Individual Roles in Groups | Reflection

Individual Roles in Groups | Reflection Explore and discuss individual roles and function within groups using a reflective model This essay will explore, discuss and evaluate individual roles, processes of group formation and function within groups. It will look at reflection and the importance of reflection in paramedic practice. It will reflect on my own experiences during the role I played while participating in a group presentation. It will do this by using Gibbs reflective cycle (1988) as a model (Appendix A). Reid (1993) states that within healthcare, reflection has been defined as the active process of reviewing, analysing and evaluating experiences, drawing upon theoretical concepts or previous learning, in order to inform future actions (Cited in White et al 2005). In simplistic terms this means to learn from previous experiences and to implement effective positive changes to practice. By doing this the individual will give the patient a better experience. As a result of reflecting upon practice, this will encourage pro active learning and develop autonomous professional and clinical practice (White et al 2005). Gibbs (1988:09) believes that if an experience is not reflected upon the learning potential will be lost forever. The University of Leeds devised an experiment which supports this statement, Assessment and Learning in Practice Settings (Cited in White et al 2005) (Appendix B). The results of this experiment suggest that reflective practice is a vital skill for future paramedics (White et al 2005). It will enhance personal and professional development, therefore helping you to be constantly learning to excel in your chosen profession. Adair (1989, cited in Rogerson et al 1996) stated that a group is a gathering of more than two people that are identifiable by a type or name. The group should have the same goals and will need to help each other in order to achieve the reasons that they initially joined. He suggests that there are stages in the formation of groups known as group dynamics. This explains a groups behaviour and progression through four sequential stages; forming, storming, norming and performing (Adair 1989, cited in Rogerson et al 1996) (Appendix C). By way of practical example I will reflect on a group presentation in which I recently partook. When the group first met we discussed the assignment. At this stage we were in Adairs forming stage. We discussed ideas for the presentation and came up with times we could all meet. Nothing was actually confirmed we all just aired our opinions, no real progression was made during this stage. I do not believe we went through the storming stage as we did not argue over the logistics of the presentation. However we did utilise a democratic decision making process to avoid conflict. Throughout there was not a particular person who took control, we all got involved as much as each other. If two or more ideas were put forward regarding the same thing, a majorities vote always won. At each meeting we progressed and all had similar ideas to how we wanted the presentation to conclude. We were now at Adairs norming stage. At this point we were all in agreement and communicating effectively, we had group unity. Rogerson et al (1996:78) says that for a group to succeed a essential component of effective communication is necessary. We were in the Performing stage when we were ready to deliver the presentation on the allocated day. I felt a little more practice would have made everyone feel more comfortable in their roles and perform better. Benne and Sheats (1948) identified 26 different group roles from their article titled Functional Roles of Group Members (Appendix D). They categorised the group roles into three categories; task roles, personal and social roles and dysfunctional or individualistic roles. During the forming stage I believe I was the initiator/contributor as I suggested several ways of perusing our goal and in the norming stage I was the orienter. This is because during this stage I pointed out what else was needed to be included that I felt was missing and at each meeting I suggested what we should complete before leaving. The group all had the same goal which helped us to progress quickly and in addition to this we did not have any dysfunctional roles being played in our group, e.g. a blocker this type of role disagrees with everything being said and inhibits progression. We all wanted to ensure the task was done. Examples of other members roles are; an encourager who praised the group and kept us m otivated and we also had elaborator this role builds on other members ideas. This agreement and support was probably due to a shared common goal. During the formation of groups Hartley and Illingworth (2006) implied that social and emotional effects are often overlooked on individual group members. This was evident when we used the majority rules rule. The thoughts and feelings of the individual/s that were not in the majority whilst voting were not considered. This could cause them to feel inadequate and not worthy of further input. Fujishin (2007:80) suggests that while decisions are being made fast and therefore saving the group time. This does not permit commitment from the entire group as they do not fully agree with the route being taken. He suggests that for entire group commitment