Reflecting on Communication and Collaboration

As I finish up the final assignments for the last of my core classes towards my M.A. degree in Early Childhood Studies, I am reflecting on all that I have learned through the resources provided, our very thorough and knowledgeable Dr. Darragh and my fellow students through their insightful discussion and blog posts.  Our assignments, discussions and blogs have helped to solidify the knowledge learned like the value of self-monitoring my communication skills and from resources like the Center for Non-Violent Communication and The Third Side.  It has been a fun-filled eight weeks and I hope we meet again in our respective fields of Early Childhood Education.

Continue to Dream Big and be persistent in achieving your goals.  Wishing each of you the best of the best in life’s journey!!

Stage 5: Group Adjournment

As I review the information on Stage 5 of the “Five Stages of Team Development” developed by Bruce Tucker I would like to reflect on the adjourning process with two different groups; one group of Head Start employees for a program where I was the Director for two years and one group of Office of Head Start Training/Technical Assistant contracted specialist for whom I worked with for two years.

When adjourning with the Head Start program employees we were provided resources and opportunities to reflect on our two years together as a group; reflecting on our successes and addressing challenges with potential solutions we may want to use in the future.  During a farewell pot luck lunch we were able to share our future goals and we were able to collect personal contact information.  This was a sad adjournment process for me because as a team we turned so many challenges into successes over the course of two years.

The second group adjournment with fellow Training/Technical Assistance Specialist was not as successful.  Since we all work from our home offices in different geographic locations getting together to reflect on our successes and challenges was not as easy.  The main mode of communication was e-mail where we exchanged personal contact information and wished each other best wishes for the future.  Because the Training/Technical Assistance network if pretty small I think we all assumed we would eventually be working together again in the near future so we did not place much emphasis on closing out our contract at the end of August 2011.  It is now April 2012 and we are still not working together and it is sad that we did not take any steps to put closure on our work.  A teleconference to discuss our work and hear each other’s voices may have supported a less emotional transition as we venture into different directions and may have provided us with new insights that we could carry forward in our work with new team members.

Regarding the group I have been working with on my Master of Early Childhood Studies program we are about to venture into our specializations and this is my last core class.  Several of my colleagues in this program have been in every class I have taken since February 2011.  Even though this is distant learning I feel as if I know some of you very well because I have read about your passions, your families, and your emotions in many discussion questions and blog posts.  Since we are geographically located in different locations across the world, we will not be provided the opportunity to participate in any formal closure activities so I plan to gather personal information from some of you so we can stay in touch in the future.  Our group has been dynamic and each of you has added so much value to my life; I really hope we can see each other at a graduation ceremony.

References:

Abudi, G. (2010). The five stages of team development: A case study. Retrieved April 2, 2012 from http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-five-stages-of-team-development-a-case-study.html

Conflict Resolution

Reviewing the information on the Center for Non-Violence Communication web site has supported me in my approach to a long-standing conflict I have had with my brother who has been in and out of the penitentiary system for the last thirty years.   Since my mom passed away in 2009 I am now the only family member he has left to count on for support, including financial support.   I have been doing my best to send him money every month since my mom passed away.  While I was working full time it really was not a financial burden.  When my hours were cut in September 2011 to thirty hours per week I have been trying to convince my brother he needed to work with his case worker to get some kind of work in prison.  He has all kinds of reasons for not getting a job, including all physical ailments caused from many accidents over the years.   My typical telephone conversations with him are with a frustrated and defensive tone.

While reading the article titled, “Nonviolent Communication for Prison Officers” at http://www.cnvc.org/what-nvc/articles-writings/nvc-prison-officers/nonviolent-communication-prison-officers I realized that I have not examined my feelings behind my frustration nor have I communicated to my brother my fear for my financial future and the struggles I have faced to find a full time job.  My focus has been on him working with his case worker and getting a job so I do not feel the pressure to send him money on a monthly basis.

Communication Self-Evaluation

I was provided an opportunity to conduct a self-evaluation on my communication skills using three different tools; the “Listening Style Profile”, the “Verbal Aggressiveness Scale”, and the “Communication Anxiety Inventory”.  After I completed the evaluations I asked my supervisor and a friend to complete the same three evaluations so I could gain their perspective on my communication skills.  I was surprised to see that my supervisor and my friend evaluated the level of my communication anxiety as “low” and “mild”, respectively.  The score I gave myself for my level of communication anxiety was moderate because there are many times I am very uncomfortable speaking in front of a large group of people. 
The last time my supervisor heard me speak was in June 2010 when I was co-facilitating training in San Diego with about 75 people in the room.  I specifically remember stuttering on some words and having to put the microphone down to catch my breath.  Once I got started I felt I did great presenting the facts and answering questions from the audience but my heart was racing throughout the entire presentation.  My supervisor did not know my heart was racing throughout the presentation because I got it together within a few minutes of starting the presentation, therefore scoring me with “low” level of communication anxiety. 
My friend observed me facilitate training with about 15 people in the room in November 2011.  I opened up this training with a little background on my training skills and how I feel I may not be polished since my last training was in August 2011.  Although I felt flustered because I perceived my tone of voice to be nervous, the audience gave me outstanding evaluations and I feel this is why my friend evaluated me with “mild” anxiety.
Other insights I have gained about communication is I am “people-oriented” and all three evaluations scored my skills within this level of listening styles.  The other communication evaluation results all scored me with “moderate” verbal aggressiveness, at a score of 61, which I know is very true about my communication style because being respectful and considerate of others when they are speaking has been a value my mom instilled in me and I continued to embrace this value into adulthood.

