Saturday, April 11, 2009

Blogpost 7 - Reflections


Having reviewed my first post, I realise that I have new insights to add on, now that I have gone through the process of improving my communication skills.

Three months of learning about professional communication has been an eventful albeit uptight learning journey. This module is relatively low on textbook or written content but can offer one a steep learning curve on soft skills.

Firstly, I found out that good communication skills alone are insufficient in professional communication. It should come with wise and effective decision making skills. The combination of both will probably yield the best result in professional communication in a workplace or in school. Good decision-making skills facilitates good communication because when a decision is made to do something, one will have a clear focus of what is to be done, so that a clear and logical description of what is to be done can be effectively relayed to other parties. Basically, a confused person, who does not know where he is headed towards, will not be able to find his direction, let alone lead others.

Secondly, I have come to appreciate face-to-face meetings with my project group mates; because I felt that completing the project together in the computer laboratory was the most efficient way of finishing our tasks. I am glad to have time-conscious group mates who make an effort to meet up despite pressing Final Year Project (FYP) deadlines. Moreover, during meet-ups, ideas can be exchanged more fluently and quickly, and the mood of discussion can be adjusted accordingly to facial expressions, body language and tones. For example, if you sense urgency in someone’s manners, you should quickly aid your friend in the task he is doing or change your tone to calm him down. Meetings also reduce misunderstandings that can take place during text message or email exchanges, which are more likely to be short and curt, thus are insufficient to fully express one’s ideas or concerns.

Thirdly, I realised that different expectations of a project can result in conflict and inefficiency. Due to our different priorities, my group mates and I have different expectations of the project. In fact, there was constantly a tug-of-war within me on whether to delegate workload fairly without consideration for the FYPs my 2 other group mates were doing. Fortunately, effective communication with my group mates by expressing my feelings and concerns definitely helped to straighten things out. Eventually, we all had to make sacrifices, be it family time or FYP time to complete our project.

Likewise, even though work places do emphasize on a common goal or motto, it is not possible to impose the company’s values on all employees. Some will put their families as top priority while some will put career as their top priority, so how do people of different priorities work together? Maybe the boss of a particular company will have the foresight to allocate important projects to only career-driven employees, if not, a lot of effective communication will be needed.

Fourthly, all the letter writing skills picked up from this module will be very useful. I can apply them to emails and letters to my professors, corporate companies when applying for jobs and internships and organisations when doing a project. There are many minute details in the letter format which I failed to notice prior to taking this module, for example the alignment of the content and the punctuations.

Lastly, I have never felt that it was a burden to participate in this class, because there’s always subjectivity in the content and no definite answers to how professional communication can be carried out. Therefore, classes were enjoyable, especially with interesting and spontaneous inputs from my fellow classmates that are encouraged by an approachable teacher. In fact, I was often surprised by the various insights about cross-cultural communication shared by my classmates. As a result, their opinions have broadened my view of things.

I do appreciate these rare opportunities of learning from the experiences that others have to offer. Thank you for reading about my experiences too!

6 comments:

  1. Hi Ethel,

    Thank you for sharing your extensive experience taking ES2007S.

    On your first learning point, I must first agree to the extent that effective communication without substance is not useful. However, I believe a lousy decision maker can be an effective communicator: if he can confidently and clearly convey his (lousy) decision to another party.

    Communication only becomes bad when the speaker can not be firm in his/her decision, for example, changing his mind even during conveying his initial decision to the other party.

    However, more often than not, people have good ideas or opinions but lack the skills to communicate them effectively to others.

    Therefore I would think that decision making is a separate skill and cannot be an underlying basis for effective communication. I believe good decision making is learned through personal experience, or through observation of the outcomes of other people's decisions.

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  2. Hi ethel,

    I believe that there is always an intended goal or aim that we want to fulfill when we communicate to others. Hence, I agree with you that it is essential for one to stay focused and there must be a clear purpose before one could communicate effectively to the audience. Normally, your audience would not be convinced if you are directionless.

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  3. Hi Ethel,

    Your comments on communication and working within your group are very insightful, I enjoyed reading those parts. You detailed your thought process - what you saw, considered, and did - in a clear and concise way.

    You did a great job in this course, and I feel I learned a lot from you.

    Best,
    Matt

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  4. Hey Ethel,

    I remember you are our first friend in ES2007S, and you were as blur as me and Cecilia, who came on the first week of the semester.

    I agreed with you that it is never a burden to come to the class. I think the class is enjoyable. I beliebe the skills that we learnt in the class defintely will help us in our future career.

    All the best in Exams and see you in school=)

    MuiPeng

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  5. Hi Ethel,

    Indeed, we have learnt alot in this module. Be it communication skills, or working with different people in a group, I guessed we have all managed to handle it well.

    I was impressed by you interview skills too. You really have good analytical skills, and I'm sure you will be able to get a job once you graduate!

    See you around in school !

    Cecilia =)

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  6. Hi Ethel,

    I thank you for being a co-operative group member. I know I didn't put in my full effort in the project (If I had put in my full effort, I would have called you to upload the files and would prompt you whenever I feel that the dateline has passed). Nevertheless, I did not sulk out on the project as I feel that it is not fair to you, I just changed from being active to being passive. (You can see how much other work that I defaulted in blogging and posting comments to blogs) However, I should apologise for not doing more work than what I am supposed to do.

    I wish you good luck for your exams and future endeaveours.

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