an alternative method of deciding would be required. I would be sure to fully listen to other peoples ideas if I was put in the same predicament, rather than immediately have a vote. During one of the set meetings there was one student who could not attend, we continued with the meeting without them. This was unfair to the student as we progressed without his thoughts or feelings. But unfair to the group as the deadline wasn’t extended due to him being unable to attend and this was a setback to the group as a whole. The next meeting took a long time to get going as we had to take the time to explain what he had missed. Continuing without the student lost us time when a the meeting could have been rearranged to a time when everyone could have attended. Listening to individuals ideas and recognising their feelings requires the ability to act upon ones own emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is to be aware of and in control of the management of your emotions, reactions, goals, intentions, and those of other people and their feelings (Gloeman 1995, cited in Chapman 2012). Cartney and Rouse (2006, cited in Chapman 2012) supported the benefits of taking into consideration the emotional impact on others. I have learnt that reflection using Gibbs (1988) model and effective communication plays a crucial part of academic learning, day to day and self learning and progression in practice. Bolton (2001, cited in Blabber 2008:62) believes thoughts and feeling are brought out of individuals by writing, that otherwise would not surface. It also facilitates a connection between the classroom and practice that would not otherwise be established (Rolfe et al, cited in Blabber 2008:62). This reflection has taught me to ensure that each individual is heard, encouraged and not left out as this will aid progression to the task in hand. As we can see reflection is important during paramedic practice. This widens our knowledge and encourages better practice (White et al 2005). This can help the paramedic to treat each individual patient with their own specific needs. Emotional intelligence which is realising the effects of your own interpersonal skills and attitude also plays a huge part of giving the right patient in the right place the right treatment at the right time. If this was not used in the correct way you could intentionally or unintentionally hurt someones feelings, resulting in ineffective communication and bad practice. This experience has taught me that camaraderie appears to be a vital component of becoming a successful paramedic. Other theorists also said Reflective practice is deemed an essential skill for future practitioners to learn and perform and pr ovides the framework for transferring and applying learning into different practical scenarios (Fearly, 1999; Duffy, 2009) Changes in Fashion and Technology: Impact of the Internet Changes in Fashion and Technology: Impact of the Internet Urban Fashion Urban cities like New York, Paris, London or Tokyo have too much to offer, there are lots of entertaining varieties of services, while its all depends on the product we buy from the electronic portals (Internet buying). The more opportunities we can have in the big cities or urban areas then in rural area. Its not always about the living as orthodox but sometimes its about the passion and the search of creativity for the destruction of hunger or we can say like to mark the business growth upwards we have to stay in the cosmopolites cities. There is a big connection in between the fashion and the mass populated areas, as the fashion business related peoples are keen to know the taste to develop the products according to the need of the customers as in mass places we can find different kind of peoples with different aesthetic senses. We have e-commerce and Internet which we can relate to the theory of Long tail in terms of culture and idea space now days. By focusing on the individual products could have given us the beneficial approach but also it would leads to the drawback of saturation in the market or in terms of products. Mass customization, through Internet selling would further facilitate the idea and capital earning. In living in the mass populated cities will also give the ecumenical advantages as well as the mass variety to select the suitable strategy for the establishment of the business. Designers and fashion houses would get more prospers in these kind of area that they can offer more as well as they could have more customers to buy the products also cities have usually wide distribution demand becomes concentrated. Cities are the natural house for the shopping malls, super marts, pubs and cinema houses; its easy to find the peoples with idiosyncratic taste from 9 million peoples in the city. (http://en.wikipedia.org, 2005) From retail space to Online The role of shelves in a retail apparel store is same as the normal groceries store or book store. The more the product is visible, the more the product sells. (Anderson, C, 2006) So there is always a great demand for the golden shelves that are just below the eye level. Managing the shelves space is becoming more and more crucial to the retailers. The same is for the fashion retailing also. In fact the shelves have got a more importance in a case of a multi-brand retailer. In most of the cases the ‘new arrivals are given