Analytical Paper
According to Chris Argyris and Don Schon in their book “Theory in Practice” “most ground rules are based on three values. The values are valid information, free and informed choice, and internal commitment”. They explained that the three values reinforce each other because “when group members require valid information, they make informed choices and when they make informed choices, they’re more likely to be internally committed and when they’re internally committed, they’re more likely to monitor decisions to see that they’re implemented effectively”.
I quoted this statement to address the value of internal commitment within our group. This means that each member feels personally responsible and committed to the decisions because everyone believes in the decisions, not because of rewards or penalties.
Our group met for five weeks for the sole intent of producing a presentation for the topic “injustices in the legal system”. The students in my group were Dante, Azeez, Ashton and Cachet. I was not present at the first meaning when the policy manual was formulated. At the second meaning after Ashton handed me the policy manual I instinctively said to myself this will not work because there were no ground rules to enforce internal commitment or consequences to at least reduce the risks associated with such an open approach. Nevertheless I signed the policy manual because I felt that the group climate was already established and maybe this can work since we were all “adult students”.
In observing my first meeting within the group, Ashton was the obvious leader and facilitated the group with relevant information needed to move to the next task. She seemed open to suggestion and committed to the group. On the other hand Cachet was reserved and did not contribute much. Even though, she was in disagreement with some of my suggestion, she did not vocalize it. For instance, I suggested that we should narrow our topic to focus on racism in the...