University of Maryland, College Park

Pearl Diving Assignment 2

Angela Wong

Communication for Project Managers: ENCE424

Dr. Shana Webster-Trotman

October 29, 2022

Introduction

As a junior fire protection engineering major at the University of Maryland College Park,
a great majority of my coursework has been focused on the technical aspects of engineering. The
classes fall into the range of math, physics, fire dynamics, smoke management, and labs. After
interning at a consulting engineering firm in the summer, I soon began increasing the scope of
what engineering was to me. Within all the research and calculations, there is also a business and
managerial side of engineering. Being able to communicate and work with various personalities
and backgrounds is almost just as important as ensuring your calculations are correct. Luckily, I
was able to add a minor in project management alongside my fire protection engineering degree.
One of the core classes I have been able to take through this minor is Communication for Project
Managers. This class gives students an environment to learn and apply effective communication
strategies often overlooked in my other engineering curriculum. Every so often, students in this
class are assigned a Pearl Diving Assignment in which students employ the skills learned from in
class discussions, readings, and group activities through a series of essay prompts. This essay is
the second out of three Pearl Diving Assignments given to students for this class. The first
section of this essay is an email written to address a difficult topic in which my teach performed
subpar and needs improvement. I employ ethos, pathos, and logos throughout the email. Second,
I describe the Platinum Rule my classmates and I learned from a group activity and how I plan to
use it in the future. Third, I will apply techniques described in the book Crucial Conversations to
respond to a crucial scenario in which my boss directly insults me in front of my team. Next, I
will utilize storytelling techniques explored in Chapter 10 and 11 of Five Stars to describe a
personal experience in which I overcame a challenge. Lastly, I took the Big Five Personality
Assessment and will interpret my results.

Email
Hi everyone,

It was great seeing everyone the other day! As you all know, we just submitted a big deliverable
for Project X the other day. Unfortunately, there were significant errors with our Company Y
budget estimates for the next year. To be exact, many of the calculations and reports were 30%
off the actual projection.

Having been a team lead for such an amazing group of people for 8 years now, I know that we all
can do better in the future. Even I myself played a significant role in the deliverable, and will
continue to find ways to improve my leadership and ensure all our projects are of the utmost
quality for our clients.

I understand we are in the midst of the pandemic and just had significant managerial changes, so
times are hectic to say the least. I hope in the future we pay more attention to detail and have as
many pairs of eyes as possible looking through it. Please let me know if you have any comments
or suggestions for improvements for the future or anything. My door is always open! Finally, I
look forward to the company cookout next week so don’t forget to bring some good food and an
empty stomach!

