Blog post assignment
Blog post 1:
Think about your current organization, whether it is part time or your current career (or an organization for which you have worked in the past).
- What is the company’s mission statement?
- Are any stories of the company’s history retold and upheld?
- What about the norms: Can you call the CEO with a question, or do you have to follow a certain hierarchy?
Blog post 3:
To evaluate your current listening skills, complete the following listening assessment: Listening Skills Test.
Reflect upon the results of your listening skills test. How did you rate as an individual? Are you a strong listener, or do you have room for improvement? What are some things you found surprising? How can this knowledge help you in the workplace?
Blog post 4:
Before you delve deeper into this lesson, complete the Communications Skills Tutorial, including watching the training video. To assess your current abilities, complete the brief assessment within the tutorial to provide an accurate representation of your knowledge. What did you find out about your current communication skills?
Do you feel the results from the tutorial assessments are accurate?
What are some key takeaways from the Communication Skills training?
Blog post 5:
Take the argumentative self-assessment on page 325 of your textbook. Are you someone who accepts a challenge and will argue your point? Or do you tend to shy away from an argument? What can you do to improve or change your argumentativeness?
Take the verbal aggressiveness self-assessment on page 326 of your textbook. Do you have a tendency to be verbally aggressive? What can you do to make adjustments and move towards argumentativeness in the workplace?
Blog post 7:
Think about a previous job interview. Did you go through any or all of these steps to alleviate communication anxiety? If you didn’t use all four steps, would you have felt better/different about the interaction if you had?
Blog post 8:
| Explain the importance of work relationships. |
You will encounter many different types of relationships in the workplace. Understanding these types of relationships will allow you to better adapt your communication accordingly. Look at some of the different work relationships at Waking Up, Inc. below. A large part of any job involves working with a diverse group of people.
Manager-Employee Relationship
Henry is Shellie’s Life Coach Director and thus is her manager. Shellie enjoys working for Henry because he is a good listener and clearly communicates to Shellie what his expectations and goals are. This makes Shellie feel comfortable about what Harry expects from her job performance. Most importantly, this allows Shellie to understand how her job fits into the overall big picture of the company. Both parties communicate often with one another, and they share power as they achieve goals, work autonomously, provide recognition, and build upon other relationships.
Coworker Relationship
Ryan and Nicole have been working together for a few months now and have a good relationship. It helps that they sit near one another and share similar interests in running. Unfortunately, not all coworker relationships in the company are as strong. They both work with Devon and do not enjoy their work environment when he is around. Devon is a self-protector; he is only concerned with making himself look good to leadership and often does not recognize the efforts of others.
To overcome obstacles related to working with Devon, Ryan and Nicole focus on the goals at hand and ensure that they support each other so that leadership will recognize their efforts.
Employee-Customer Relationship
Many jobs in today’s workplace require you to work with customers. The way a customer views a business is often directly related to an experience with the employee with whom he or she interacted. Customers want to feel valued, respected, and understood. As an employee, you want to get to know the customer’s needs, wants, and problems. The best way to handle the relationship is take responsibility for the interaction and service the customer promptly and with respect.
Now that you have reviewed the various relationships of Waking Up, Inc. employees , do you see some similarities with your own work relationships? You will answer the following questions in your blog assignment for this lesson.
Reflect on a group of which you are a member, either in an organizational setting or at school. What role or roles do you typically assume in that group? Why?
Blog post 10:
| Explain the importance of defining presentation goals and purpose for your presentation. |
As you have learned, in every communication situation, you should define a goal and purpose. Preparing a presentation at work is no different.
The first step in preparation is to define your goals and the purpose of the presentation. Sometimes, your manager will give you this information. However, you may also have more freedom to choose your goals and purpose. That’s when the fun kicks in!
Presentations have four general purposes from which you may choose: to inform, to persuade, to motivate, or to celebrate.
To Inform – Provide information and educate the audience about the topic.
To Persuade – Can be one of three types of persuasion; first is to change or reaffirm the audience’s existing point of view. The second is to convince or acquire the audience’s commitment, and the third is to inspire the audience to action.
To Motivate – Similar to the persuasive speech, the motivational speech will generally focus more on emotions and feelings to persuade an audience.
To Celebrate – These speeches may share many of the same characteristics as other speeches. Often you deliver these in very specific settings or at events such as award ceremonies, churches, or even weddings.
Now that you have had a chance to review the four general purposes for a presentation, think about the purposes of presentations you have attended or given. You will answer these questions in the blog post for this assignment.
Think about the last presentation you attended. What was the purpose of the presentation? Do you feel the presenter was effective in establishing the purpose of the meeting? Why or why not?
Blog post 11:
Now that you have had a chance to review how to deliver a presentation, think about how your visual, vocal, and verbal cues could affect your delivery. For your blog assignment in this lesson, you will answer the following questions.
As asked in the video, how would you change your verbal, vocal, and paralanguage cues if you were delivering an informative versus a motivational presentation?
Blog post assignment