team to be comfortable and give contributions full-heartedly.
I have read before that teamwork makes a work easier and it is very true. According to my readings of Bruce Tuckman’s theory which was developed in 1965, understanding the stages of group development can help you build a cohesive team that gets results. His original model identified four stages that all groups pass through as they move from "newly formed" to "high-performance" teams. In 1977, he revised the model to include a fifth stage. Those stages are Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning. In stage four (Performing), he stated that team members are comfortable with each other and group norms have been accepted. Interpersonal and structural issues have been settled and support task performance. Team synergy is high during this stage which results in high performance. It means that every group member has to understand and respect each other in order to achieve success. Now that the team is performing at a high level, we will be able to focus more on leadership activities and less on supervisory activities. So, most probably I need to get comfortable with my teammates before beginning any tasks given.
Why people are not encouraged to do tasks individually? It’s because we can only have our point of view. If it’s a team, we can have opinions from different perspectives. More innovative and creative ideas are created. Every person has different level of experience. In addition, communications skills also will be improved where different people have wide range of vocabularies. While doing works as a group, the tasks that are being done will be a lot easier and will not burden any single person. Respecting others ideas and opinions are one of the important factors in maintaining a good teamwork. Having an experienced person in a team is also necessary because they can lead and guide us while doing given tasks. Having someone to guide is very important especially for someone that first time join this kind of program. An experienced person and newbie can exchange their knowledge with each other. We could exchange our opinion and knowledge when we have those two, experienced and newbie in a team. In my case, I was helped by my coordinator. She gave some ideas on the arrangements of the tables and chairs. Some of the frequent user of the lounge also suggested some solutions which makes the lounge to be convenient to use.
If next time I get the change to join similar events, I want to work in a group consists of large number of members. If I gets a chance, I would like to be a leader who can aid the team to achieve success. I will equally distribute task among team members and accept everyone’s opinions and suggestions. A quick and a correct decision making is one of the characteristics of a leader. If I becomes a leader one day, I will own this feature, so that my organization will achieve success. I have learned a lot from this event. I will implement those characteristics during my working phase and also will be useful for my entire life. These experiences encourage me to guide those who still needs help.
Furthermore, I think that I have to communicate with people from different cultures and backgrounds in the future. This will help me to communicate with respect to the people. I will get to know their cultures and their way of communicating. This will improve my vocabularies. Communication with people of different ages also should be considered. Since, elderly people have more experience on a particular activity and I will learn from them.
Next time when I assigned to a team, I will get to know and feel comfortable with every person in a team. I also want to be more active in my future team. I also want to contribute more of my knowledge for my team. By giving innovative, creative ideas and opinions, it will be very helpful for my future team in making decision. This will benefit for the team and my teammates. I also think this will give positive output where my future teammates will do the same thing to me. Overall task will be easier when we help each other and give out our opinion. What if I’m in a team, where they do not take my opinions? Thus, I will raise my dissatisfaction or if my team members’ points are relevant, I will accept it.