Best,
Angela Wong
Concepts from In-Class Group Activities
One group activity that was most memorable to me involved crafting an email to our boss
that was either high Dominant, high influential, high Steady, or high Compliant. For this group
activity, there were two key concepts at play. The first obvious concept being identifying and
understanding different DiSC personality types. In order to cater to your group’s boss personality
type, this first requires you to understand how your personality reacts. What does this personality
type value? What do they respond the best to? What are some things they might not respond as
well to? The second key concept that I learned from this activity was the Platinum Rule. A
significant majority of people, including myself, always heard the phrase:“Treat others the way
you wish to be treated”. This phrase, also known as the golden rule, was one that I had embraced
for most of my life. For the most part, I was successful in using the golden rule with my
relationships. It was not until this week when we learned the platinum rule did my views on
influential interactions shift. Rather than treating others the way you wish to be treated, the
Platinum Rule urges that you treat others the way they want to be treated.
One of the ways students in Communications for Project Managers got to experience this
was in one email group activity. For this activity, students were split into four groups. As
mentioned above, each group was assigned a boss that was either high D, i, S, or C. Based on
their strongest personality traits, each group was to cater an email to their boss describing why a
project was not going to meet the projected deadline. I had the unique experience of doing it
twice, once for each ENCE424 section. By completing the assignment twice, and watching each
group present their email, I soon began just how powerful the platinum rule was. Each email was
significantly different, and really gave me a new perspective on how others perceive different
scenarios and wordings. Understanding the platinum rule allowed me to better navigate through
my other relationships. I saw this with how I asked my parents for things versus how I would ask
my friends for things. These differences soon became far more apparent than before.
I was also able to apply the platinum rule to my career. Last week, there was a fire
protection career fair. Like many others, my goal was to hopefully land an interview with the
companies after speaking with them at the career fair. Before attending the fair, however, I
conducted thorough research into each company that I was interested in. Looking through
websites, job descriptions, and reviews, I got a greater understanding of their values and
missions. Through understanding what they value in employees and experience, I was able to
highlight that during my elevator pitches to them. By applying the platinum rule and adjusting
my elevator pitch to each employer, I was able to have enjoyable and productive conversations
with every representative. I was even able to get job offers and several different interviews.
 Shortly after learning about the Platinum Rule through the email group activity, it soon
reminded me of my own managers. Working at UMD’s engineering career services, one of my
bosses was always straight to the point with little to no fluff. On the other hand, with my
internship over the summer, my manager always went the extra mile to personalize his emails to
employees and clients. He always began with a “How are you” or a personal note from a
one-on-one conversation. Without the email activity, I would not have been able to notice these
differences between my two managers. Without the email group activity, I would not have been
able to adjust my emails to accommodate their two personality types and values. Accordingly, I
now make an extra note to read the room or email more closely to try my best to gauge what my
audience values or concerns are. Paying attention to these nuances will allow me to better
understand and navigate transactions at work and throughout my daily life. Not only is the
platinum rule important for influencing others, it equips me with tools and thoughtfulness
necessary to create comfortable environments for all audiences. If I am trying to teach my
students concepts, I can better gauge what type of teaching strategies they respond better to. Do
they prefer direct criticism or criticism sandwiched between encouragement? Learning the
Platinum Rule has allowed me to be mindful of all the relationships around me. Not only does it
allow me to adjust my responses and communications, it gives me a better understanding and
perspective. Just a note, however, I am not saying to make assumptions left and right about
people’s personalities. Rather, the platinum rule to me means taking note of the subtle
distinctions evident through relationship communications.