the preference and are placed in the shelves which are most visible to the customers. The retail space has to be managed in a way that the sales generated should be more than the rent of the store itself and in addition it has to make profits. Well this problem can be reduced by removing the activity of buying goods from a store and replacing it by the means of online shopping. By introduction of online shopping, the storage of the products may be moved from a central location to a warehouse outside the cities, where the rent is very minimal. Also according to the latest estimates, by 2020 the retail sales in USA will be a mere 15% of the total sales. This doesnt mean that the retail store sales will be affected until there is a huge shift of the wholesale to the online shopping. (Markham, J. E, 1998) The latest trend is that the retailers are focusing on having very minimal number of products in their stores and maintain a large amount in the central warehouses. The Point of Sales (POS) are tracked daily and based on this, the products are replenished accordingly. The importance of small and large retail stores The hyper marketing store and large retailer shop in recent year shows sign of decline in department store but the number of small size boutique or retailer shops which benefit from accurate interior decoration and adhering the gratification rule of marketing , seems to be increase due to several reason unless location prices and financial issue.( Matthew M. Chew August 2008) As it mention in Small Fashion Boutiques and Retail Change in China wrote by Matthew M. Chew from Department of Sociology, Hong Kong Baptist University Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, HKSAR, China (Project Code: 4450082) †the two advantage of small retail store compare with large retail store categorize in relational marketing and store branding†, although the smaller retail shop cannot pay for expensive advertisement like cooperating with mass media or make use of innovative marketing value and tools due to their low space size and lack of capital but As it mention in Small Fashion Boutiques and Retail Change in China wrote by Matthew M. Chew from Department of Sociology, Hong Kong Baptist University Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, HKSAR, China (Project Code: 4450082) †their small size put them in position to develops relational marketing with their customer much more thoroughly and deeply than lager retail shop†. Relational marketing This concept directly affected the customer retention and maintain reciprocal relation between customer and retailers which strengthening the customer base, obviously the small size retail shop run by one or at least two person which increase the chance for direct communications and relationship with clients which increase the level of trust and service, also the customer loyalty might be increase if the retail shop owner benefit from accurate communication skill or using marketing tricks like put some present or attractive personal massage in cloths or accessory package also building reputation can be based on providing qualified product with affordable prices or offering some exclusive or unique fashion brand or upcoming designing, As it mention in Small Fashion Boutiques and Retail Change in China wrote by Matthew M. Chew from Department of Sociology, Hong Kong Baptist University Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, HKSAR, China (Project Code: 4450082) â€Å"they selling selves not merely the apparel items †. Store branding Indeed the small retail shop try to develop the store as a brand this can happened in two way which are, establishing store brand due to characteristic, opinion and life style of the owner of small retailer shop or through the suitable interior design of physical store or web shops hence the personal afford of the owner essential for building reputation so the owner should has tidy and attractive apparent in any condition and dressed like a fashion guide, the owner should has specific and unique life style with proper communication skill. (Matthew M. Chew August 2008) The store location and the degree of fashion ability combine with suitable decoration are important for small retail store to compete with other retail store in department store most of the small retailer shop are based in the middle flour of department store construction which is provide more comfortable, non invasive environment that customer can focus deeply on designer clothes or accessorise in small retailer shop, the recent matter cause progressing the level of service and reach more potential customer. The small retail shop free to mix and use different brands and they are very flexible on the other hand they cannot benefit from in- store events to increasing the amount of shopping value and overcome competitors but they are able to use proper decoration like exaggerating perspective, 3D dimensional spaces, spot light, light and fade colour even the location of high fashion or popular designer clothes is seems to be important usually they should place in the middle slab of the shelf. (Matthew M. Chew August 2008) Fashion in Department Stores For not long ago people tended to go to fashion stand-alone stores whenever they were looking for fashion articles. The stand-alone stores consisted of one main fashion brand and the articles