We Are Almost There

The morning was dominated by office hours. Our professor gave us from 9-11:30 a.m. to work on our group projects. I am proud to say that my group was able to finish most of our report today. However, we will be coming in early tomorrow morning to finish editing and formatting our report, which is currently about 25 pages (including the 10 or so pages for the appendices). Today, I believe we have spent about 7 1/2 hours working on this assignment in the computer lab.

After a quick lunch break, we returned to Statler Hall for a lecture about behavioral styles. Before I go into some of the details in about our lecture, it would be helpful for me to note that on the first day of class we took a behavioral styles quiz. The quiz said I was a Stabilizer-Analyzer. Our professors showed us a video that explained the different behavioral styles. They were careful to note, however, that everyone displays all of the traits at different times and settings. Here is an overview of the four different types of behavioral styles. A...

Controller: Wants results, likes and creates conflict, looks at the big picture, separates facts from feelings. They are the “idea generator” of a group.

Persuader: Love people, positive and optimistic, intuitive, extremely flexible. They are the “idea promoter” of a group.

Stabilizer: Love relationships, create harmony, love to network, avoid conflict, want appreciation, and honor their word. They are the “idea fulfiller” of a group.

Analyzer: Rely on facts and history, thorough and complete in their work, want validation of their work. They are the “quality control” of the group.

Perhaps one of the most important takeaways from the lecture was the statement that "Any group with out a controller/persuader/stabilizer/analyzer is set to fail." This means that no group can be productive while missing one of these key team members. After comparing our behavioral styles, my group realized that though we all had different dominate, we had analyzer as a part of our dominant behavioral styles, which gave us a hint to why we worked together so well.

This evening was our last office hours and it was incredibly intense with due date fast approaching. Tensions ran high and many groups were having difficulties working together. Everyone was in a rush to finish before the end of office hours so that we could sleep on it and work refreshed in the morning.

Back at my dorm, spent our last night as roommates, as she will be leaving tomorrow afternoon. I really enjoyed her company and I am going to miss her when she leaves.

Tomorrow is the last day we have to put the final touches on our final report, as well as our last day of class. We are almost there.