I had a problematic communication experience on my previous job. There were some
organization changes, the budget supervisor was moved to Accounts Payable team. Meaning
she would be my new supervisor, she asked me to copy her on my emails to keep her on the
loop. After the first email sent, in which she was included just to “keep her on the loop”.
There was a big conflict because she was following up with other directors from different
departments. From a routine email it escalate to a big problem. I think this was caused
because the background she had, teams working in different way. The message I got from
her was to copy her to keep her informed. I guess when I copy her she got the message that
I was copying her because I was not getting the information requested and needed her to
take action. I think Semantic noise let to the challenging on this communication experience.
If that experience is repeated, I would ask what she mean by keeping her on the loop and
before sending any email including her would clarify her no action is needed on her end.
· The way I communicate professionally or personally will affect my credibility. Having
a good understanding of the communication process and try to follow it will help to create a
good reputation in my life in general. I used to work at a CBO (Community Based
Organization) that dealt primarily with Homelessness and individuals with chemically
addictions. My level of responsibility was always to service the client for whatever need we
as an organization could provide. We were a team of 8 with two supervisors on site and 6
case managers all assigned a working listing of clients that our supervisors thought best
match our skill and experience. As an employee I always offered help with all clients and if
I could step in for anyone in absence. I always asked younger unseasoned employees if they
needed help with building rapport with clients. I was someone who was know in the
community as going above and beyond the level of service. This behavior was awarded with
complaints from co workers stating i was doing things for their clients without giving them
a chance to gain the experience.
At first hearing this information I was taken back with anger and confusion realizing that my
co workers were talking down on me as if i was doing a them a disservice. I went to my
supervisor on what i have been hearing. he informed me that he has been hearing things
around the workplace but chose to make it better by not encouraging people to talk behind
someone’s back, but instead encouraged the team to communicate more to each other.
If I could go back to this experience I would do better to give my team information about
my dealings and work being done. Realizing that if everyone is informed everyone is happy.
Therefore everyone can pick up where they left off without being blindsided by work being
done they weren’t aware of.
Understanding that this was the first challenge to my credibility in positive and negative
aspects of my work performance I was able to learn from my mistakes and taken on a better
role of keeping the communication strong within the team. In my current role I am a
supervisor so I am came in as a new employee to their branch and the staff had to get to
know me and understand my way of managing things. The communication was not the best
at the branch when I came in and the staff was not too intrigued with a new staff member let
alone someone on the management side. The dynamic has changed drastically and I can
honestly say its because of the communication within our meetings that we've have to hear
everyone out on the topics or things that needed to be hashed out.
As of now, our communication has improved when we all sat down and talked about what
needs to happen in the branch and how things will only get better and easier with
communication.
The things that led to the challenging communication was that everyone wanted to be in a
position of authority which made things harder on management because each person felt the
need to voice things their way, which nothing is wrong with that but its a way to
communicate.
Understanding the communication process is important in establishing credibility because if
you have ever heard the saying " your word is everything" this is a very powerful saying
because most people have only their word to go by so communication is vital is every aspect
of everyday life. I will say the hardest communication experience was working in retail and
dealing with other managers. Being a manager and much younger than your higher ups or
even people that are your subordinates was very challenging. I asked a cashier if she could
take out the trash, and she stated she didn’t take the trash out at home so why we should do
it on a job. I had a shift of 8 people that was supposed to be 15, due to it being summer, and
a lot of the younger cashiers were calling out to hang out or do anything else. I was mopping
and cleaning the breakroom and taking out more trash. I figured if I the manager doing my
part and the bulk of the work to make it easier for everyone else, why couldn’t I ask for two
trash bags to be pulled and changed. I felt as if I gave her the option to chose what she
would and wouldn’t do, it would cause my other staff to feel like they could decide to tell
me what they wouldn’t do if asked. I told my cashier if she didn’t want to work, she could
clock out and go home. Everyone knows when you work on a job that you will not always
have tasks that you enjoy. I felt as if responsibility is for the whole team, especially if your
manager is giving you the smaller tasks due to a shortage. If I could repeat the experience,
instead of asking that cashier in front of the whole crew, I would have pulled her to the side
and asked her, so that if she did say no, I could have asked someone else, without having to
discipline her in front of everyone. I regret it sometimes, but I do feel as if I were right in