Using Crucial Conversations Concepts

One of the books students are assigned to read is Crucial Conversations: Tools for When
Stakes are High. As mentioned in the title, Crucial Conversations gives an in-depth guide into
navigating through crucial—important, difficult, and high stakes—conversations through several
different chapters that explore several concepts and skills students can add to their project
management toolkit.
A scenario in which your boss calls you an idiot in front of the entire team is undoubtedly
a crucial conversation. Luckily, Crucial Conversations aptly prepares students to address these
conversations. Right after this incident, I would apply a concept covered in Crucial
Conversations in Chapter 3: Start with Heart. Above the chapter title is a quote by Ambrose
Bierce that appropriately captures the essence of the chapter and concept: “Speak when you are
angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret”(Patterson 21). Much like the
quote, Chapter 3 of Crucial Conversations cautions against the dangers of allowing your
emotions to guide your how you react to a crucial conversation. During crucial conversations,
such as the one presented in the scenario, negative emotions easily bubble up to the surface and
may have a tendency to explode through our words. Soon after however, once the emotions and
scene have calmed down, it . I myself have regretted saying things during the midst of a heated
fight with my brother, parents, or friends. Because I let my emotions lead my actions and
response, it led to undesirable, and in some cases irreversible outcomes.
 Crucial Conversations, however, advises readers to Start with Heart. Starting with the
heart means giving yourself a second to collect your thoughts and control your emotions during a
crucial conversation. Rather than reacting with your emotions, you want to formulate a sincere
response from the heart. This will give you the best chance for a desirable and tactful outcome
that will make the crucial conversation a little less daunting. During the crucial moments before a
response, key questions you ask yourself will help you focus on the overall outcome you truly
want from this conversation and relationship. What is it that you truly want to happen after this
conversation? For yourself? For others? How do you want this relationship to progress (Patterson
23)?
In the scenario with a boss insulting you in front of the entire team, first I would
undoubtedly feel embarrassed to be insulted by my superior in front of everyone. Then I may
feel angry for being disrespected in such an outright way. Utilizing skills in Crucial
Conversations, I would take a deep breath to calm all of these negative emotions and collect
myself to think clearly. What I want from this crucial conversation is to respond in such a way
that preserves my professionalism and respect amongst the team and my boss. Ideally, I want to
avoid completely severing ties with my boss with an emotional outburst that could lead to me
losing my position. Although this seems like a demeaning scenario, and depending on whether or
not the insult was warranted or not, this situation could instead become an opportunity to prove
to my team and boss that I am capable of responding to such crude words with tact and dignity.
The leads into the second crucial concept taught by the book: Refuse the Fool's Choice.
Rather than forcing myself to choose between standing up for myself—possibly severing all
professional ties with my boss and team—or letting it go—not respecting my self worth, I refuse
this fool’s choice and find a way to achieve both goals (Patterson, 25).
By combining these techniques in Crucial Conversations, my response to my boss would
first begin by confronting my boss's comment with a calm but firm demeanor:
“I would love to hear your feedback on this topic, boss. From my research on XYZ, I
concluded YZ based on statistics from 123. I’d be happy to discuss this further with you so we
can all come to a compromise for this discussion.
By calmly reaffirming my stance, I stand my ground. With the inclusion of facts and
statistics that led me to my conclusion, I can further support myself and show others that my
conclusions came from a place of logic and reason. By showing my research, I also appeal to
ethos to demonstrate the quality of my work. Finally with pathos in mind, I make sure to keep
the conversation open by offering my boss the chance to share his thoughts so we can all work
together to reach a mutual conclusion. Through Starting with Heart, refusing the Fool’s Choice,
and employing ethos, pathos, and logos, I will have hopefully successfully deescalated the
solution whilst still standing up for myself and position.

