Week 4 Coaching Assignment - Part one: Going up the Ladder of Inference

By Muriel Guillod 
 

Well, the incident I’m about to describe here doesn’t come from an organizational context, but happened while working on a group project very recently here at University Laval.

In this group, we are 5 people in total, 2 regular students from Québec, and 3 students from abroad either here on exchange for one semester or for their whole master. For this particular class, we have regular assignments to hand in; in fact, every week we must analyse a case according to the theory studied that week. We decided to work on a common document and not to split the task, so that everyone would brainstorm about all possible aspects and add his or her own ideas to the ones already written by the others. The goal was to add as much diversity as possible and not only focus on one person’s point of view. The task is due each Wednesday morning, but surprisingly enough, when I reviewed the document on the first Monday, only one person had contributed to it. I thought that everyone has had a busy week, as it was also my case, and that they would soon upload their contribution. However, as I checked it regularly, two people only started to work on the assignment on Tuesday evening, meaning a few hours only before the time the assignment was due. As everyone has its best own way of studying, some preferring to do things in advance and others working better under pressure, I didn’t draw any conclusion about the quality of their work, even though it was very last minute. The next morning, we met to finalise the details, discuss the points where we had different viewpoints and complete the version to give to the teacher. During the meeting, especially one guy, let’s call him Thibault, started to disappoint me. He barely took part into the discussion, didn’t add any relevant suggestions to the case, and was even looking at his phone instead of getting involved in the team discussion. His contribution was already poor, so I expected him to participate a bit more, which turned out not to be the case at all. So at this stage, I was observing what was happening around me and what I selected from what I saw was that Thibault didn’t seem to be a reliable person, that we couldn’t really count on him to do the job, and that he was not interested at all by the task, as he didn’t give his opinion during the meeting.

I was starting to make conclusions about Thibault’s behaviour and to develop beliefs, but I still didn’t want to draw conclusions too fast at this early stage. Therefore, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and waited another week to see how things would go this time. Unfortunately, the exact same scheme repeated itself the next week. This time, I contributed very early to the brainstorming process in the document in order to show my commitment to the group. Even though most of my teammates took some time to also give their recommendations, they all did it before Monday. Everyone except Thibault, who added his contribution again really late on Tuesday evening. And again, his suggestions were really poor. In class on Wednesday morning, when we were discussing the final details of the case, he was one more time really absent and didn’t even bother to fake to be listening to our conversation. So this time my conclusions were quite clear: Thibault was a lazy student, who would only take advantage of group work to get the work done for him without having to move a single finger. For me, there was no doubt: I had taken part in many group works before, and there always was such an element or two in the group. Thus, this time his name was Thibault. So my belief was that we would never be able to get anything done from him, that he would continue taking advantage of the team’s work to his own benefit (i.e. getting good grades without having to do anything).

As the third week started, I didn’t even bother on thinking that Thibault would contribute earlier this time, nor that he would make any valuable suggestions. During the meeting that week, I therefore decided more or less to exclude him from our discussion, as I thought he had nothing to say and was not willing to participate anyway. However, something I wasn’t expecting happened after class. Thibault asked me whether we could talk together for a few minutes. Even though I was a bit reluctant and in a hurry, I decided to stay and listen to whatever he wanted to tell me anyway. There, he explained me how hurt he felt during this session, as he clearly understood I was excluding him from the team. He wanted to add comments to what we were discussing, but he didn’t have the occasion, as I didn’t let him speak, or even interrupted when he was trying to say something. I explained him that I had been really disappointed by his lack of commitment during the first weeks, by his poor contribution and that I also was offended that he dared check his Facebook account during our last meeting. At this moment, he explained me that he just recently lost his grandmother, to whom he was really close, and he was going through a very difficult time, as he couldn’t go back to his home country to assist to the funerals. Because of this event, he was closing down on himself, and honestly didn’t really have any energy to invest into our case studies. He tried to make his part, but his grief was deep and honest. However, he assured me he would do better the next week, in order to prove us that he was really motivated to make his contribution to the group’s project. In turn, I gave him my most sincere apologies about my misjudgement and promised him I would never again exclude him, and that we should speak openly should a similar event happen in the future, rather than making up assumptions about why the other was behaving the way he was.