Critical Reflection on Learning in the Course (Blog post #4)

I have set two objective for myself in the beginning of the course. Firstly, is to be able to speak confidently in front of a crowd to overcome each presentation easily. Next, is to improve my writing skill. I feel that, over the course of this semester, I have improved significantly in the writing department, but not as much as in the presentation skills.

The grades for each of my blog post was a indication of how much I have improve and a check if I am heading in the right direction. I have taken the feedbacks given to me by my lecturer and my peers seriously, which help steered me in the direction that I want to go. However, relying purely on feedback is not a wise move. I have taken several other method to ensure that I improve. For example, practise writing, it have also contributed to much of my improvement, writing and re-writing my blogs forces me to read what I have written to check the flow of the sentence. I feel that I have made significant improvement in writing.

In the presentation aspect, I felt that I have not fought for the opportunities presented to me, I have being giving myself excuses to not grab the opportunities to practise and get feedbacks on my presentation skill. This is something that I really need to overcome and step up to, otherwise I will never move forward in this domain. I have not improve much in my presentation skills. However, I have taken into account the feedback given to me from the final presentation and I will apply it on my next presentation set.

I will continue on reading in the topic of emotional intelligence, focusing on Daniel Goleman work on how to become a better leader. My research on Daniel Goleman for the group’s final presentation has spark an interest in me to be a person with higher emotional intelligent specifically in having strong empathy and have better organisational awareness.

In conclusion, the journey in this class has be a fulfilling and enjoyable one. The feedback and critics I gotten has been constructive and enabling. Thank you to my peers and Dr. Lee for guiding me along.

Conflict Management BlogPost(#3)(Revised)

When people work together conflicts are inevitable. No matter how major or minor the conflict is, resolving a conflict requires skills. I will be sharing an observation between two colleagues. It is regarding how did the conflict started and how did they resolved or not resolved it. I have been working with Jasper and Zack for at least two years. I have witnessed countless arguments and disagreements between them. Jasper is a strong character man and he actively seeks out problems to resolve them. He feels that, disagreements that are left unresolved will lead to future arguments. On the other hand, Zack is the type of person that does not like conflicts and would take the blame to avoid further conflicts.

On an installation project that we worked together, we encountered a minor issue of misalignment. We had to make a decision to continue with the current state of progress, or dismount everything and start over. At this point, we were tired as we had work through the night. Jasper made a harsh remark blaming Zack for the miscalculation on the position and caused the issue. The miscalculation was actually due to a mistake stated in the specification given by the client. However, Zack just kept quiet and accepted the blame to try to avoid any sort of argument completely. The conflict did not had a conclusion. In the following week, both Zack and Jasper did not talk much to each other. When they talk, Jasper would constantly be sarcastic towards Zack. It felt like, Jasper was trying to pick a fight with Zack, there was hostility between the two. Weeks and months passes and things started to get back better, Jasper treated Zack better as compared to the week after the incident. Zack never explained the situation at all.

In my opinion, there are two points that caused the conflict. Firstly, Jasper jumping to conclusion in blaming Zack on the issue without clarifying the truth first, this behaviour is undesirable in any situation. This shows that Jasper was high on the assertiveness scale and low in the cooperativeness scale in the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI), as he felt the need that someone needs to take the blame for the mistake.People would perceive Jasper as an aggressive individual and would not like to work with him. Secondly, Zack was trying to avoid the whole conflict completely and hoping it will get better as the weeks passes. Zack complete avoidance of the issue, causes him to suffer the brunt of the blame from Jasper, even if he was not the one to blame. Zack scored low on both on the cooperativeness and assertiveness scale of TKI, falling into the avoiding category. This is not ideal for resolving the conflict and would lead to others perception on Zack as a weak and incompetent person.

For Zack and Jasper to resolve the conflict in a more effective manner, Jasper should increase on the cooperativeness scale, reaching out to Zack and understanding the situation better. Jasper should move from the competing category to the collaborating or compromising category to improve in their work relationship and work efficiency. As for Zack, he need to increase on both assertiveness and cooperativeness scale to better improve their relationship.

