Another goodbye...

I can not believe we are at the end of our class. This journey has been a wonderful experience. I feel like I have grown as a professional and can not wait to continue on this journey. I want to thank everyone who has stopped by my blog and posted comments of support. I really enjoyed reading not only your comment on here but also reading your blogs. Good luck to everyone and hopefully we will see each other on the next journey! We are one course closer to our final goal.

Breaking up is hard to do…

During this week, I had a chance to think about all the different times that I left a group and which ones were hard and which ones were easy. The first group I thought about was my senior year of high school. This time in my life was hard not only because I had to say goodbye to great friends after graduation since we were all going to different colleges, military and jobs, but also because I had to say goodbye to my grandfather who passed away three days after I graduated. Both were hard goodbyes. For my friends we had parties to say goodbye and we kept in touch for awhile. For my grandfather, we had a chance to say our goodbyes to him before cancer over took him. Between those two goodbyes I would have to say losing my grandfather was the hardest because of our strong bond, but my friends helped me through it.

Next came the goodbyes after college, those goodbyes were different and a bit easier because I hadn’t really gotten too close to anyone at college. I majored in Early Childhood Education and also in Business Administration. I had friends in both majors but not anyone really close. 

The most recent goodbyes I think have been the hardest ones for me so far. The first one was losing my grandmother the day after I started as a home visitor. We knew that she wasn’t doing well and we had gotten to see her two months before she passed. We all said goodbyes to her but really didn’t want to believe it was the end. I will never forget when I was told. My mother had flown to Florida to help out my aunt with my grandmother. My grandmother had passed away while my mother was flying. My aunt didn’t tell my mom until she got to Florida. My mother didn’t call me until she knew that my work day was done. Every time I walk the steps up to the office I hesitate at the same spot I was at when she told me. It is still hard for me because she was a huge part of my life. She helped me get through losing my grandfather (her husband) after high school. My new co-workers were very supportive of me and helped me get through that devastating loss. I feel that is one reason I feel so connected with the home visitors at that office. We all became close and great friends. We are always there for each other whether it is professionally or personally. 

Which I feel transitioning from home visitor to program supervisor of the new program was very hard for me. I felt like I was abandoning my friends. They threw a little party for the three of us that were leaving/transitioning to the new program. They took us out to lunch and got us little gifts so that we would remember them. I think this was a hard goodbye even though we still see everyone and still talk to each other because we had that trust and open communication. We all worked together towards the same common goal. We all had the best interest of young children and their families in mind. We all still do have that same interest and common goal. It is just they think of me more as a person higher than them because I’m a supervisor now. I’m not their supervisor but they treat me differently. I understand why they do and I think I even act a little different. I have more responsibilities now so I have to watch what I say or do in front of them. 

I’m not sure how adjourning this group of colleagues will go. I hope that I will be able to keep in touch with some after we have completed this wonderful journey we are on. It would be great to keep in touch to see how everyone grows professionally and to see how earning this master’s degree has affective their careers. 

I think adjourning is an essential stage of teamwork because even though it might be nice to stay with people who work well together everything has to come to an end at some time. If you stay with the same group things would stop being effective. It is like working as a home visitor for Early Head Start. If you have a family for more than three years, you stop being effective. You start getting too comfortable with the family and the family gets too comfortable with you. That is why in our program if a family keeps having babies and they continue to be in the program we switch their home visitor. This seems to keep the families from getting bored or uninterested in the program because even though we follow a curriculum each home visitor approaches things differently.

Nonviolent Communication and Conflict Management

This week I am to discuss a disagreement or conflict that I have had recently and at least two strategies I have learned that might help me manage or resolve the conflict. I actually have two conflicts to share, one is personal and one is professional. 

My husband and I do not always see eye to eye on a lot of things especially when money is involved. Like most marriages, our arguments are normally centered around money. My husband does not have the restraint when it comes to money and he likes to call me the banker. The latest conflict was over a toll charge bill that came in the mail. He had received this bill because he didn’t pay a road toll a couple of months ago. He thought it was funny that instead of paying around $4 the bill was for $84. I on the other hand did not see the humor and was very upset. I took a deep breath because he was telling me the amounts over the phone since I was away at training. I told him that he needed to pay it before I arrived back home from training. He stated that he would take care of it. When I arrived back home, I saw it still sitting on the counter not paid. I started to get angry but I stopped and took a deep breath. I thought to myself I need to ask him why he didn’t pay it yet when he got home before I flew off the handle. When he arrived home that day, I greeted him and the children with hugs and kisses. I calmly asked him if he had paid that bill. I tried to stay as positive and upbeat as I could. He stated no but before I could say anything he stated that he had to call them because they didn’t take checks. He stated very calmly that he wanted to wait until Thursday since that was payday and then he would pay it over the phone. It was very calm in the house during this whole discussion. Normally when we talk about bills we get angry and tense. We never let each other finish sentences and we interrupt. This time things were different. We were both respectful and listened to each other. He apologized about even getting the bill in the first place and promised it would never happen again. I apologized that I was angry about it and I would try to let him explain things before I get angry. 

The strategies I used during this conflict was trying to stay positive, being respectful to the other person involved and listening to the other person.

The second conflict was with regards to work. This is an issue that has been one the whole agency has been working on for the past couple of months. This class really has reinforced what we have already started to put into place. The conflict where I work is a lack of communication between offices where people get upset and get very defensive. We have set up different strategies that we are all trying to implement. First we need to all understand everyone is busy and they all have their own jobs to complete. If we email someone and they do not email us back we need to call them to make sure they even received the email. We need to be respectful of others and understand that something might be very important to us but not as important to someone else, they have their own deadlines and projects. We need to openly listen and let the other person finish their thoughts before we start talking. We need to be respectful of other people’s ideas and thoughts. 