offered by it. These articles could be anything from basic-collections to the newest collection of the season. Customers preferred to visit these stores and shop whatever they desired from the brand in that specific store. As a result of having a stand-alone store the range of articles within the store was of course wider and also the amount of garments within each collection was greater. And additional opportunity is the fact that stand-alone stores can easier create a whole experience around the brand that is offered by designing the store in that specific way that is appropriate for the that specific brand. (Geo Journal 45:255-264, 1998) The concept of department stores could be seen as one of societies most innovative and influential establishments since it also changed the business world particularly from the mid 1800s to the 1930s. Not only did the concept give birth to the consumption culture but also to the modern shopping center, where everything could be found beneath one roof. Hence, today, as a result of the growing market of fashion and the also the increased knowledge of customers, fashion brands and their products are being demanded in greater markets. Customers are enjoying their opportunity of having the ability to choose from several different brands and products and also to compare. Customers like the bigger format of department hence the retail formats are no longer being seen upon as the best safe option for the retailers. These demands have elaborated in more fashion brands locating themselves within different kind of department stores. (http://www.articlesbase.com, 2009) Luxury fashion brands such as Burberry, Gucci, and Armani have their shop-in-shop stores in Illum department store in Copenhagen. (http://www.illum.eu/, 2009) Moreover, Harrods which can be considered as one of the worlds biggest department stores with over 330 departments of shopping spaces, actually have their motto saying â€Å"Omnia Omnibus Ubique† which basically means â€Å"All Things for All People, Everywhere†. Harrods have a much wider range of brands such as Christian Dior, Oscar De La Renta and Versace, however they also have less luxurious brands such as Adidas and Acne. (http://www.articlesbase.com, 2009) With the establishment of department stores, companies are able to enter a larger market and make their brand more approachable to customers. However, usually in a department store, each and every brand is dealing with a smaller location to display their products in and these locations are called shop-in-shop stores. However, this means that brands have not enough space for all their products, as in their own stand-alone stores. Usually, in this case, the brand would have to choose the specific garments it would prefer to show and sell within that restricted space. The most usual way of selecting these items is to have the most significant items for that specific brand and additionally some basic along with the latest seasons and more procured items. The result would be that each and every brand within the department store would have their restricted space offering only some items from their collections. (Fashion Retail Marketing lecture 2009-11-13) Hence, one can conclude that department stores can look more attractive and also give the customer the awesome feeling that he/she have a lot to choose from, however, by looking deeply into these shop-in-shop stores, one realizes that the variety being offered is not enough, since some articles would always be missing. Online Visual Merchandising Since apparel is a product that needs to be experienced, the visual merchandising of it in online stores is more critical than for other kind of websites offering other products. Hence it is off great importance that the result of visual merchandising in online stores really creates the environment needed for visitors in order for them to obtain that desired experience. It is also important to offer more visual product information and various product presentations, in, for example, colors, styles, and sizes etc. (Ha, Y., Kwon, W.S, Lennon, S. 2006) One of the main problems with physical goods is the categorization of the products within a store. This topic is very important for department stores and their shop-in-shop stores, since the restricted space makes it more crucial to create a successful visual merchandising so that customers can find what they want easily in the logically and visually created environment. (Ha, Y., Kwon, W.S, Lennon, S. 2006) However, with the development of online retailing the concept of categorizing the products has been taken to another level since within online retailing, companies are more independent on their choice of categorizing and visualizing their products. Hence, by giving the customer ability to search for the product online one will actually make it easier for them to find what they are looking for. Additionally the overall customer service can be increased by providing your products online. (www.businessweek.com, 2009) Although many luxury fashion brands are still very cautious about selling their products online, a great amount of them have understood the importance of online retailing and does actually offer their products on pages such as the online fashion boutique Net-a-porter.com. On their website, the customers are both given various ability to look for products