In conclusion, conflict resolution requires tactfulness and skill. Zack’s method of avoiding till the conflict resolve does not work every single time and it was really lucky for Zack that the conflict eventually blew past. However, it is not always the case, as avoiding conflict will often lead to more conflict or larger arguments in the future, thus resolving the conflict at hand is always important. With that said, I do not fully agree with the way Jasper act upon Zack too. Jasper should have approach the problem calmly and tactfully, which might result in a better conflict resolution. As to better understand how others would react to a similar situation, I would like you, the readers to leave a comment below, sharing what would you do and how would you react if you were in either Zack’s or Jasper’s position.

Evaluating Listening Skills & Non Verbal Behavior (Blog post #2)

Non-Verbal communication can be a powerful, yet subtle tool when dealing with people from different cultures. One interesting interaction I have encountered during work is between a Caucasian and Chinese man. The Caucasian man is from the one of the countries in the southern hemisphere, lets call him Jack and the Chinese man was local, lets call him Ming. The scenario was set in an working environment, where the Ming was the client of Jack.

I knew Ming personally, he is a small framed man who is well – tempered and nice to everyone regardless of culture, age or gender. Ming usually keeps a low profile, he slouches and drags his feet when walking around, but he was the overall in-charge of the event. Jack on the other hand seems to emanate with confidence. However, he was a representative sent here by his company. On their initial meeting, Jack walks into the venue tall and proud, having open shoulders chest out and taking large strides, showing confidence and dominance.

Jack did not know how did Ming looked like. As Jack scanned the area for someone in-charge of the work that is going on but, he did not managed to find anyone that seems to be in-charge, he decided to approach Ming, and demanded Ming to fetch the person – in -charge to talk to him. Ming politely replied him, saying that he was in-charge. Jack laughed aloud and ask him to get someone who really is in-charge of things here. Ming took a step back, and opened up his body, looking Jack straight in the eyes and told him in a very serious tone, telling him straight that indeed he was the one in-charge.

From this interaction, I have observed that, different culture have different ways of communication and understanding. In this case, Ming was being humble and respectful when replying his foreign associate. This is often seen in Asian culture that, in a work environment, everyone treats each other with respect. In addition, people in higher positions, do not always show control and power through confidence and outspokenness. On the other hand, Western Culture encourages people to be more outspoken, to show their presence and to be taken seriously. Therefore, Jack might be expecting someone with more dominance and confidence to be in-charge. But when Ming took a step back, opened up his posture and looked at him seriously, then Ming was taken seriously. This showed that change in body posture and tone of speech can show confidence and dominance when speaking to someone. Despite that, culture difference leads to different expectation of individual, body posture and tone of speech are sure ways to communicate your intend clearly.

In conclusion, such misunderstanding might be due to difference in cultures, but it can be overly overcome by treating everyone with respect, and be humble when approaching people, as you might not know who the person really is. This situation can be easily avoided if Jack was humble and respectful when speaking to others.

Emotional Intelligence

Personally, I feel that, as a society, our social skill is degrading. This is partly due to the development of social networking platforms and widespread availability of smart phones with social applications installed. People are spending more and more time on social networking applications. They are interacting with others from behind a screen, normal display of emotions is being limited. Communication is limited to just a simple exchange of information, there is little to no emotion involved.

When people spend more time behind their screens, how they act behind the screen will become their norm when communicating to other face to face. As someone who spend majority of my time behind the screen, I feel that indeed I have change to become uncomfortable to speaking to people face to face.

However, I have realised I have become socially reclusive during the transition from finishing National Services to my university life, when I was working part time. During this period I had to deal with people from different walks of life and age. Each of them have their unique way of communication, it was a struggle to communicate with such variety of people. After realising this about myself, I have started to observe this trend among our society, especially the younger generation. It has become quite serious these days.

In conclusion, as a society, if we cannot communicate effectively face to face, our community will start to malfunction, where squabbles and fight break out ever so often because of misunderstanding. However, this cannot be done alone, I urge you to put your electronic devices aside when you are with your friends or family, communicate with them face to face.

