I learned a great deal about interpersonal development through Intersect. Interpersonal development includes skills and knowledge that are critical and essential for working in groups and teams.

 

At the beginning of the workshop, I participated in a fun group activity, where I needed to find characteristics of myself that everyone else has in the group, characteristics that only some people in the group shared with me, and characteristics that are unique to me. This activity required me to actively reach out to other students and start conversations with new people requiring us to both listen carefully to each other. I liked this activity because it subsequently led to an important topic introduced in Intersect, which is different people’s listening styles. There are five major listening styles: appreciative, empathic, discerning, comprehensive and evaluative. Briefly speaking, the appreciative style refers to a tendency of paying more attention to things that are fun and passionate; empathic refers to the style where the listener tries understanding other people from their position, and the listener tries to make other people happy; discerning refers to the situation when the listener is good at processing information while listening, engaging in behaviors like taking notes, gathering information, asking questions and clarifying things; comprehensive refers to taking apart information and converting them to the listener’s own understanding; evaluative refers to the tendency of relating to evidence, facts and materials while listening.

 

I identified myself as an empathic and discerning listener. When I have conversations with people, I would easily feel sad or happy for their experience, and I have the tendency to imagine how I would feel if I were in the same situation as them. Therefore, I think I am an empathic listener. When I am in classes or in work meetings, I always like to take detailed notes. I feel like taking notes can help me focus on listening during the meeting and can help me process the information received more carefully and more completely. After identifying my own listening styles, I also reflected on how I could become a more effective communicator and listener in the future. As a communicator, I will work on talking in a more fun, more passionate and more interesting way in the future, as it could help grab my listeners attentions. What’s more, I think it is also important to clarify all the necessary information and have a clear conclusion in the end. As a listener, I decide to keep doing what I have been doing. In another word, I will be respectful when other people are speaking, keep an open mind and listen careful to understand fully the contents of the conversation.

 

Later, participants in Intersect were split into groups and finished group activities together. We analyzed group performance and looked into the strengths and weakness of the group. For my group, I think we had clear group goals, effective and two-way communication, distributed participation and leadership, high-problem solving ability and approximately equal power and influence. I think we were all very clear on what we needed to do, and we brainstormed ideas in the group, where each member talked openly about his/her ideas and everyone else listening was respectful. However, as the group was formed where the group members barely knew each other before, we had low  group cohesion. For example, the members in my group didn’t talk with each other during the lunch break, as we might be feeling awkward or distant, given the short time of knowing each other.

 

In summary, Intersect was very helpful in developing my interpersonal styles, allowing me to practice how to effectively participate and function in a group, contributing to the group’s goals. I have learned to be a careful and respectful listener, and a passionate and clear communicator. What’s more, I have learned the importance of open conversations in a group, as different members in a group have different ideas that could lead to innovative solutions to the group’s problems. Also, it is important that we communicate ideas clearly and make sure that everyone in the group knows what is going on, to keep everyone on the same pace. Lastly, I learned that it takes time for a team to form a sense of cohesion. However, once the cohesion is formed, I believe that group members will become more supportive to each other, leading to more efficient cooperation.