Pearl diving assignment 1

Mubarak Babalola
Communications for Project Managers: ENCE424

Dr. Shana Webster-Trotman

February 25, 2023

Introductions:

As an engineering student who hopes to be a professional engineer in a couple of month

and project manager in couple of years I believe it really important to master the art of
communications. As we learnt from class ninety-five percent of a project manager's duties is to
have conversation and communicate with people. Engineers also usually work in teams so would
definitely be doing a lot of communication and conflict management. This essays hightlight
lesson and teaching that were my main takeaways from the first weeks of this class which is
“Communication for project managers”. In addition to this there is also a DISC and Yungs
personality assessment embedded in it, which reasonable conclusion specific to my
communication style and last Conflict management skills is also embedded in this essay and
explores how I approch conflict.

Part 1: Concepts and technique from reading and class

Readings from A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking 5th ed. by Dan O’Hair, Hannah Rubenstein,
and Rob Stewart (2016)

The first chapter focuses becoming a good public speaker. Different topic where
discussed like the communication process, effective communication and delivery etc. Many
things were learnt from this chapter and relate to a lot of things that apply to my daily life. I want
to reference the communication process in page seven of “A pocket guide to public speaking”.
The SMCR communication model which stands for The sender, the message, the channel, the
receiver and feedback. I found this model very interesting because when we think about this
model we learnt in class we might specifically be talking about the internet, or messages sent
over the internet especially when we talk about encryption and decryption. The concept that
human nature encrypt and decrypt messages unconsciously. And ofcourse similar to how we
think about encryption and decryption over the internet the same applies here. There is an
additional difficulty with human communication from sender to receiver that is different from
how messages over the internet are transmitted. With decryption from the internet or over a code
it is pretty obvious to know when an information is transmitted wrongly. Like if a message is
sent encoded by a sender with this meaning “This is an encoded message” and the decryption
key in SMCR model term the “channel”, and receiver gets a message like this “htje jdh uens os”.
Of course we would know that there was an error with the channel. But if you are talking directly
to someone and you mispronounce a word or they miss hearing the word its usually harder to
know unless the person gives you feedback that matches exactly what the receiver say.
I am an international student from Nigeria, which means I arrived in the United States
about three years ago. So naturally I do have an accent and different lingo that people who have
lived in the United States their whole lives. I have had a lot of issues with communicating with
people ever since I got here, but it is getting better has my mind subconsciously adjusts to know

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what works and doesn’t. An example I can think of off the top of my head is with the very first
class I took in the University of Maryland is Calculus one. Part of the class also involved having
two discussions each week where we solved problems we learnt from class together. So if I am
interpreting this right I grew up watching a lot of Hollywood movies and a lot of media that are
majorly produced in the United States, so I had already found or discovered the channels and
decryption to understand what my group mates are saying, but the same case for my group
mates. So whenever they would explain something I would understand them but whenever I did
have to or try to sometimes it involved me re-explainig a bunch of time and rewording my
statement sometimes to no avail. For example it took me forever to understand that whenever I
was explain something using the word “Bracket” they would still be hung up on figuring out
what that is and would not understand the rest of what I was saying, till someone one day
suggested I just write what I mean down, then everyone exclaimed and said “ohh you mean
parenthesis”. So a bunch of other instances like that would happen a lot when I started to adjust
what I knew in order to communicate with my group mates better. So in that case they did
receive the words right, they heard what I said, even when I did have feedback I would confirm
exactly what they said. So something the professor should implement is the feedback mechanism
as a listener. So as we speak we should repeat what we think the person said. I definitely do
agree with that and using that so far has helped immensely, but in addition to that it might be
useful to interpret what you heard a little bit and if you still receive the same reaction you are
definitely sure that the receiver and you are on the same page.

Concept from Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition
by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler (2011)

Secondly, form the third chapter of Crucial conversations. Going along with the theme of
the book, about how to get specific outcomes from conversations. This chapter focuses on
learning how to stay focused and not run tangents to a conversation based on what or where your
emotions/conversations take you. It is very evident that in a lot of my conversations, I always get
sidetracked and end up taking a much longer time to achieve the end goal of a conversation,
sometimes I might not even end up getting to the end of it. I think sometimes a major key is that
I do not recognize that I am about to engage in a crucial conversation rather than some of the
random day to day conversations. This topic has made me realize that almost every conversation
I have is a crucial one and I should always ask myself these questions: “What do I really want for
myself?What do I really want for others?What do I really want for the relationship?” as noted in
the third page of chapter from Crucial conversations. A way I can see this applying to my life is
that I have started using it with my team at Engineers without borders. I am currently the project
lead for the Nakifuma, uganda project. Our meetings are usually about an hour long and usually
we exceed that without intending to. Although I do believe that this time is spent well, it can
definitely have been spent better, using the skills learnt from this chapter. It is very essential now
that I do think about this question ahead of time and not down everything I want to achieve by

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answering those questions noted by the author in the chapter. I also started allocating time to
each bullet point and I generally accounting based on the amount of time we have spent on
similar questions in the past. But so far I am still having trouble implementing this effectively
because generally we come up with ideas on the spot which might change the direction of the
meeting. But I still believe it would take some time to revamp it a little to be specific to our
project. I do believe that all the conversation being said during the meeting is important, the
problem would just be better prioritizing.