Strength and Challenges (Blog Post 1)(Revised)

There are two major challenges I face when communicating with others is that, I am unable to properly express my thought through talking or even in writing. For example, if I have an idea to share with my group, I am unable to express accurately to what my idea exactly is. At most, I am able to share about 70% of what is the idea actually is. However, I have been working to improve this by trying other methods of communicating, like through drawing and with aid of softwares. Very often, people misunderstands me. Despite trying to clear up the misunderstanding, it would usually lead to even further misunderstanding. I blame this on my poor expression of me on the subject when communicating with others. I have be slowing down the pace of my thoughts and speech, as to train myself to represent my thoughts and idea even more accurately and dismiss any form of misunderstanding.

Ever since graduating from secondary school, I have slowly started to learn to read body languages, getting vibes that people give out and be more observant to what people around expects and want. Through this, I was able to achieve certain objective, and avoid messy situation of argument. I see this as my strength in communicating. I have been reading book on interpersonal skill and some psychology based book as recommended by my secondary school instructor and now my friend. These book have been a great help in my communication with people in awkward or tense situation.

As I grow older, I have grown to be more direct with people when communicating, as it is a sure way for me to eliminate as much confusion and misunderstanding. I prefer when people go directly to the point of what the want in the conversation, as it will reduce the need for second guessing on what each other really want. However, not every situation will allow me to be direct, that is why I have learned to be reserved on my word choices and language when dealing with sensitive situations.

There are many different challenges that i have in communications. The biggest obstacle I have in communicating with others is, I am unable to properly express my thoughts through speaking or writing. For example, if i have an idea to share with my group, I am unable to express accurately what my idea exactly is. Most of the time, my peers are able to comprehend 70% of my ideas. I take it upon myself as a weakness that i have to overcome. However, I have been trying to use several different methods to sharing my idea. I have been using methods of drawing and software as aids to help my peers understand clearly what my ideas exactly are. Accompanying this, I have tried slowing down my thought process to have explain my idea in more details.

There is one strength that I have that is to read body language and get vibes from people easily. I believe that this is an important skill to have as an individual, as it will be beneficial in taking cues from your audience. For example, if your audience looks bored or restless, most likely you are dragging on in the topic for longer than you should have. I apply this in my daily communication with my peers to ensure that everyone in the discussion is kept engaged. This have helped in making the communication between us effective and efficient.

There are two objectives that I have set for myself for this module. Firstly, I want to be able to speak confidently in front of an audience to share my ideas accurately have always been an obstacle for me to overcome every presentation. Although I do not consider it as stage fright, but I will be nervous, despite being comfortable with the audience. Through the module I hope to be able to build up the confidence to stand in front of a crowd to speak, by being more proactive in sharing in classes.

Next, through this course I wish to be able to further improve on my writing skill. I will achieve it by putting in more time an effort in writing the blog post and on other writings outside of this module. Through writing drafts and skeleton of my essays, it will be a way to help me organise my thought and minimise mistakes.

Week 1: Blog Entry 1

How important is it for me to develop effective communication skills?

In the modern society, where information exchanges from person to person are getting faster and easier, we are able to share our thoughts and idea with many different people from different countries and timezones. Our thoughts and idea can be shared through many different channels like a blog post on the internet or a simple phone call or text. However, our words and text may betray us, the ideas we have in our head might not be coherent with what we are typing and it might cause great misunderstanding to the audience. Therefore, I believe that part of being a good communicator is to be able to translate your thoughts into writing or speech accurately and succinctly so that others will understand what is the true meaning and from there bonds between people can be formed.

What will I do in this course to help myself develop as an effective interpersonal communicator?

In my opinion, the most difficult skill in communication is listening to what others have to say. I have a strong believe that as a individual, there is a limit to the knowledge one possess, able to see and feel. However, through listening to experiences of people around us, adding a dash of imagination will let you see the world a little further than you have explored. I will want to have better patience in listening to others around me to be able to explored further.

Little Escape

Hello World