Enrichment Workshop #6: “Group Problem Solving”
Speaker: Dr. Margret J. Kupferle, PhD, PE
Date: June 18, 2014
Time: 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Venue: 749 Baldwin Hall, University of Cincinnati
Prepared by:
Aaron Choi, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
Davis Sneider, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
Saifuddin Aijaz, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
REU Participants for Project #3: A Synthetic Electronic Nanopore for DNA Sequencing and Stochastic Sensing
Dr. Margaret J. Kupferle gave the workshop on group dynamics and problem solving when conflicts within the group arise. Dr. Kupferle received her bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University where her love of environmental engineering was sparked by an undergraduate project in water pollution. The project led to a co-op job with Procter & Gamble in their environmental labs testing toilet paper, toothpaste, Liquid Comet ... and lots of sewage sludge. She went on to get her Master’s in Environmental Engineering from Purdue and, later, her PhD in Environmental Engineering from UC. At UC, she worked as a researcher, lab manager, and contract staff manager on several large contracts with USEPA for years before joining the tenure track faculty in 2004. She was tenured in 2011 and became Environmental Engineering Program Chair in January 2013. In 2013-14, she was honored as a Master Educator in the College of Engineering and Applied Science and selected to be a Fellow in the ELATE (Executive Leadership in Academic Technology and Engineering) program at Drexel University, a prestigious national program for women faculty and university administrators.
Dr. Kupferle Presenting at the Group Problem Solving Workshop
Dr. Kupferle’s research is in water treatment using biological and chemical methods. She won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2008 for work in chlorine cycling in electrochemical treatment of wastewater. She teaches environmental courses on organic chemistry, solid and hazardous waste management, and sustaining the urban environment. She also advises the UC Engineers Without Borders student chapter and certifies studentsfrom across campus for a Sustaining the Urban Environment (SUE) minor offered through our school.
In every project, there are people interacting with one another in order to solve a problem. These people form a group and within that group there are almost always conflicting interests and opinions. If these conflicts aren’t resolved, they could lead to hindering the project and problems within the group. Dr. Kupferle’s lecture was composed of two main parts; first she spoke about MBTI personalities and, second, she spoke about the basics of conflict resolution within a group.
Dr. Kupferle began her workshop by having the students perform a basic Myers – Briggs Type Indicator questionnaire. This questionnaire was first used in WWII and is based on the work of Carl Jung, who formed theories about the nature of the mind and the tendencies of people to feel or think, sense or be intuitive, and to be extroverted or introverted. The Myers – Briggs type indicator uses these three sets of qualities as well as a fourth – perceiving or judging – in order to sort people into one of 16 different personality type combinations [for example INSJ]. These can help to predict the way people will behave in a wide variety of situations. The practice of using this test to help form groups or predict how group members will interact with one another, is commonly done. For instance, an introverted person may not express their ideas about the topic that a group is discussing and may need to be asked about their opinion before contributing anything to the conversation. Conversely, an extroverted person may always be expressing their ideas about the topic.
After going over the tendencies of extroverted and introverted personality qualities, Dr. Kupferle did the same for each of the other qualities. However knowing what qualities you possess are only part of the equation. It’s also important to set goals for yourself so that you can better get along with people who possess qualities which you don’t have. These goals are type – oriented or type – specific. For example, people in favor of sensing tend to look for facts and organize around what is proven, whereas intuitive people tend to stray away from what’s concrete in favor of what may be possible. So a goal for sensors may be to consider creative solutions to a problem while a goal for intuitive people may be to pay attention to details which put huge holes in their ideas. The last thing that was discussed in the personality type part of the workshop was along these lines except that it concerned time management. This was especially important due to the short duration of the Summer REU Program.
The second half of the workshop was about conflict, conflict resolution, and conflict prevention. Dr. Kupferle started this part of the workshop by discussing five skills that can be used to prevent conflict which were as follows: increasing group responsiveness, identifying potential points of conflict, communicating properly, having someone consider problems with a course of action, and exposing differences in opinions. These five help to prevent conflict simply by identifying and addressing matters of potential conflict before they fester into a potential problem. A good example of such a problem followed in Dr. Kupferle’s presentation as she started to discuss covert conflict strategies and how to identify them. These are strategies which allow someone to cause damage to an organization or person over an issue without directly confronting them. Among the many strategies she went over, some of the more significant ones were non–compliance, deceit, disadvantaging, and negativism. These kinds of issues can be due to people simply not agreeing with your opinion.
Ironically, the above problems and others can be settled by negotiating an agreement, the skills for which were discussed next. This process can be initiated by simply establishing how you feel about positions on issues between yourself and the person you are in conflict with. This process should help to resolve any issues someone is having with a member of their organization. At the very least you may be able to “agree to disagree.”
The last part of Dr. Kupferle’s workshop was going over the mechanics of an ideal session. There were seven mechanics that were mentioned, which included, choosing someone to lead the meeting, to time the meeting, and to be the scribe of the meeting; to state the purpose of the session;to actually perform the session; to come to a consensus and outcome; and to review the process. These seven steps help groups organize meetings more effectively so that they can accomplish their tasks more efficiently.
Conflicts arise in every team and organization. In order to progress, teams must be able to come to a clear decision and have to be able to agree on certain issues, or at the very least come to an agreement of how they feel about those issues. Thanks to Dr. Kupferle the groups of the various research projects are much better prepared to confront these issues as they arise over the duration of the eight weeks Summer REU Program and in their future careers.