The importance of adjournment

The adjourning of a meeting is similar to closure in a relationship. It allows all parties to properfly reflect on the scenarios that occurred and think on if they were correctly handled, how they could’ve been handled differently and/or if they felt the situations were resolved.

I continually relfect on my last position because so many things that occurred in that office were reflective of the themes we have been studying in this course. The same holds true for this assignment, when I think of the practices and traditions that we held in high regard. For example, if someone who was an integral part to the team experienced a life milestone (wedding, baby, divorce, graduation, retirement, etc), we did a big celebration in the office and out of the office by way of roasts, party buses, karaoke, happy hours, house parties and etc. As the years went on and things began to change, those traditions and practices died down with no explanation. It was just understood by all that, that was the way it was now. When members of that old team started to get fired or placed on probation, there was a serious lack of understanding that wa never explained and therefore the adjourning of the group as knew it never happened. It just fell apart.

When I left that job, I had put in almost 8 years of service. After receiving numerous accolades and awards on a company-wide level and within the office, my farewell was simply chips, a photo collage and about 8 people attended. It had soured just that much and I know it was nothing of my doing, but because the dynamics had changed so drastically, that in a sense to adjourn my time there, made it feel like the end for so many people. By that time, it wasn’t hard to leave. But I do wish I was able to leave in the same manner as those before me.

 

Family Conflict & Communication

This may seem like a menial conflict, but I take pride that my family and I have little to no conflict. So I chose this example to use for my blog assignment because it was recent and I figure I have talked about my work conflict often enough.

I went on a family trip for Thanksgiving with 3 of my cousins. Thanksgiving night, the original place we were supposed to go for dinner didn’t work out, so we found ourselves trying to find a restaurant on Thanksgiving night at 8:00 in the evening. Not a very easy task, especially when out of town. Throughout this debacle, small tempers started flaring as we got hungrier and hungrier, random suggestions were thrown out without much thought given to the entire idea (one restaurant was suggested that would cost between $175-200 per person without beverages, another one was suggested where it was obvious you needed to be dressed up and we had on sweats and sneakers, another suggestion was just to stop anywhere we passed and sit down), and we were just randomly walking without much thought given to where we were going. Finally, I said “Ok, hold on, let’s stop and regroup.” I was able to get everyone to stop for a minute, take a break and rethink our plan. What type of food do we want, how much do we want to spend, how far do we want to be from our homebase, etc. We agreed on a few things and I used my trusty phone to look up some restaurants in the area, call and get an estimate of whether or not reservations were required, if they had any seatings available, was it a special menu, etc.

My ability to gather the group, regroup and replan our strategy helped us out of a potential conflicting issue. You’d be amazed how important it is to take a deep breath and try to clear your mind before working out an issue. Many times emotions, feelings and opinions cloud your best judgment, from something as simple as my issue above to bigger problems. The younger generation in my family gets along so well because we don’t allow miscommunication to lead to bigger issues. The older generation can go years without speaking to each other, simply based on one small thing or miscommunication. We promise to never let that happen with us and I’m proud that we have been able to communicate effectively in years past and hopefully going towards the future.