handling the situation. I do believe that having better communication skills without allowing
emotions effect how you handle the situation would suit everyone. Sometimes sticking to
facts, and not how you only feel can make it better to communicate, also being able to be
relatable and seeing a viewpoint from others can help to make communication better. As an
Aircraft maintenance technician having good communication skills is a very important tool
to have while performing your day to day task, for example I remember a situation where
where an aircraft came in with a fault to the left hand engine where I perform the
maintenance necessary to rectify the issue and all that was needed to be done was a full
power engine run which I was not qualified cleared to perform at that time so I informed the
lead mechanic of all that was done and signed the sections off the sections up to the engine
runs which was all that was left, what ended up happening was the aircraft was scheduled
for a flight in the morning but couldn’t go due to the operational test of the engine not being
performed, what I could have done differently that would have surly helped in this situation
was I should have left a written turnover along with the verbal turnover which I left with the
lead and that would have ensured that the engine operational test was completed.Having an
understanding of the communication process will allow you to be more efficient at
communicating as well as give you the ability to make changes to the process as necessary
to allow you your point across. I just recently started a new job that is fully remote and will
be even after the pandemic is over. This comes with some challenges, mainly, having to
adjust to never being in the same room as my manager and the rest of my team. While we do
video meetings daily, there are still some aspects of communication that are not portrayed
this way. Non-verbal communication is harder to pick up on when you are on a video call,
and this can contribute to not being able to communicate as well. I know that personally, I
am someone that gestures when I speak, but not so much when I am just sitting in front of a
camera.In the first week of my new position, I had not yet been able to actually speak to my
new manager, either over the phone or in a video meeting, and we were emailing back and
forth. I had made a comment in an email, that was supposed to be light-hearted and funny,
but it was not perceived this way by her. While I have always been someone that is careful
about sarcasm, jokes, and any other comments in writing with people that I do not know, I
momentarily forgot I was communicating with someone that had not yet been able to get to
know my personality and the way I communicate .If I could repeat the experience, in a
perfect world, I would have asked to either speak over the phone or do a video call initially
so we could get to know how each other speaks, but if that would not have been possible, I
would just make sure to choose my words more carefully. Having a strong understanding of
the communication process can lead to being a stronger communicator. Being able to utilize
different techniques and alter your personal communication style to better fit with someone
you are conversing with can allow you to be seen as someone with credibility. This can also
allow you to foster stronger relationships with colleagues, supervisors, and subordinates. I
use to be a manager at a plasma center. I was responsible for the whole flow of the center.
After about 4 years I was promoted to be the center Training Coordinator. My job consisted
of keeping records for auditing purposes and to ensure that everyone in the center stayed up
to date with their training requirements. One day an internal auditor walked into the
building. I was nervous but my Center Quality Manager and our Center Manager assured me
that everything would go great. The first day was a breeze. The next day, I walked into my
office and I was greeted by a mess that I later found out was left by my Center Quality
Manager and Center Manager. I immediately became angry and sent out a group text to
everyone on our team. In the message I referred to my office as being left trifling. Everyone
on the team was to upset with me because I used the word "trifling." After that, the conflict
was never solved because we refused to listen to one another. I wish that I would have
handled the situation better but I felt like they were trying to set me up because they knew
that the auditor was coming back that morning. I wish I would have just cleaned the mess up
and discussed it with them face to face. I work at a food establishment and we constantly are
having either failed or problematic communication. We are a restaurant as well as a fresh
market so things can get hectic sometimes. In order to hear orders as well as other
employees we are required to wear a headset so we can hear while the order is being placed.
More often than not, something comes over the screen and it turns out not to be what the
customer wanted. The problem is either the customer did not clarify themselves, the person
taking orders made the mistake, or the person making the order made the mistake. It is
usually just that the person heard the customer wrong, however, in some cases it will make
certain employees lose their mind and freak out. We always have a full staff so there is quite
a bit of back ground noise that also affects what we hear. We have one person in particular
who will yell at everyone if an order happens to be changed last minute due nit being able to
hear clearly. Instead of addressing the issue calmly and just redoing the order, they get super
mad and yell and cuss and threaten to walk out because people are "incompetent". When in
all reality it was a simple mistake. We can prevent these things by double checking before
we make the order, etc, but we do not always have the proper amount of time to get certain
things done,
