rant on group work

Ok I have to blog this. It's a long rant and may not be coherent so.. up to you if you want to read on. I'll spare you with a page break.

I hate group work.




I've never been a fan of group work since JC. When I did my Project Work in JC, I was pretty much a passive person and let the leader of the group take charge and just assign me my job. Back then, I was still passive, and didn't really know how to work in a group I suppose.

After I went through army, I guess it brought out the leader in me and I developed my hidden leadership skills (haha) No seriously, I became alot more proactive and willing to lead and speak in a group kind of thing in army.  People often say army is a waste of time. Well, though I don't refute that point, army was a period of self-discovery for myself.

ANYWAY that is a topic for another day. My point is, I became more assertive, more directive, and more confident in leading something, anything.

With that in mind, why am in a dilemma often when it comes to group work?

On one hand, I have experienced people who have no initiative at all - everyone just sits around and waits for something to happen. And if you know me, I'm the kind of person who HATES that. I can't stand procrastination it drives me crazy. I'll want to get things done fast so I can rest / play after that. Not the other way round.
Thus in all my groups I'm usually the person who sends everyone SMSes, goes 'hey guys, our deadline is like, erm , tomorrow, let's get off our butts and do something now". No wait, I'm ALWAYS that person. Why?
I want a group where I can just sit back and let someone else kickstart things.

On the other hand, having people who are too assertive is a problem. Imagine a group discussion:
Me: So how about we do this this this.
X: No but I think that that that is better
Y : How about this that this?
Z : But I think That this That that is better!

Do you see how it is a problem. Some people in army have termed this the 'JC Student' phenomenon - JC students tend to want to discuss everything instead of just doing it, hence wasting time.

In group discussions like these, there needs to be someone to be directive and in a sense LEAD the discussion. That person has to help everyone come to a consensus, to create compromises for everyone, and more , to help the discussion progress.

And I'm always this person!
Not that I don't like it, I've developed quite some skill in it if I may say so. I can get everyone to settle on an idea, on one route, while being able to make it seem to them like THEY were the ones who came up with the idea (or supported the idea) by incorporating bits of their contribution in. Aiya basically, it's man management la I just put it in a very negative way haha.

You know what the problem is? I can't NOT be that person. Because when I have an idea, I'll be reluctant to let it go and do something else. So if someone else steps up and says 'hey lets do this instead' ill be quick to rationalize why mine is better, etc.
And this is not being defensive of my own ideas, sometimes my 'idea' can be simply to support someone else's contribution. And I'll vehemently stick to it.

I think so far it has been working for me because none of my groups has that same 'power' person. I'm not saying noone else has the 'leadership ability' that is something entirely different. I'm talking about having that stubborn persistence about my personal beliefs, and the desire to influence others to conform to it.
If ever I have a group with such a person, I think I'll fail that project.

Thus, I prefer to just work alone. Working alone, I decide the course, I decide the workload .

OH talking about workload, another annoying thing about groupwork is this tendency to want to have division of labor. While a division of labor is good, sometimes it is counter-productive.
A simple illustration:
Me: "Ok, we need to send this file to the prof"
Eager-to-divide-workload-member: "OK OK erm alan you type the title, then you send to me, then i type the group number, then i send to X, then X compose the email, then Y send the email to prof ok!"

...
Basically, some tasks are actually much better (and possibly quicker) when performed by an individual (or fewer people) , but because of the mindset that workload has to be divided, sometimes this tasks are unnecessarily divided.

Case in point, I was having a discussion with one of my project groups tonight and while discussion, I was typing up the proposal which was basically what we were discussing. Basically, multitasking la. Then we finish discussing I was almost done with it (It's a short proposal, not a long one) then someone asked
"Ok shall we now divide the workload?"

Me: " ??? I'm almost done"

And they were all like omg alan why u do everything etc but the thing is COME ON it's just a small portion it's not like I took 29387 hours to write that 1 page of what we have been discussing for the past 2 hours. There's no need to split everything -_-


OK this is a very long and incoherent rant and if you have read to this point you are either very free or you are very free. Happy valentine's day eve eve eve eve eve