Total Quality Management

This is a concept that I really like. So its the idea that you put complete quality into every part to the whole. So for instance a car company like Honda or Toyota costs more than ford or Chrysler because they operate under TQM. So instead of checking for quality at the end of production like an american car, japanese cars are checked for quality at each stage of production and the small parts to the car are of higher quality. This is to save money in the long run on things like recalls and end of the line repair. They have much less to worry about when it comes to finding space and time to take care of entire cars that are not up to standards. This idea can work in organizations and small groups too. If a manager takes care of each step of the process at each step of the way you will have less to fix at the end of a project. Pretty simple really. It's investing more money and time to save time and money in the long run.

Collaboration or Competition

I can tell you right of the bat that competitive conflicts never end well for me or the other party. For instance I every year my brothers, sister and I are stressed with the Christmas tradition of getting my mother and father elaborate gifts. We always have two choices; go in on a group gift that is bigger or get separate gifts that we essentially use to compete for who comes up with the best gift. We always start out trying to work together but we don't always agree on prices and ideas. This is when we often try to pull my younger sister in three different directions in an effort to win the battle of best idea. If that does not work we all go our separate ways. When we work together our gifts are always better and more thoughtful. When we work in competition to get the gifts done we end up spending more money on things that are just not as good and get put in a closet by the next year. Our best collaborative gift so far was going into sears portrait studio and getting my mom a huge picture of us kids. We were able to give that to my Dad also and my grandparents. It was really cheap and it ended up being really fun.

An Expert Opinion

I am partial to the Symposium style of problem presentation. I like this style because I find the masses to be quite stupid and self centered at times. A symposium is a way to not only discuss a problem and it's possible solutions, but it is a way to educate those whom the issue concerns. In light of the recent presidential election I have developed an awareness of how uneducated we are because of how our human nature leads us to our information. I think when it comes to making a decision about a problem that likely effects many people in different ways, those people who are effected need to have as much information as possible. Needless to say I think this information needs to be based on fact and come from very credible sources on the issue and presented in a way that is planned and easy for the stakeholders to understand. This can be a great way to get insight to long and short term theories on the results of problems and implementation of solutions. Because a symposium is planned and presented by experts, and has no interruption from heated stakeholders, it is a great form of problem analysis. When an audience knows its an audience, they are more liekely to listen to information instead of prepare their own refutes and ill planned announcements.

perceptual barriers

Perceptual barriers are the hardest to explain and the most common barrier in my opinion. It spans so many things in our brains. It can keep us from seeing things because of how we live our lives, where we work, what we know and what state of mind we are in. I have picked up a lot of cross word puzzles in my day, but i never finish in one sit down. When I get stumped I walk away and come back to find I am better than before. These perceptual barriers have been studied on a pretty deep level. Malcom Gladwell wrote a book about it. In one of the chapters he talks about a study that was done on how certain words can change our perception of people. Two groups of students were each told to look at a different set of words before they were sent into a frustrating situation. The first group of students were shown a list of words like; happy, creative, fun loving, sunshine, motivation, ect. This group responded mildly and with forgiveness to the frustrating setting. The second group was shown a list like; anger, racism, political bias, jerks, crappy, and so on. this group responded to the frustrating situation by yelling, getting angry, calling people names and storming out. the words were enough to alter the perception of the two groups. Just goes to show that we need to leave our baggage at the door if we want to see everything possible in new situations.

Cultural Barriers

Conformity, expectation, competition, politeness, reliance and trust are all examples of cultural barriers. We can get caught up in these thing when is comes to decision making and creativity. We may be afraid to express new ideas in front of others. rejection from any on eof these things can be enough reason to stop contributing to brain storming sessions. Weird ideas are the things that open our minds and create a wider breadth of where we can find solutions. this also has a chain reaction. If no one gives ideas outside the box, then we are bringing the fence in tighter for others who may have less conventional ideas. When we are not afraid of these barriers we open the range of things we can do to problem solve. There have been studies done that prove how careful we are not to go against the grian even when we know we are right. One study involved a row of people, one at the end who was unaware of the experiment. They asked the group one by one to say which in a set of two picture had a longer line in it. They all answer incorrectly and when they get to the person at the end he just agreed with the wrong answer because he did not wan to look different. He knew everyone was wrong and answered incorrectly with them anyway. This happened over and over in this experiment. Even when the group is going the other way, it takes someone bright to go with what they think is better.

Leftovers

Have you ever got home really late at night and opened your pantry for a great midnight meal to find less than stellar selection of ingredients  You may or may not have been drunk, so these nights can be hard to recall. It is something that sparks creativity in myself and many others who have gone on this cooking adventure with me. It was always something I had to do when I was a child because I loved to cook but my mom was cheap as all get out and there was never anyone in the house who was willing to let me drive at the ripe age of 10. I made mac and cheese with no milk, grilled cheese with no grill, lasagna with taco seasoning. The list is endless. This motivation in a kitchen with no food trickled over into my adulthood. My most creative evening was an evening at the ripe age of 20 or so. I was thinking about a ham sandwich all night. I was going to toast the bread, put tomatoes and lettuce on it with mayo and top it off with a bit of italian dressing. So good. You can imagine how boring my life must have been if I was thinking about a ham sandwich at a party on a Friday night. When I got home I realized we were out of bread. That made me so sad...did not stop me though. There had to be something. Tortillas? Pita? Enough flour to make my own bread?  Too ambitious. Then I found it. Frozen waffles. Done. Then I had to make the hardest choice of my young life. Butter or mayo? I went with Butter. Right or wrong? You won't know until you try it I guess.

performance

I found the theory of over all better production of groups in CMC to be fascinating. I agree and disagree at the same time. If the group is one that requires bonding of group members or is group related to and involved in compassionate projects, I  disagree that that can be done just as well via CMC if given enough time. I think part of success is timing. If a group is considered success full upon being given more time than necessary to complete a task, then the adverse might be true of F2F communication. What I mean to say is that it is never discussed whether f2f groups would perform as good as CMC groups is given more time to work it out. It seems like confirmation bias on the part of the theory.

I do think that there are many tasks in which f2f could waste time because we require pleasantries when we meet in person and this could be quite distracting also. There are many situations where things could be worked out quicker and more efficiently simply because our human nature is to compete and judge based on false attribution that more often occurs in f2f groups. I like both forms of groups and think we could be better at both if we did both more often, not just out of practice but out of appreciation for their fundamental purposes.

Who is it?

Not being able to always tell who your talking to can give anyone the courage to say things that might otherwise remain unmentioned. In fact anonymity on the small scale of texting can even make me feel powerful at times and I think it goes hand in hand with the size of the group. In a group project I am involved in, I am always speaking out when we are using text to coordinate because I feel like people could be thinking the same thing and not wanting to say. I usually get support when I speak up. When the group text is divided into half the group or less, I am more likely to take a more diplomatic approach to the planning because my presents is less likely to be diffused by the large number of poeple involved in the conversation. Sometimes I even bank on group members not having my number saved and not knowing who said it. Go figure.