Communication Apprehension

 At the end of chapter 13, Managing Communication, in the book Understanding Management, there is an interesting self-study activity to help you understand your Personal Assessment of Communication Apprehension. The questions are about your feelings about communicating with other people, indicating how apprehensive you feel in a variety of communication situations.

According to Daft & Marcic "Communication is the process by which information is exchanged and understood by two or more people, usually with the intent to influence or motivate behavior." (2019, p. 559) The importance of good communication is enormous, and therefore we must be attentive to the way we are communicating, and if our communication is being affected by anxiety or fear, we can look for ways to improve.

The questionnaire includes the calculation of four sub-scores and a total score. Subscores relate to communication apprehension in four common situations—public speaking, meetings, group discussions, and interpersonal conversations.

A sum greater than 85 indicates a high level of communication apprehension and below 59 indicates a low level of apprehension. My total score was 69, which indicates an average score. On the subscales, my score was above 18 on Public Speaking and 18 on Meetings, which indicates some degree of apprehension on both.

Once I understand my limitations and what aspects of communication are most difficult for me, I can work on overcoming them. Some of the things I can do to improve: practice more, the more experience I have the easier it will be to speak in public; always ask for feedback from the audience; learn about body language; record my discussions, and even practice in front of the mirror until I feel more comfortable.

This being the last blog, I also think it is important to conclude by summarizing the main points I learned during this period and how I intend to use this knowledge. Crucial was the use of self-assessments and self-analyses and how they are genuinely helpful; the power of good communication, being clear when speaking, but also attentive and a good listener; the value of knowing what moves us and how we can help others and; there is always room for improvement. That said, I will consistently look for feedback; in learning more about myself; seek to understand the needs of the people around me and ways to motivate them and always be willing to guide and help people develop their potential.

Reference: 

Daft, R. L., & Marcic, D. (2019). MindTap for Daft's Understanding Management, 1 term Instant Access. CENGAGE

Motivation

Staying motivated can be an arduous task, and many things can influence it. Are you doing something you really want to do? Are you still interested in what you are doing? How long can you keep interested in the same thing? When something goes wrong on a project, do you lose interest? So many points can make you change your mind and become demotivated. If you enter another phase of your life, for example, it can make you no longer see the importance that a project used to have, and there goes the motivation to continue.

In a company, we need to find our own motivation to proceed with our projects, but part of that motivation is the responsibility of the managers and the organization. How can they encourage employees? Are they creating an inspiring environment? These responses are important to keep the team engaged and creative. Bringing innovative ideas and empowering people will support their commitment to projects.

Each person will respond differently to the same stimulus. Thus, a company must take into account the individual needs of its workers. There can be several obstacles, as it is not simple to please everyone in the same way, but in general, people have a hierarchy of needs, and this can help a corporation with a plan of action.

Some people will be motivated by the simple act of avoiding the negative consequences that would happen if they did not do what was supposed to be done, while others will be motivated by a reward, which could be a pay raise, a promotion, or even a compliment. In my case, for instance, after a self-assessment, I was able to conclude that I can be motivated by rewards or by the work itself, it will only depend on the meaning and purpose I see in the project. That is why it is important to understand what motivates us, and how we can help others to motivate themselves.

Managing ourselves

Managing involves practice, experience, studies and even instinct. Managing others can be a delicate task, but managing ourselves can be even more difficult. Our emotions, actions and prejudices are things we need to understand and be able to deal with.

We all have different personalities and backgrounds, and both can influence how we act in each situation. But most of the time, we can not have the things we want or the way we want, and that is why we need to learn to manage ourselves. However, that does not mean it is an easy thing to do.

There are some attitudes we can do to help us on this journey. For example, self-assessments, as discussed many times in my blogs here, self-assessments are powerful tools. They can guide us in self-analysis, giving us the possibility to understand some behaviours and actions that we have and evaluate our learning processes. Another crucial action is to investigate our bias and see if we are supporting any kind of negative stereotypes and how they are potentially interfering with our interactions. From there, we can educate ourselves about different cultures and groups.

An additional method that is used in many companies is feedback. It can be done by your peers, managers and subordinates, and it will indicate how they feel about you. Your manners, your attitudes and your participation, if they feel that you let your emotions or personal beliefs get in the way of work or not, these assessments will give you a chance to recognize where you can improve. But the most important thing is that we maintain the desire to identify what we can ameliorate and act on it.

Diversity in the Workplace

Inclusion has the power to make people feel like valued members of a group, creating a strong sense of belonging. The first time I evaluated its power and its ability to teach new things was at my first job. I was working at a multinational, and there was great diversity and pluralism, but we still had room for improvement.

In Brazil, there is a law that reinforces the need to hire people with disabilities. The company I worked for was struggling to hire the necessary amount of people they need to comply with the law, this happens because it is difficult to find workforce to attend to the necessary activities in a factory where the security risk is 4 (companies classified as risk level 4 are high risk, that is: their field of activity exposes employees to frequent risks). The best solution for the company and society was to create a partnership with an institution specialized in industries, for training courses in the area for people with disabilities.

After that, my team received two hearing-impaired people to work with us. We had the chance to take a sign language course to better communicate with them, and all of that just fortified the importance of inclusion and how much we can learn new things, understand different points of view, grow and evolve when we have the possibility to be with people of different races, ages, personalities, languages, experiences, and so on.

Now, improving my knowledge of human talent and diversity management, I can better understand the concepts of inclusion, diversity and pluralism, as well as key concepts around it, and know human resources management strategies and some of the legislation around the subject.