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Day 3 Comm Challenge

The document outlines communication challenges in meetings and offers strategies for early career professionals to improve collaboration. It emphasizes the importance of specificity in identifying communication problems and provides guidelines for conducting effective interviews. Key solutions include structuring meetings, defining objectives, and preparing thoughtful interview questions to gather valuable insights from industry professionals.

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wkurlinkus7386
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388 views23 pages

Day 3 Comm Challenge

The document outlines communication challenges in meetings and offers strategies for early career professionals to improve collaboration. It emphasizes the importance of specificity in identifying communication problems and provides guidelines for conducting effective interviews. Key solutions include structuring meetings, defining objectives, and preparing thoughtful interview questions to gather valuable insights from industry professionals.

Uploaded by

wkurlinkus7386
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Day 3: Meetings &

Collaboration as A Comm
Challenge
Dr. Will Kurlinkus
Last Time Coming Up
• Discourse Communities • Friday: Interview Prep
• Comm Challenges • Friday: Library Modules
• Trade Journal Summaries
Point, Evidence, Analysis:
Valuable Resources Section

• Point (Claim): This topic would be valuable


to early career professionals in my field.
• Evidence (Examples): Here’s the facts,
terms, advice, and quotes I think would be
useful.
• Analysis (connection/warrant): Direct
statement in your own words telling how
those facts, terms, advice, and quotes make
sense/matter to early career professionals.
Bring in your own experiences even.
10 Minutes to
Work on Your
Article
Summary
The readings for today are
good examples of the type of
specificity/story-grounded
communication problems
you’re looking for in your field
and research. You might be
able to use some as sources
in your final project (see
source checklist).
Comm Problem
Reminders
• Should be a problem useful to solve for entry level
employees, not CEOs. Should be partially solvable
by a young employee.
• Pieces: challenge, task, partner, situation. Explain
how the challenge affects the task, and the
consequences of failing to address or avoid the
challenge. That is, where does communication
frequently break down in your future workplace,
and why does that matter?
• Should be a specific problem, grounded in a
specific internal/client interaction, involving a
specific text/communication, that prevents a
specific goal, in a specific industry.
• Should result in a specific deliverable/solution.
Why Are Meetings
Challenging? 15 minutes

1. What bad experiences have


you had in meetings? What
makes them productive?
2. Have you ever had a really
great meeting? Why was it so
good?
3. Describe one
communication challenge
and one solution to bad
meetings that you found
interesting from our
readings—quote the reading.
Meeting
Distractions
• Gravity Problems: Sucked into
discussing unsolvable problems.
Diverting time and mental energy.
• Assumption Overload: Making
decisions based on assumptions
about a problem/person without
actual info.
• Annoying Negative Thoughts:
Catastrophizing (worst possible
scenario), All-or-nothing thinking (no
compromises).
• Squirrel Chasing: Unrelated
tangents that aren’t on topic at all.
• Determine the primary objective—stick to solving it.
• Reframe agenda goals as inquiry-driven statements. Instead of saying goal setting
Meeting say what are our deliverables for project x. This gets team members thinking/solving
before the meetings.

Solutions • Invite only team members who actually have a stake/ability to achieve the objective.
• Involvement : Communicate the expectations for each participant, including any pre-
work you need them to complete, to help ensure they come prepared.
1. Assets Inventory
• What are each team members’
strengths and weaknesses?
• What tasks would you be good at
and what tasks do you know you
need to avoid or get careful
feedback on?
• Set up a place and schedule on
which to collaborate (I suggest
using Google docs and doodle).
2. Structure Your
Meetings: PPP
• Begin your meeting with showing off your work and
reviewing it together.
1. Progress: What are your accomplishments,
finished items, and completed tasks.
2. Problems: Challenges. Items that you are stuck
and can’t finish alone.
3. Plans: Goals and objectives for the next reporting
period. These should become Progress next
week.
3. Dividing and
Conquering
• Always end the meeting with clearly defined
objectives for each group member (ideally
based in their skills).
• Make sure these objectives are broken
down sequentially to actually show the
labor and process/timeline involved in
them. “First, I’ll do this, then I’ll do this.”
• At the beginning of the next meeting tick
off your objectives list.
• Keep this list so you know who’s done
what type of work throughout the project.
And so you can show your
boss/client/professor what stage of the
project you’re at.
4. Someone Isn’t Pulling
Their Weight
1. Speak Up Early. Don’t let people get away with not doing their work. The more
you do, they more they won’t. The sooner you speak, the less mad you’ll be,
and the easier the conversation will be.
• Don’t accuse, ask them what happened and how they see the situation.
They may not have the skill to complete the task or may need further
support.
• Don’t go one-on-one. Speak with the rest of the team before you speak
with this person.
• There is no reason to not do work. Even if you have a sick child at home,
you still have to do your job.