Personal Story
It was the winter of my junior year of high school. For me, as I am sure a lot of you
know, this meant college applications, AP exams, the SAT, finals, and lots of stress. In addition
to all of this, I was a part of my school CyberPatriot team. Through this organization, me and
several of my close friends competed in cybersecurity competitions where we raced the clock
and other teams across the country to identify and resolve as many hypothetical computer
security breaches as possible.
More times than not during competitions, we would hit a block. The other teams would
be quickly gaining points while we were still at stand still. Now, I’m not going to pretend we
pulled some miracle and won. We actually ended up losing some points and not doing so well
that round, but Mrs. Mattey reminded us of a lesson that would stick with me through my future
endeavors.
At the time I felt I had to do everything perfectly in order to get into a good college. I
began to measure my self-worth with my grades and was extremely critical of myself. I would
shy away from things in fear of failing. To say the least it wasn’t a very fun time. Even though
we lost, she showed us that failure is okay. The important thing is you assess what went wrong
and learn from it. As simple as it sounds, sometimes we need to be reminded of the simple
things. We eventually did learn a great deal from our mistakes and even won some money in the
end. I soon carried this lesson with me through my studies if I got a bad grade, lost in a game, or
cooked something inedible. I always made sure to ask myself, what can I do now? I began to
accept failure more and more rather than stressing over it. Being from a STEM and grade heavy
high school and understanding the pressure of always having to get good grades, this was a hard
pill to swallow. I’ve learned that failure isn’t all bad, it’s an important part of growing and
learning. Because of this I opened up and started trying new things like cooking, teaching,
coding, and inventing. I ended up becoming the president of the cooking club, entered several
engineering competitions, and even landed an internship at NIST. I am forever grateful for what
Mrs. Mattey has taught me and I have been applying her values ever since. Not only do I apply
this mindset to my coursework, I began practicing it through my career and even relationships.
Whenever faced with adversity and a little voice saying give up, I remember Mrs. Mattey’s
words and, rather than focusing on the failure, I push forward and evaluate what I can do next.
Big Five Personality Assessment
For the Second Pearl Diving Assignment, students in Communications for Project
Managers were required to take a fourth personality test. The Big Five Personality categorizes
participants’ personalities into five categories: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion,
Agreeability, and Neuroticism or OCEAN for short. According to my assessment results, my
highest personality attributes were Openness and Agreeability at 83 percent and 73 percent,
respectively. Close behind was Neuroticism at 71 percent. Finally, my two lowest categories
were Conscientiousness at 48 percent and Extraversion at 31 percent.
For the most part, I am not very surprised at all with these results. Especially with
Openness, Agreeability, and Extroversion. I especially enjoy thinking outside of the box through
puzzles and escape rooms. Additionally, I am more than happy to have a deep philosophical
conversation with anyone. As for agreeability, I greatly appreciate compromise and ensuring
everyone’s voices and goals are heard and acknowledged. My lowest was extraversion and this
makes the most sense as I am most definitely an introvert and need time for myself to recharge.
Although my score was unsurprising, I was surprised to see neuroticism as part of this
personality test. High neuroticism was portrayed as more sensitive to negative emotions. I agree
with this, as I tend to be an anxious and cautious person, however, I did not label this as a
personality trait, rather to me it is just my current mental state. Lastly, my lower
conscientiousness score was a wake up call and testament to my tendency to procrastinate. For
the most, and somewhat unsurprisingly, these all aligned pretty similarly with the other DiSC and
Jung personality test. All the tests show a pattern towards compromise and introvertedness.
The most apparent and useful benefit these personality assessments provide is
knowledge. Personality assessments give participants a greater understanding and awareness of
their personality and strengths. Though seemingly small, simply getting some adjectives or small
phrases about how we act in certain situations can provide powerful insight into areas we wish to
nurture or continue emphasizing. Acknowledgement is always the first step towards any
improvement or change. Personally, taking these tests gives me facts about myself that I often
overlook. Since we are in our heads one hundred percent of the time, we sometimes are blind to
our own weaknesses, strengths, and other personality tendencies. The information personality
assessments like the Big Five provide, is the first step towards not only self improvement, but
improvement on relationships. By understanding your strengths, you gain a better understanding
of how you work with others and what you can bring to the table or need extra support on.

Conclusion

Multiple weeks into the semester in Communication for Project Managers, students have
been exposed to several key communication concepts. One of the most effective ways the class
has engaged with students to teach these concepts is through group activities. The four boss
personality types and four emails group activity especially resonated with me as it displayed the
Platinum Rule. Through this rule, I am far more thoughtful and intentional with my emails and
communications with crucial conversations and relationships. The skills applied during these
activities served me well for the first section of this essay. Utilizing ethos, pathos, and logos in
conjunction with the platinum rule allowed me to develop an email for a hypothetical team that
performed below standard. Not only were group activities fulfilling, but the readings were as
well. Crucial Conversations advises students to Start with Heart and refuse the Fool’s Choice
when faced with a crucial conversation such as a boss calling you an idiot. Altogether, Crucial
Conversations taught me the importance of not speaking first with my emotions, but to respond
with my goals in mind. Another book, Five Stars, has also proved to be extremely enriching.
Five Stars gives a guide into giving a moving and effective story. Through this, it allowed me to
better convey a challenge I was able to overcome through an interview-esque framework.
Finally, through the Big Five Assessment, it provided me with valuable insight into the five
major dimensions of my personality.
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Gallo, Carmine. Five Stars the Communication Secrets to Get from Good to Great. St. Martin’s

Press, 2018. Print.

O’Hair, Dan, and Hannah Rubenstein and Rob Stewart. A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking.

Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2019. Print.

Pachter, Barbara, and Denise Cowie. The Essentials of Business Etiquette: How to Greet, Eat,

and Tweet Your Way to Success. McGraw-Hill Education, 2013. Print

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September 24, 2022, from https://www.123test.com/disc-personality-test/

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http://www.blake-group.com/free-assessments

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