Concept from Week 5:

Lastly, I would like to reference conversations we had in class during the 4th and 5th
week. Week 5 focuses on the audience, how to connect to them, how to analyze them etc. In
week 4 we also talked about a few statistics on communication channels in addition to
percentages of how much communication is based on body language, tone of voice and words.
We learnt that 55% is based on body language, 38% was based on the tone of voice and lastly
7% is based on words that are said. An interesting fact was it takes 7 seconds to form an
impression. I believe that these two topics are interconnected. When meeting new people and
also when you are thrown into an audience without a forewarning. As mentioned earlier I am
involved with Engineers without borders and these past few weeks have been recruitment week.
We have been involved in a lot of random conversations where we had to either talk to an
audience we know nothing about or have personal conversations with random people ranging
from faculty to students from different majors and not particularly from engineering. A particular
situation I would like to point out is a conversation I had with a particular individual at one of the
networking events for engineers. She was not an engineering major but the impression she gave,
you will not be able to tell. I felt like she had mastered the act of communication, because the
body language (enthusiasm), tone of voice etc. After this class I was able to pick out almost
everything she was doing that I am gonna start to practice. Whenever someone new came to her
table she started from giving a generic speech about her club, I believe this was to capture the
audience's attention, then she moved on to audience analysis by asking about what interests
them. Then she personalized the next part of her speech to each person or each group of people. I
was close to her for at least an hour and I don’t think I heard a speech or conversation twice. She
was not particularly talking about a very interesting topic, quantum physics, but she definitely
did get a lot more signature than anyone else there. Applying these into my conversations would
definitely improve first impressions.

Part 2: LinkedIn Account and Networking

Linked in connections:
1. Shana Webster-Trotman
2. Linh Ngyuen

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 3. Alvaro Nunez
4. Joy Nash
5. Daniel Ficca
6. Etienne Jackson
7. Oldyne Pierre-Canel
8. Hari Krishna Reddy Donthireddy
9. Samarth KaPatel
10. Jaelyn Biyden
11. Deep patel etc

In addition to linkedin connections I have been trying to make connections in different

ways some of which includes, signing up for some of the engineering networking events like the
engineering breakfast coming up on wednesday the first of march. I also set an appointment with
a friend to learn how to play tennis. He usually plays with his dad and a few other people. From
what I heard this is a great way to meet new people and network. These are the things I have
done since the past two weeks but I definitely do plan to be on the lookout for more opportunities
especially since this is my last semester.

Part 3: DISC personality test

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 ;
Figure 1: A screenshot of completed DSIC personality test.

“You are tenacious and determined to follow a course of action - to achieve objectives. You
are a clear thinker. You have an inner need to be objective and analytical. You like to
pursue a definite course of action. You respond to logic rather than emotion. You are likely
to be particularly good at handling challenging technical assignments.”

The statement above describes the result of my DSIC personality. I think I like ninety
percent agree with the statement and picture described above, I did believe my compliance and
influence might be a little more, I kinda did expect influence and steadiness to be compliance be
a little less. I know generally men are supposed to try to be more dominant, and especially with
my background of being in a lot of leadership positions and being the first of nine siblings. I
believe most of these opportunities have come from me being influential and compliance and just
like Ben Franklin said “In order to lead you have to learn to follow”. So for most of these
leadership experiences have come from me just being an influential person and people just
thinking I would be the person to lead. And as the personality test also says, I tend to follow a
course of action and I generally would say I am not bad at it because I am generally steady and

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compliant. I learn from leaders that have held positions before me and see what works. I think
now that I am self aware of the four personality types in addition to the realization in my earlier
statement I would be able focus more on my strengths and hone in on those skills. As a project
manager I believe I would want to have a lot of empathy in my relationships with people within
the workplace. I would also try to conduct with reason and logic rather than being very
authoritative when trying to delegate with individuals. This approach has been effective
subconsciously in the past without me realizing it. I did mention in class that I worked at the gym
and there tends to be a lot of dominant individuals not because they generally are but rather what
that environment generally brings out. In the past I generally did try to be logical and responsible
when relating with patrons but presenting alternatives when they did not get their way. But of
course I still do have a little bit of that dominant side that comes out when I needed to be
assertive and I was able to bring that out or maybe at least act like it.