2. Give an Opportunity for them to make up work or do extra work on the next
step.
3. Speak to the Boss: If these first 2 steps don’t work, then speak to the boss
(me). Make sure you have ample evidence (your objectives list, for instance,
and who was assigned what).
• In this class, if I am approached by an anonymous team member(s) that
someone is not doing their work and there is proof of this slacking then
that person will receive 25 points off their team’s final grade.
Listening to the City:
Communication Tasks
• There are numerous stakeholders with
competing interests: small business
owners, survivors, Americans in
general, the architectural firms.
Economic vs. memorial.
• Initial concept fixation: Coming in with
a finished project/not willing to
collaborate.
• Participatory Design as a solution?
Would it work for you?
• Q. How do you balance your expertise
with the clients/customers?
• Q. How do you tell a boss they’re
wrong?
Investigative Report
Discussion
Interviews:
Keep Them
Focused,
Keep Them
Brief
Doing Your Interviews
• The goal of the interview is to learn about
your interviewee’s daily communication
partners, the types of communication they
use regularly, and the most difficult
interpersonal communication challenges
they encounter in their workplaces.
• Choose 2 or 3 people in your specific
career path (mentors, internship directors,
and linkedin alumni make particular good
ones).
• We’re looking for stories and journeys
about tasks specific to your job.
• What questions might we ask?
• Rules: Not family members or Faculty
(goal is to expand your network)
Common Interview
Questions
• What are the types of internal communication you do
on a regular basis? (team meeting, presentations,
emails, specific types of reports)
• Can you tell me about the last time you felt
misunderstood by a colleague or client?
• Can you tell me about a failures of communication—
that has happened to you or a young colleague?.
• How do you usually communicate with clients? What
types of documents and modes? What types of things?
• Can you tell me about the hardest/most difficult client
communications you have to do?
• What’s the most interesting type of communication you
have to do?
• Who are the best communicators? Solutions to the
above problems?
• Can you recommend industry or trade journals,
organizations, or other news documents that you’ve
found useful that I should be reading?
The 4 Biggest Challenges
of these Interviews

• Answers are vague


• Not recording/getting direct
quotes
• Not focused on early career
enough
• They tend to get away from
communication/writing
“Our C-Suite works
really hard to listen
to and respect our
new employees, I
would say we have
a great vibe here.”
Before You Send Your Interview Request
• Proofread: spelling, etc., but also use real bullets.
• Give them the context—why are you asking for this
interview? It’s kind of weird without it.
• Suggest a set of times.
• Formal unless you know the person and still semi-
formal.
• Don’t take too long to get to the ask: what do you want
them to do? This should generally be the subject line too
(most people will only read this). Intro
yourself/relationship (if they don’t know you) and the ask
quickly (I’m writing to request an interview).
Interview Suggestions
• Do your research before hand. • Repeat /summarize back to them if
you are at all confused by an
• Create open ended questions that answer: so what you mean is?
provoke stories rather than yes or
no questions. • If you had a magic wand what
would you change?
• Examples are key: always be
prepared to ask for more examples. • End with do you have anything else
to add?
• Structure your interview from broad
to specific, chronologically, or by • Chain referral/snow ball sample:
theme. can you recommend another
person I should talk to?
• Prioritize your questions and cut
ones that could be googled. • Be prepared to ask follow up
questions as you’re listening
• Avoid biasing language: Especially
don’t suggest possible answers. It’s • Take notes on key points and follow
ok to rephrase the question but up questions
don’t offer options for how to
answer. • Record the interview if at all
possible: we’re looking for quotes
• Be prepared to course correct if
they go off on a tangent.
Begin to Fill
Out Your
Interview Prep
Sheet

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