MSLD 511 Personal Blog

I have always tried to be very careful in how, when, where, why and who in regards to communicating in a professional environment.   Individuals can take something simple you are asking or saying in a very negative manner if you do not frame the conversation properly or in a good timeframe. Due to this, this course was very interesting to me as I had never thoroughly analyzed or dissected communication that occurs via letter or CMC, etc. I have already and will continue to apply much of what I have learned in this class as far as communication goes. I want to continually strive to communicate with my co-workers and managers in an effective fashion. Module 1 (understanding managerial communication), 4 (communication technology and group communication), 6 (providing feedback and communicating about change) and 7 (communicating across organizational boundaries) were all very eye-opening to me. Clampitt states, “we need to be mindful of how channel attributes translate into benefits,...

Leadbeater’s talk brought up some interesting points that through innovations and with time have been proven true. I know within my organization I can spur creativity within my department and I do think if superiors heard and potentially implemented workers ideas for travel, student information and presentations that we could benefits from their creativity. Since the workers are the ones out “in the field” I do believe that one person’s creativity could eliminate time-consuming procedures and instill new procedures. Since a small aspect of our job is very autonomous, we often do our own “procedures” within our job. Due to this we have to be creative and do our work to be best of our abilities and with our own creativity. If we communicated openly and met often with our colleagues, I think we could all learn a great deal from each other. A way we could communicate that creativity is not just for “special people” would simply be to encourage employees to share their ideas and though...

Within my department and a few others here at Embry-Riddle Prescott, I do see a team that strives to work across organizational boundaries to the best of their abilities. Of course, I also see areas that could certainly be improved in this area. The admissions department at Embry-Riddle works very closely with financial aid and academic advisors. Since information can become skewed and processes for students and families can be undesirably long, we attempt to reduce any errors in an effort to make the process of becoming an Embry-Riddle student simple and seamless. To do this, we have to ensure that each department is on the same page of the student’s information, which can be a tricky task. As Clampitt states, “Boundaries inherently create communication challenges that effective managers need to understand and master” (2017, p. 192). Due to organizational boundaries, this can be even more difficult. As Power states, “The bigger challenge, however, is not to just implement the change...

The D-I-K-A model within my current organization could be implemented in a much cleaner and efficient fashion. For example, my management does not directly utilize D-I-K-A, however the ‘followers’ (employees) do utilize it in order to complete our work. Each new season, employees must submit their proposed travel plans to our superiors. To do so, we must gather data from historical travel, generate reports based off numbers for the current academic class and review reports for potential growth within certain areas of our assigned territories.   We then review this data, and model in into justification sheets which reflect our information of the data that is relevant to our upcoming and desired travel. Then, this information is used as either positive or negative knowledge of how well or poor our territory is growing or minimizing. We submit this knowledge to our superiors to justify why we want to do specific events and recruitment in certain areas. If our travel plans are approv...

Jeff Hancock stated in his Ted Talk, “Almost every aspect of human communication's been changed, and of course that's had an impact on deception” (2011). Since every form of communication has altered in a fashion that has transformed our society, lying is much easier to do than it used to be. Sherry Turkle stated in her video, “I've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people, young and old, about their plugged in lives. And what I've found is that our little devices, those little devices in our pockets, are so psychologically powerful that they don't only change what we do, they change who we are. Some of the things we do now with our devices are things that, only a few years ago, we would have found odd or disturbing, but they've quickly come to seem familiar, just how we do things” (2012). This has greatly transformed how, when, where and why we communicate. Within this newer form of commutation that is augmented by technology, lying has become more prevalen...

To describe my organizations culture, I want to share a story that involved all faculty and staff of the Embry-Riddle, Prescott campus. The Embry-Riddle Prescott campus has gone through some rough times, once almost to the point of closing not too long ago. Thankfully, this campus received a Chancellor that turned everything around for the students, families, faculty and staff. He was employed with this campus for a decade and was extremely involved for all ten years of his service. He and his wife attended every sporting event, were intentional about getting to know their student body and would often roam around campus on the weekends simply to get to know more students. Dr. Ayers would also remember all students by first and last name whom he met! It was once a story that I heard and believed to be false, but after working for the University for just over a year, I saw that to be true. “Stories represent one mechanism through which organizational culture and organizational-cult...

After watching, then reading the transcript for Elizabeth Lesser’s talk titled Take “The Other” to Lunch, there is a handful of colleagues that automatically come to mind. Also, there is automatically a list of people from my workplace that I “click” with more and know quite-well that I do not need to take to lunch to get to know. The colleague I would take to lunch is a newer employee that I know has different views on current issues than I do. I do not think this is a negative thing, as I believe we can learn a great deal from individuals who see issues through different lenses than ourselves. This colleague has a very different personality than me, and one that I struggle to get to know. In an effort to communicate in an open and honest way, I would set ground rules much as Lesser did. I would set goals of the following: no interrupting, listen intently, do not assume, be authentic, be conversational. One of the advantages of having open and honest dialogue within the workpl...