I was trying to find the perfect way to thank everyone that has taken the time out of their busy lives to answer a question, give me inspiration or sometimes just be a friend. To some this is just another class but to me it was another way to meet amazing people on my journey. Thank you for everything.

This week you read about the five stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Consider the adjourning phase for several of the groups in which you have been involved. Think about which aspects of the groups made for the hardest good-bye. Are high-performing groups hardest to leave? This is one of the hardest groups to leave. I think that when you leave a group that you think is not high performing, only to end up in a situation where you are disappointed by the dynamics of the team. I think a great example of this is I left a center that was pretty financially depleted and ended up somewhere I thought was going to lead me to a better future because they seemed to be more organized and in a better area. What I didn't realize was that the financial aspects of the center had nothing to do with how the establishment was run. At the time I was treated pretty bad because I didn't have a degree and I ended up getting severance pay because I was so miserable. When you are with a team of people that are all looking to achieve the same goal, it is really hard to start over.

Groups with the clearest established norms? This is also a group that is pretty tough to leave because when you leave to go to another center ( I am just using this as an example) you have already established normalcy and a set way of achieving a goal. I imagine that it is going to be really tough to leave my colleagues when I finish my masters degree because this is normalcy to me. I have been collaborating on projects and researching papers for the past two years. When this is over it is going to be really tough for me to get back into another routine. I think adjourning is essential because it brings closure. I am getting sad now just thinking about it.

A recent conflict that I had at work is I drive a bus in the morning and I pulled in the front of the school to let the little girl walk into the building. When I opened the door I saw a teacher that worked for the school standing across the street shaking her head at me. Before this class I would get pretty heated, park the bus and maybe have some kind of conflict. Times have changed for me. I calmly asked the woman why she was shaking her head and she thought it was a bad idea where I parked to let the little girl out and I should pull up to an underpass ( that you could not fit a bus through) and then cut in front of cars on the way out. Soooo, I calmly asked, “Is this what you want me to do?” and she shrugged her shoulders. So I told her that I need directions from her or someone who has answers before coming to any kind of conclusion to this problem. Later in the day, there was a call from the school to my work that they worked out the situation and gave me an answer. The first thing I did was avoided internal violence, I was very calm when I was speaking to this woman and the second thing I learned was I did not take it personally that she shook her head at me, I simply wanted an answer. Does anyone have any advice they could give me on this situation?