Adjourning, sweet and sad

Oh wow, this week’s assignment has caused me to reflect on different aspect of past times good and bad. I have reflected as far back as high school in looking at groups that I have been involved in over my adult life. I did not even remember how emotional some of these connections were, and how they have affected my life and impacted who I am today. Looking back at my group experiences, I believe that when the people in the group are focused on the common purpose, it makes for a harder adjournment. Sometimes it is not about the success of the group but the journey that was experienced, the connections, the challenges that we faced together and of course the outcome that most times results from the efforts of everyone.

I have been in many groups and have made many connections and formed different relationships, but it was my first year group in college, that was the hardest to leave. Going to teachers’ college was my first real experience of making connections with total strangers, people I never met before. (Stage1 Forming). It was amazing that we were almost all in the same position, new to everybody and new to everything. We had to get out of our shells and get to know each other, be bold and put ourselves “out there”. We realized that we had to connect and find our niche. (Stage 2.Storming). We became roommates, classmates, teammates and other kinds of group members, we began to work in formal and informal groups, making friendships. (Stage 3. Norming). We had to do the preliminary program to qualify for our areas of specialization. It was a rigorous and intense year in which we experienced all kinds of emotions and challenges together in our different focus groups. One of our teammates had a mental breakdown and had to go home, we were anxious and devastated. We had gotten to know each other well, we developed trust, respect and understanding of who each one of us were. (Stage 4. Performing). By the time we got to finals, we were not only students with common goals now, we had gone through many journeys, many triumphs, many trials, many struggles and many victories. Now the end of this phase was coming to a close, we would leave not knowing who was going to make it back. Each student left as soon as their finals were over so we did not have a closing ritual, we just cried each time one was leaving. It was an emotionally charged period and it was hopeful and sad. (Stage 5 Adjourning).This was the perfect experience of going through the five steps of team building, (Abudi, G., 2010). even though I was not aware of the name of this process I can identify with each step.

Even though we have not met face to face as colleagues, we have been journeying together in this program for over a year now. Some of us have been in every class together up to this point, and I now realize that we will be saying goodbye in a couple weeks, according to our specializations! I am going to miss those classmates because we have establish a bond, friendships even and I hope that we can stay in touch after this program ends, even for a while. Adjourning is crucial, necessary and needed to provide closure to this journey that we have been on together because we connected in ways that we do not even realize. We had a common vision and common goals in which we committed to working together, whatever it took and we acknowledged and respected each other as we journeyed for success. Now as we near the end, we are reflecting on the past year and I am thinking that it would be good for us to keep in touch. We may have connected for more reasons than this, and will probably be in a group of some kind in the future.  

Reference

 Abudi, G. (2010). The five stages of team development: A case study. Retrieved from http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-five-stages-of-team-development-a-case-study.html