Brainstorm Reflection
Example
Astrid works at a state secondary school. During her work she is often distracted by her team leader.
Example
Astrid is following a teacher education programme. She works at a state secondary school, where she shares a room with four colleagues. In order to be able to concentrate with so many people in one space, they have made agreements about mobile phones, telephone calls, and colleagues and students walking in. This works well for all of them. However their team leader often walks in with a question or announcement. The message is usually only intended for one of them, but his loud voice or raucous laugh distracts all those present.
Astrid and her colleagues have already brought the fact that they have made rules to his attention a couple of times and asked him to take account of these. He said that they were right and seemed to keep to the rules for a short time, but in the end little changed. Astrid's colleagues seem to be less concerned about this than she is. Astrid is becoming increasingly annoyed and is worried that she will soon run out of patience.
For now her problem is: 'How can I make sure that my team leader respects our agreements?'. (step 1)
The other participants ask Astrid clarification questions. How long
have you worked there? What kind of person is your team leader? How
often have you challenged him about his behaviour? What is the sort
of message he comes in with: can't it be sent through e-mail? Do your
colleagues find your team leader's behaviour as disturbing as you
do? (step 2)
All participants note down their impressions on post-its. The reactions are varied: carelessness, bad management, lack of space, sense of responsibility, unanimity, use headphones, unequal status. (step 3)
Astrid orders the reactions in the following categories: job description, behavioural competencies, working relations, working conditions and other. (step 4)
A sub-group starts work on each category and formulates an underlying question. Here are a few examples:
Job description: does your sense of responsibility play a major role in your growing irritation?
Behavioural competencies: has it been made sufficiently clear to the team leader how important the rules are to you?
Working relations: could your team leader's attitude be described as abuse of power? (step 5)
Based on the contribution of fellow students, the conclusion is drawn that Astrid's original formulation can be expanded: how clear has the feedback to the team leader been? (step 6)
Astrid has found new perspectives for looking at her situation. An important perspective, she thinks, is the question of whether it is really clear to the team leader what the agreements are, because that is something that she can do something about. Moreover Astrid has been made to think: is she not too concerned with the rules, so that she can't even deal with a joke now and again? (step 7)