Competent Intercultural Communication

Beebe, Beebe & Redmond define intercultural communication competence as the, “ability to adapt one’s behavior toward another in ways that are appropriate to the other person’s culture” (p. 104, ¶ 3, 2011).  Implementing these strategies suggested by Beebe, Beebe & Redmond to become competent in my communications will hopefully bridge any communication barriers that exist with the culturally diverse people I communicate with on a daily basis.

·    Creating a third culture will combine the perspectives and assumptions from two different cultures to construct a third culture.  The third culture develops over time when people from two different cultures engage in constructive dialogue.  “Developing a third culture mentality can reduce our tendency to approach cultural differences from an “us-versus them” point of view” (p. 107, ¶ 3, 2011).  Bridging the two cultures through the development of a third culture will support a greater understanding of all participants involved.

·    Becoming mindful by using self-talk when I feel uncomfortable about communicating with someone from a different culture.  My innermost thoughts drive my behavior; if I can be positive oriented by being consciously aware of what I am thinking and sensing about my communication I can overcome any discomfort I may be feeling about the situation.  I will be able to avoid any negative judgments and be other-oriented by “considering the other individual’s frame of reference, or worldview, and to use his or her cultural priorities and assumptions” (p. 108, ¶ 2, 2011) when I am communicating.

• To establish common ground I will want to learn more about the culture and styles of communication from the cultures I am working with.  “Seeking information helps manage the uncertainty and anxiety that we may feel when we interact with people who are different from us” (p. 106, ¶ 1, 2011).  It will take more than just reading books and research on the Internet to learn about a new culture; whenever possible you will want to learn from elders and local community members from the respective culture you want to establish a strong communication connection with.

References
Beebe, S. A., Beebe, S. J., & Redmond, M. V. (2011). Interpersonal communication: Relating to others (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Non-Verbal Communication and Channel Discrepancy

This post is about how I identified channel discrepancy while viewing a video I have never viewed before.  The first 45-minutes of watching the "Christmas Child" I watched without any sound.  I documented my interpretation of the issues and experiences the actors were representing based on non-verbal communication.  After watching the same section of the video again but this time with sound I was provided additional insight on the power of non-verbal language and how it can be more believable than verbal language which is the definition of O’Haire & Wiemann’s term of “Channel Discrepancy” (2009, p. 104). 

My two sets of notes matched from a few scenes, like when the female actress was eating saltines while looking for a formal party gown I guessed she was pregnant, which she was.  Watching her facial expressions, sadness and fear, and the facial expressions of her sister, surprised, without the sound I was positive she was not married and did not want to have the baby alone; this was not the case, she was married but it was not a happy marriage.  In another scene I observed the main male actor in his office when a female colleague walks over to his desk to talk.  My observation was that she was his boss because of the way his face became serious as he was showing her some papers and she returned the papers to his desk with authority.  After watching the video with voice I learned she was a fellow colleague and their boss was waiting for them at the company Christmas party. 

The channel discrepancy type of non-verbal communication happens when the husband is a workaholic because he really wants to know why his biological parents gave him up for adoption and turning 40-years-old he feels pressured to find “his story”.  His newly pregnant wife thinks it is because he does not want to be with her and she is afraid to tell him she is pregnant because of how she is interpreting his non-verbal language.   Even though non-verbal language may speak louder than words, we must be very careful when determining the non-verbal language is contradicting the verbal language; it will be important to open up the channels of verbal communication before you jump to conclusions.

References:
O’Hair, D. & Wiemann, M. (2009).  Real communication:  An introduction. New York:  Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Communication Role Models

Mark Shriver

I must admit that reading the assignment for this week for my Communicating and Collaborating graduate class there were several names that immediately went through my head as competent speakers; Louise Derman-Sparks, President Barack Obama, Dr. Eugene Garcia, Hillary Clinton and T. Berry Brazelton.  The most recent speaker to really fuel my passion for empowering children and families is the son of my hero, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. 

Those of you who have been following my blog know that Eunice Kennedy Shriver has fulfilled a role I would love to model my life after.  You can imagine my excitement when I was provided the opportunity to see that her son, Mark Shriver, was a plenary presenter at an early learning leadership conference I attended in October of 2011.  He shared a few emotional stories of growing up in the Shriver household, working with children with disabilities and how he was inspired to follow in his parent’s footsteps to advocate for social justice.  As the leader of the Save the Children’s U.S. Programs I was honored to listen to Mr. Shriver share, from his heart, his passion for ensuring every child in the world has a “safe and vibrant childhood” (www.eunicekennedyshriver.org/bios/mark-shriver).   I was an engaged listener from the very beginning of his speaking engagement; one minute I was crying and the next minute I was laughing.  His communication was honest, accurate, and truthful.  He had statistics and strong knowledge to back up his reason for encouraging the audience to continue on in our roles as advocates for children and families.  I will carry Mark Shriver’s message in my heart for many years and this will be my motivation as I strive to become a competent communicator.