Past Eight Weeks...

These past eight weeks have been a whirlwind of knowledge about communication. I want to thank each and every one of you for taking the chance to read and comment on my postings. It has been a great experience. Thank you again for collaborating with and supporting me. I hope I was able to give back as much as I received. I want to wish everyone a great journey and to accomplish all of your future endeavors that might be waiting ahead. The sky is the limit, be who you want to be :)

Adjourning From Groups

    There have been several groups I have been involved in so far in my lifetime; I have been a cheerleader, a member in a work environment, a classroom, etc. Of the many groups I’ve belonged to I would say the hardest group I ever had to leave was my high school. Having been with the same friends and around the same classmates for 4+ years, and leaving to attend another school and pursue college was one a hard experience. I think this is because it was the switch from childhood to adulthood and was a journey I had to embark on my own to further myself.

    According to Gina Abudi, adjourning is the stage in which the team is looked at the “from the “perspective of the well-being of the team rather than from the perspective of managing a team through the original four stages of team growth” (Abudi, 2010). Although, leaving a team might be a difficult hardship, however it is imperative to continue to grow, which sometimes means that we continue on our own or in a new group.

    I would say high-performing groups are hard to leave, but it really depends on what you consider is high-performing. High-performing could be anything from the group in which you work on a project with, the friendships and bonds you have created, or being part of a group in which you have gained a great amount of pride or success in.

    In high school, in order to commemorate our accomplishments and give recognition on our departure from high school, we had a grad night celebration on a night cruise. This cruise consisted of food, dancing, raffles, and giveaways. For me to adjourn from my group of colleagues in my master’s degree program, I will carry over the knowledge and experiences from which we shared. It is significant that we adjourn from groups in order to reflect about all the experiences and moments we shared.  

References:

Abudi, G. (2010). The five stages of team development: A case study. Retrieved from http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-five-stages-of-team-development-a-case-study.html

Communicating with Difficult People.

There have been a few disagreements I have had in my personal life, in which I try to implement the 3R’s and nonviolent communication strategies in. For instance, I have someone in my life that often gets stressed and frustrated easily, I try to talk in a calm and concise way. When we are bumping heads with one another I find that this person does not speak rationally and will begin to attack my image. 

With this being said, I think it is important to solve one conflict at a time. When I speak to this person things will escalate in an argument when he is in a bad mood and we will never get to an agreement.  In order to manage the conflict, I think it is important to reflect on the main reason why this argument is happening, and do not get off track and start discussing another conflict until conflict #1 is resolved.  Another way to resolve conflicts is to be sure to not bottle things up. It is important to communicate with one another the things that you do not like/ things that bother you, otherwise if you don’t you will become too overwhelmed.

What is your input on dealing with a person who seems to always be stressed out and has a hard time communicating with others?

Communication

This past week I had my Mother and college friend evaluate me on my communication skills. I was pleasantly surprised and relieved that all my scores were about the same. By knowing that I received similar results from others based on the way I communicate, this shows me that I know myself much more than I thought I had. Although, some of the questions were a bit difficult for my Mother and friend to answer, I spoke to them and told them to use their best judgment when answering the questions. One of the questions they both got stuck on was whether or not my heart beats faster when I talk in large groups. This would be almost impossible for somebody else to know, unless I was in an experiment where I have my heart rate tracked, while talking to others in a large group.
Two new insights I learned:
1) I am too trusting of others. This quality can help me build relationships, but also cloud my judgment.
2) It is important to be open-minded and share your opinions with others. When sharing your opinions it is important to just share and not to force your opinion on somebody. It is also important to use facts when talking.

Effective communication skills

I do find myself communicating differently with different groups and cultures. When it comes to people that I do not know I am often quiet and shy. For instance, I am out of my comfort zone when I am in a group setting with people that I hardly know. I do sit back and watch others converse while adding in a sentence or too; I do this to include myself in what ever conversation is occurring. When it comes to interacting with people of differing cultures, I tend to be more observant in order to get a feel for the environment and types of communication taking place.

When it comes to communicating with children or elders, I will communicate with these groups similarly, such as showing kindness and being non-judgmental. Oftentimes, children and elderly people are vulnerable and I need to be sure that I am not coming off like I am better or judging anybody. Another strategy that can help me communicate with others is to be sure that I ask questions, this affirms that I am interested and do care about who ever I am talking to. Lastly, it is important to ask those whom I am talking to whether or not they have any questions for me.

Nonverbal Communication in Television

This past week I watched a show on Nickelodeon called, Bella and the Bull Dogs, with my little sister.

This show is a comedy that takes place at a high school.

The characters throughout the show seem to be very jumpy, and have very little movement in each scene before the scene and characters change. There appear to be several different stories in this show, which make it very complicated to decipher. For instance, it seems like there is a girl that dislikes a boy for humiliating her and then she get backs at him by giving him habanero peppers. Also it seems like some other characters in this show seem to be trying to record a video for a commercial.

The beginning of the show starts off with a boy on a horse in the middle of the school while dressed up as a cowboy. At this moment, it appears that a teacher approaches the boy and gives him a form for misconduct.

In another scene in the show I notice that while in music class the teacher seems to be giving praise to someone in the class and the entire class claps. In this moment the boy gets up and sings a song directed towards a girl whom he is interested in. It seems like the girls is in to the boy too since she moves her chair towards him.

After re-watching the show things are much clearer. It appears that I was right about the boy getting into trouble after being caught with a horse in the middle of the school, and he did receive detention. As for the recording of the video I was correct and it is a commercial for a school event called “Tex Fest”.

I think if I watched a show that I knew or at least a show that was not a kid’s comedy I would have been able to understand the dialect and nonverbal emotion occurring.

Competent Communication

I have a friend who has such great verbal communication skills. He has several characteristics such as positive outlook, outgoing, confident, and charismatic personality; whenever my friend talks he shows passion and interest towards whatever subject he is talking about. All of these attributes help with his verbal communication skills. In addition, my friend provides examples and metaphors when he talks in order for his listeners to get a much deeper understanding. I would love to have the ability and confidence to speak freely on whatever is on my mind, and is something that I am continuing to work on.