in categories such as designers, clothing, shoes, bags, accessories etc and within these categories one find more specific sub-categories, such as for designers one find the names of different designers, for clothing one find dresses, skirts, jackets etc, and these goes on for all categories. However, another way of searching for their products is through the â€Å"search-box† where they can write specifically what they are searching for and easily see if the online store has the product are not. (http://uberkid.typepad.com, 2007) E commerce and its advantage and disadvantage Nowadays most of the fashion brands and company recognised the e-commerce as strong marketing tools due to daily consumption of Internet, available progressive technology, customer awareness and precious time using so it is natural reaction if e -commerce increase among most of the retailer company. (NVision, 2008) These days large number of customer tend to shopping from the web instead of wasting their time in crowded uncomfortable environment such as physical retail store there are different advantages and disadvantages for online shopping, the availability and save time can be recognize as a advantage so the customers can shop whatever they need without facing time limitation, it is easier for customer to find certain style in web shop than the physical store only by searching via essential information such size, colour, type, also client can compare the price of the goods and heat the best choice. (Laudon Traver, 2008, p. 346) The disadvantages of the online shop are the customer cannot touch or test clothes or accessories and that would be a serious problem which increase the product returns, also delivery time is critical for most customer and long delivery time will decrease the level of service and ruin the brand image, the other important thing is, the security of web site should be consider to avoid online rubbing of credit cards information by hackers (Laudon Traver, 2008, pp. 345-355). the retailer can reach more customers via online shopping and there will be no need for rent or buy expensive location for establishing physical store, it is easier for retailer to change the characteristic of their goods like prices and answer to their customers real needs but during online shopping there is no chance to gain benefit from effective communication skills and the web shopper should gain their customer trust in another way than direct relationship. (Laudon Traver, 2008, pp.556-557) CRM-system Online shop can earn profit by using customer relationship management system, this system help the online shop to collect their customer personal information and also their outcome like their opinion and suggestion with correct using of such system it is possible to record the interaction between customer and online shop and company can find out various needs of different customers so the customer loyalty increase dramatically and it have influence on level of service and customer retention, so the company can customize various marketing strategy to cover enlarge demand of e-customer the information collected by phone or email. (Xu Walton 2005) Internet- customer location The retail geography is very important in any business whether it is a groceries store, book store, fashion outlet etc. There are many factors that are taken into consideration while selecting a location of a store. Factors such as the customer concentration, customer behavior, local conditions, transportation network etc are very critical in the selection of a location. Stores that do not consider these factors will not be able to attract the customers. Also the maintenance costs of such store will also be more that the revenues generated by it. Even the physical distribution costs will also be high for such stores which are inaccessible due to very bad transport network/infrastructure. Despite of doing a lot of research for selecting the right location for a store, not all stores are successful. One of the main reasons for this is that the customers are usually distributed over a large geographical location. (Anderson, C, 2006) For such scenarios the online shopping is proving out to be a good alternative. But again the consumer behavior is critical due to the fact that most of the consumers still tend to have a physical touch of the products they buy. Well this can be applied to the fashion industry also. Most of the fashion retailers tend to open their stores mainly in bigger cities that too in prime locations. The bigger cities have higher population density and there is a high tendency of doing a good business. The best examples are location such as 5th Avenue, New York, West End, London etc which are now termed as the shopping districts. (http://en.wikipedia.org) Most of the bigger fashions brands want to open their store in these locations and are ready to pay astronomical prices are rent. One of the main advantages of these locations is that they are easily accessible. Another factor that influences the store location is the consumer behavior. One cannot expect a luxury brand like Gucci or Chanel to do good business at a location which is filled with consumers who do not have a high purchasing power. Also the local conditions such as climate, geography etc also plays a major role. (Markham, J. E, 1998) A skiwear store can do a very good business at locations