Wednesday’s Class

On Wednesday our class discussion led us to a role play about different personalities. Before I go about establishing the purpose of these discussions its best to outline how everything happened. First of all, Mr. Matheny handed everyone a piece of paper, told us to read it and not to tell anyone else. Kind of ominous, huh? Well it all pretty much clears up when on the piece of paper is written a personality trait that we are supposed to act out. For me, the trait I received was “Boss” which consisted of me having a self-centered personality and wanting to make my own ideas heard over everyone else’s. Of course there was a variety of different personalities on different slips of paper in the class and we all had to interact. Quite soon, chaos ensued as a bunch of people each tried to flamboyantly act out their personalities. The result of this was the realization that all the personalities on these pieces of paper such as, “boss” or “Flatterer” where incompatible. This activity gave us a perspective and transitioned us into our next topic dealing with interpersonal conflict in Mongolia. People all have different personalities and these are bound to clash. If everyone is trying to be the Boss, nobody succeeds and if everyone is trying to flatter everyone else, then nothing gets done. But on a larger scope, this activity taught a lot about cooperation and putting our own personalities and differences aside to reach common goals. Often, peoples personalities are going to get in the way of their work habits, but this activity was preparation of sorts, so that we can see what a “Bossy” person is and learn not to be as such in the future. The lesson I took home from this was that: The best way to run a successful group effort is to work as a team and expand the pathways of communication. And so, this group activity was a combination of conflict resolution and understanding of interpersonal interactions in Mongolia.