I've been attending 6 Sigma white belt course for the past 2 days. For those who do not know what it is, it's not martial arts. It's a methodology to manage process variations that cause defects and to systematically work towards managing variation to eliminate those defects. White belt means beginner.

One of the chapters today is about Team. Some of the points are quite common in management books. There are few points that I quite agree like. One of it is a quote from Glenn M. Parker, in his book Team Players and Teamwork:

We can absorb and process words spoken by other people much faster than they can verbalize the information. This leaves us lots of time to analyze, evaluate, and even anticipate their thoughts.

But this extra time can be a disadvantage since we tend to concentrate minimally on what is being said and often discount comments before they are completed.

How true. This reminds me of my previous boss. He's a nice guy. Just that sometimes when talking to him, he would not let you finish what you wanted to say and interprete it differently. So more effort have to be made to make him understand what I really mean.

Another good point is that they encourage conflicts in a team.

The aim is not to avoid conflict buy to capitalize on it's constructive aspects by dealing with conflicts in an effective manner.

If everybody in the team has the same idea everytime, why do we need a team? Voicing different views can help the team see things from a different angle and thus avoid blindspots.

One bad thing about this course is one of my classmates. He likes to ask questions that is remotely connected to what the instructor says, but nothing to do with the point he tries to bring across. I agrees that we should bring up points we do not understand or do not agree. But it seems like he only wants to challenge the instructor. This serves no purpose except to prolong the lesson.