where there are mountains and snow. The same way the surf wear brand can sell it products only at locations which are nearer to beaches. So Location is very crucial. Over the last decade the best solutions that have evolved for the problems related to customer geography is the Internet. Internet allows the feature called the Online shopping which enables the customers to buy the products from their homes is becoming more and more popular. Online shopping is advantageous for both the retailers and the customers. The main advantage for the retailers is that it allows them to reach the low density customers with the same efficiency as the high density ones. (Anderson, C, 2006) This is the reason that most of the traditional retailers are spending a lot of money in building up their own web shopping applications (For eg: HM, Gina Tricot etc). Some of the success stories are www.nelly.se and www.ellos.se. Though the online shopping is a best way to reach the low density and remote customers, it should be well supported by a good distribution system. Networking in the fashion world Before this television, computers and these virtual medias there were radios, those were knows as the king for the entertainment, there were only few broadcasting stations. But in twentieth century gradually this place was taken by the television and can see this trend fully involved with the human life. TV was the trend driven media before the computer and Internet, the plate form from which we can connect to the whole world is Internet. The relation of the capital earning is connected to the key factor i.e. the more networking you have in terms of marketing the more you earn. For the fashion brands and for the sake of business its more important to have the networking among the social circle of fashion peoples. Aside from using scarce distribution resources promptly or efficiently by aggregating and emphasizing on the customer, now days the strongest Medias are advertising and virtual learning via Internet or television. Once the advertisements or commercial of your product hits th en you can earn money and can touch the blockbusters level. But do you know how to make the hit; there are 2 to achieve this level. Deep search unpredictable genius. Use lowest denominators formula to create optimized product to sell. The principle related as general for the entertainment for last 10 decades was economics and distribution were scarce and the consumer attention was distracted. Its the fact that not everyone can make the movie, broadcast and makes it on air. Those have done it was the opportunity for them to capture the market. As its the sellers market and they can also to afford to waste attention. (www.bbb.org, 2008) The future of Internet in fashion The customer behavior has been changing over time and this also made the retailer to make changes accordingly. The change in the shopping experiences has moved from the traditional bazaars to independent stores/boutiques, and then came the franchisees, then the multi brand retail stores etc. This trend doesnt seem to stops anywhere. But over the last couple of decades the evolution of Internet is changing the whole scenario. (http://en.wikipedia.org) The use of Internet has been expanding at an enormous rate, especially in the last decade. (www.Internetworldstats.com) Of the time the people sit in front of the computer, 80% of the time they spend it on the Internet. The Internet has become a part of lifestyle today. The use of Internet has enables people to do most of their works online sitting in front of the computer. The shopping experience has also been influenced by the Internet mania. The customer prefers to buy the products from the Internet and as per latest estimates the cus tomers in UK spend around 17 pence in every pound they shop. (http://news.bbc.co.uk) This trend is growing and it seems that the future retailing will be dominated by the Internet. The rise of Internet has also caused a lot of dangers. The main disadvantage is that the customers cannot really check the product physically. Especially with the fashion industry, where purchased products look very attractive on retailers webpage but when finally when the products arrives he may not be satisfied with the fabric, fitting etc. So this will make the customers to return the products to the retailer. This situation is a very big problem as most the customers dont know how to return back a product to the retailers, who will be paying the postal charges etc. (http://www.oft.gov.uk) Another disadvantage of Internet shopping is the security and privacy risks. The critical information of the customers such as the name, address, credit card details etc are stored online and if no required security is maintained, there is a high probability of this data ending up in wrong hands. Another problem with the online shopping is the inability to adhere to strict delivery times. Someti mes the products do not arrive at the time the customer wishes and this will create a lot of problems. Improper distribution system is the main cause for these kinds of products. (Anderson, C, 2006) Some other problems are the hidden costs which are advertised as free but carry more price than the original. This usually happens when the retailer advertises products for free but charges high shipping costs than normal. (http://www.oft.gov.uk)