I actually was able to talk to my colleagues to see if the changes in the way we communicate have been helping. They all said that they can see improvements already. They did say that it does still get frustrating when their counterpart doesn’t get back to them right away. They stated that I have been very instrumental in the process because when they have come into my office to complain about the situation; I ask them if they email the other person, or called them. If they haven’t then I reminded them that they need to follow up that email with a call and a call with an email. The other office’s email and internet hasn’t been working all the time which means they haven’t been getting all the emails. My colleagues have told me that because I have tried to stay positive they can see the change in our office and the other office is improving as well.

Who am I as a communicator?

This week assignments took me on an interesting journey. First I looked at myself as a communicator, then a colleague evaluated me and finally my mother evaluated me. What is very interesting is my colleague and I scored me in the same categories; where my mother scored me a little different. 

We all three scored my listening style in group one which is “people-oriented”. I really feel that I fit into this group and I know that the definition is accurate. I am very empathetic and concerned about others motions. I do agree with the other part of the definition about when it states that this could interfere with proper judgment because I tend to be very trusting. This is something that I have been learning about myself within the past year and a half since becoming a program supervisor. 

The second test was about my communication anxiety. This test my co-worker and I scored me in the moderate grouping and my mother scored me in the elevated grouping. This is one topic that I have struggled with most of my life. I was very shy growing up and never talked in public unless forced to. Since becoming a mother and a program supervisor for an Early Head Start program, I have had to learn to face my fear and speak in meetings and in public. I still get nervous and I am not as confident as I would like to be but it is something that I have been working on for many years. My mother knows how I feel about talking in public but she knows that I have learned to hide my true feelings so no one else knows how scared I am to speak in public. I think that is one reason why my coworker scored me in the moderate group because she thinks I do great speaking in public and in meetings but she has heard me talk about how I don’t like doing it. I think the moderate grouping really fits where I’m currently at with this, it stated that it is situational and I think it depends on the situation how nervous I get when I have to speak. 

The last test was about my verbal aggressiveness. Both my coworker and I scored me in the moderate grouping and my mother scored me in the low group. I think my mother scored me lower because she sees the good in me and she mainly sees me with my family. She knows that there are times I do fly off the handle and say things I should but most of the time I am respectful. My coworker and I put me in the moderate grouping and I have to say I feel that I am in that group. I try to maintain that balance of respect and consideration towards others. I try not to attack another’s character but there are times I do slip and say things that are not appropriate. 

This past week while I was at training again; I tried to work on all three of these topics. I spoke up more during the break-out sessions, I tried to be a more active listener and I worked on my verbal aggressiveness. One thing that I found out not only from the three coworker that were with me at this training but others that I met, they kept telling me that I appeared to know what I was saying and knew where I was going so they would follow me anyway. It was strange because I kept telling everyone I didn’t know where I was going and inside I was scared to death. I found out that I could feel confident about who I am and that I do know that I am doing, I just need to believe in myself more and stop second guessing myself.  

Communication and Culture

I do find myself communicating differently with people from different groups and cultures. Some of these different groups are church members at my church, coworkers at my agency, my children, my husband and also early childhood professionals that I meet. I have learned that you have to talk or communicate in so many different ways such as formally, informally, professionally, and this also includes nonverbal communicating. 

While I am communicating with church members from church it is different than how I communicate with coworkers. I talk more formally with the church members because they are mostly older than me and I have been raised to respect my elders. I know they have more knowledge and experience within the church. When talking to my coworkers I still communicate with respect but it isn’t the same type of respect that I show towards the church members. This respect is different because it is showing them that I am on the same page and that we are all working towards the same goal. 

Communicating with my children, I think it is the most fun that I have communicating with any group. Most of the time it is informal and easy going with my children but there are some times it isn’t fun. Children are a wealth of information and they are fun to listen to. I love just to sit back and just listen to all three of my children communicate with each other. 

Three strategies that I could use to help communicate more effectively are as follows:

1.      1. Treat everyone with respect.

2.      2. Actively listen to the person who is speaking.

3.      3. Follow the “Platinum Rule”: “Do to others as they themselves would like to be treated.” (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2011, P.114 )

References:

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

Watching in Silence.

 Watching in Silence. 

For this assignment I was to watch a television show that I don’t normally watch. First I watched the show without the sound on and then I watched it again with the sound on. The show I watched was called “The Glades”. I had never even heard of this show until this assignment. I was reading the directions to my mother and she said that I should watch that show. There was a lot of nonverbal communication through the show that I picked up on the first go around. At first I couldn’t tell if the lead characters liked each other or not because of the body language and also the facial expressions. Going back and watching it the second time with the sound turned up let me figure out that they do like each other. I could also tell just by body language and facial expressions that what was going on in certain scenes were very stressful and they had a lot of tension.

I had already tried this during our first discussion assignment with the video of the meeting we had to watch. I watched it without the sound and then again with the sound. I have found myself doing that with regular television shows as well. I like to just watch people and observe their nonverbal communication. I think we can learn a lot about a person with watching and becoming aware of nonverbal especially with regards to body language and facial expressions.

I think one thing that we have started to implement at our office is video tapping our supervision meetings. I put the camera on me and not the employee so that when I review it, I can focus on what I am doing verbally and especially nonverbally. I never thought about watching it without sound but after doing this assignment, I can tell seeing the nonverbal is much easier without the sound.