Part 4: Conflict Management Styles

Figure 2: Shows the result of the Conflict Management style

My most preferred conflict resolution style came out to be compromising and I selected
competing to be worked on. Compromising was defined to be “Foxes are moderately concerned
with both their goals and their relationships with others. Foxes typically seek a compromise; they
give up part of their goals and persuade the other person in a conflict to give up part of their
goals. They seek a conflict solution in which both sides gain something; the middle ground
between two extreme positions. They are willing to sacrifice part of their goals in order to find
agreement for the common good.” while Competing is defined to be “Sharks typically value their
goals over relationships, meaning that if forced to choose, they would seek to achieve their goals

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even at the cost of the relationship involved. Sharks are typically more concerned with
accomplishing their goals than with being liked by others. They might try to force opponents to
accept their solution to the conflict by overpowering them.”
I want to say compromise is a great trait to have as a project manager for two major
reasons. The first being valuing relationships while the second is every stakeholder gets a share.
Expanding on the first, as a project manager you will have a continued relationship with the
people you work with whether you like it or not. So having a good relationship with your team
always makes things easier in the long run. As we all know working in a hostile environment is
never good, so having that peaceful and collaborative environment should always be a priority
and as a person and a project manager you should always be looking forward to future
conversations, communications and interactions rather than just letting it rip at the very first sign
of an argument. The second reason is that in a project, there are usually a lot of stakeholders in
every decision being made and of course there are always gonna be conflicting ideas on how to
proceed. It is important for each stakeholder to feel heard, because I believe that everyone has
something important to say, and a compromise should generally be made whenever possible. I
believe that whenever there is never any compromise in the future when a stakeholder might
have a very brilliant solution that can solve a huge problem or save a lot of money and time, they
might not want to say it out loud or bring it up because of the fear of not being heard or draw up
a conclusion that even though it is heard it would not be considered. To talk about the down side
of compromising, I am of the opinion that we humans are naturally and subconsciously designed
to be kind of greedy and selfish in the sense that we want the survival and best things for
ourselves. The last statement comes off much harsher than I can say it. An argument might be
that we are social creatures and that we would sometimes do something for the benefit of other
people that might be true. But in the true sense of it we are getting something little in return that
might not be tangible but is very beneficial to yourself and different people hold it to different
degrees. We might want a smile back, or the feeling or being loved and valued etc, these are all
things we like. But in some cases where stakeholders are invested in what is most important and
beneficial for them, when a party is known to compromise these subconsciously would make
them want a stake from every conflict even though it might be a case where they could have
taken the back seat. So that is why I believe learning to be a bit more competing for certain
situations would be beneficial.
In high school I was the president of the Muslim Student Association(MSA), we had an
end of year gala, and every stakeholder that involves the executive board, mentors and teachers
within the school always had opinions on what should and should be done in different situations
and scenarios. I did feel like I compromised a lot and ended up spending much more money than
expected. One of mentors which we have always gotten advise form and we generally did listen
to suggested a particular dish/condiment we should get that would be a real blast, which I felt
was a weird suggestion because that is not generally the department we ask questions about, but I
went ahead with it and gave the go ahead, to find out later that a lot of people during the event
did not think it was a good idea and also that it was suggested because she was the owner or part

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owner of the business without mentioning that to me. It ended up going to waste and this is
money that might have been better spend doing something else. Going back to chapter three from
crucial conversations about engaging every conversation from a crucial standpoint and asking
myself what are all the stakeholders and parties involved trying to get out of these conversations
and look at every possible standpoint. It would also be useful to be concise conversation and
words while communicating, in addition managing emotion during arguments.

Part 5: Yung personality assessment

Figure 3: Results for the Jung Personality Assesment.

This personality assessment showed that I was an “Introvert-Sensor-Thinker-Judger”. An

introvert as shown above was described to be someone who is reserved and private. I found this
to be accurate because I generally do describe myself as someone who has a social battery that
does need to be recharged. Recharging might come from different things by either staying alone
in my comfort space, or by engaging in activity that lets me get out of my head. I mentioned in
class earlier that I actively like soccer but I never mentioned why and the benefit of activities like
that. This part I believe does not have any relation to the DISC assessment. I would generally say
that this introverted assessment was spot on except for the fact that it draws energy from my
thoughts which is not the case most of the time. A sensor is someone who loves to live in the
present, a common saying people say nowadays is “it is what it is”. It generally stands for taking
life at is rather than complaining. I believe that these situations are the ones I generally like to be
in, where it's more like I don’t have a lot of options, but rather move in a straight might and find

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content in that. Which is one of the reasons I enjoyed highschool in Nigeria as opposed to
college where I have a lot of options, which might be why I have had over four semesters of
eighteen credits or more. I and a lot of options do not go well, this assessment clarifies it.
Thinkers make decisions based on logic. Fun fact the reason I am able to save money is because
of the time it takes me to make a decision. The laptop I am typing with right now took me three
months to finally decide to pick it. And I only did finally conclude because it was getting too
late, school had started and I was constrained to make a decision. Lastly, is Judger which is
explained as being orderly, which is the one I disagree with because as I said earlier I tend to say
“It is what it is”. Maybe some organization is needed but it is more in the moment rather than
planned. Like I would organize my workspace because I do not feel comfortable but I would not
do it because I think I would be irritated in the future. At this moment in time I do not believe I
have all the tools to work changing some of this to be more communicative, so I believe I have
something to look forward to. In conclusion I do not think not think DSIC and Yung focus on the
same personality aspect.

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 Works Cited

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

Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2019. Print

Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. Crucial Conversations: Tools

for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition 2011. Print

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