Diagnosis and reflection

Communication forms a very crucial part of our everyday lives as well as our professional careers. Communication assists people in expressing their thoughts and opinions in an efficient manner. Through this course I have largely worked upon improving my communication skills and analyzing them in greater details. For a better understanding of my communication competency, I have taken 5 tools which have helped me gauge my areas of improvement as well as my areas of excellence in terms of business communications. This report throws light on the results and inferences of the communication tools that I have taken up in this course. In the report I have also mentioned the two communication issues faced by me that require development as well as snippets from the two professional communications I have had this year.

Applied tools and their inferences

Skills

People skills or soft skills are largely important to build effective relationships in a professional space. I analyzed my people skills through this tool and evaluated my reaction to various situations.

My score in this activity was 55. This reflected that I work well in coordination with others but I also try to ensure that my needs are fulfilled. However, the analysis of the test said that under stress and pressure, old habits may creep in. This is very true. I have noticed that I find it difficult to remain patient under stress. My communication with others becomes ineffective and I try to focus on my needs and opinions.

Verbal communication

I have always been certain about the efficiency of my verbal communication. This is in fact one of my strongest suites. I often find it difficult to convey my thoughts in a written manner but I am more effective when I am verbally communicating with people. In the activity undertaken, I scored 110. This is a very good score and I will continue to improve further upon these skills by participating in events and competitions.

SPCC

There are various situations in which we are expected to communicate with others. Some people are comfortable with one on one communications while some people are very confident even when they face a much larger audience. I undertook the SPCC tool to analyze my perception about my communication skills and level of comfort in various situations.

I feel very comfortable even while talking to a large group of people. Of course, I am more comfortable while presenting ideas to my friends. There is still room for improvement in my ability to present my opinion to and communicate with strangers.

Presentation skills

Presentation of ideas is an important aspect of a professional career. While working in organizations there are many opportunities provided where I will be asked to deliver a presentation to clients or any other stakeholders of the business. I have scored a 49 on my presentation skills test. This is a very average score and I wish to improve upon it. I have specially noticed that my presentations often take a longer time then designated. At the same point of time, I find it difficult to engage the audience in my presentation.

NISS

Nonverbal behavior plays a very crucial part in effective communication. Nonverbal communication helps in building a much deeper connection. When I took this test, I had to recollect a lot of details about my communication. For example, I was asked if I stand or sit close to people when I communicate with them. In order to answer this I had to recall a few of my experiences and based on that I answered the question. My total score was 86. Which is average and there is definitely a room for improvement.

Two issues requiring development

Improving communication skills has always been a priority for me and I seek to do it even today. The two areas of my communication that require improvement and further development are my nonverbal communication including my body language and my presentation skills. I have scored average in these two areas and hence I wish to improve upon them as they play a big role in my future communications.

Professionally I would have to deliver various presentations. I have realized that I am not nervous during a presentation which is a good thing but I find it very difficult to engage the audience. This is why my presentations become a one sided conversation and I wish to improve this habit. The reason behind this is that I don’t practice my presentations before delivering them. This makes it difficult to analyze if the audience is enjoying the presentation or they are getting bored. In order to grab most opportunity in my workplace and mark a significantly positive impression, I need to improve my presentation skills.

Secondly, I also need to improve upon my body language and other forms of nonverbal communication. This is an aspect of my personality that I have never focused on in the past. In fact, a lot of communication happens through nonverbal gestures. For example, waiting for a senior member to sit before sitting down is a sign of respect. Looking at someone in the eye while communicating builds a deeper connect. In order to ensure a more efficient communication with my peers, seniors and other colleagues I will improve upon this aspect of my personality and ensure that my body language and gestures depict the same emotion that I wish to express.

Two recent interactions

There are a lot of interactions that I come across in my daily life. Few of them are professional while few are personal. In all these interactions communication plays a vital role. There are two specific incidents that I would mention here which helped me gauge the importance of communication and the need to improve upon the same.

I tend to use a lot of hand gestures in order to express myself. I do this when I am talking to friends, family or even colleagues. I have always felt that by using my hands I am able to explain and express myself better. However, last year we had a team of foreign delegates who visited us. We were all sitting in the conference room and unknowingly my actions were considered offensive. It seemed like I occupied a lot of space in the room which is sign of a dominating personality. This even caused a lot of conflicts between us. Therefore I need to really work upon this issue in my communication competency. This will help me have a better impact on people through my conversations.

A second notable incident that I came across was when I was asked to deliver a presentation over the last one year of performance. I was allocated precisely 15 minutes for the presentation. However, at the end of 10 minutes I realized that I have only covered the first four months of the year. Upon that realization, I had to rush through, the rest of the presentation. There were two major problems that I faced owing to this problem. First I could not present my performance in an effective manner. The second problem was that there was absolutely no time for me to take feedback from the audience or engage them. Hence it became an absolutely dull presentation where my articulated thoughts were not expressed properly. Hence I need to improve upon my presentation skills to ensure that I am able to efficiently deliver my ideas and viewpoints to people. Another thing that I learnt from the incident was that while presenting any idea, it is important to be able to engage the audience by asking them questions or taking feedbacks. This will ensure that the audience is glued till the end and all the thoughts are explicitly explained to them.

Action plan with Gantt chart

Communication plays a vital role in personal as well as professional lives. Through this course and the various tools that we worked upon, I have analyzed two important weaknesses of my communication competency and I wish to improve upon them. I have built an action plan for the same for the next 6 months.

I have divided my action plan in three different sections. I have decided to take up courses in various universities across the country. These are ideally short courses. Secondly, I have shortlisted 12 books that I need to read in order to improve my communication style and ability. Lastly, I have decided to maintain a reflective journal. I would be making weekly entries in the journal based upon my interactions with people.

The courses I have decided upon are as below:

1. AIM business school course on effective communication. This course is dedicated for enhancing negotiation and convincing skills of people. I have received tremendous positive feedback about this course and this is why I have shortlisted it. This is a 2 days course which will be held from 12-13 February. This course is slightly easy and this is why I have decided to take it in the beginning of the plan.
2. Professional development training academy course on nonverbal communication. This is the second course which I wish to take. This is a one day course and I have decided to take it in the month of March. The course focuses upon nonverbal communication, body language and specifically different body languages adopted for professional communications. They also teach basic presentation skills and this I believe will largely hemp in my career. I have decided to take this course on 23 of March 2018.
3. Swinburne University of technology course on public speaking and presentation. This is a one day course which will be conducted on 20^thJune 2018. The idea behind taking this course is to enhance my presentation skills as well as ability of public speaking. I have taken feedback on social media about this course and I have received positive reviews of people. This is just a one day course. If this does not suffice, I will take it again after 6 months.

I have also decided to read various books on communication skills. I have shortlisted 12 books that my peers and seniors have recommended to me. I have also read the reviews of these books and found them to be largely helpful. The idea behind selecting 12 books was to be able to read two books in a month. The books I have shortlisted are as below:

1. How to talk to anyone
2. Influence
3. Crucial conversations
4. Thanks for the feedback
5. How to win friends and influence people
6. Daring greatly
7. Verbal Judo
8. Outliers
9. The tipping point
10. Skill with people
11. The definitive book of body language
12. Just listen.

The last thing that I have added in my action plan is maintaining a reflective journal. This understanding has come through this course. I have realized that it is important to reflect upon important conversations and interactions. If I maintain a journal for the same, I can easily write down if I did anything wrong and can work upon improving it. Similarly, I can also ask for feedback on the same. I have decided to maintain the journal weekly and upload four entries every month. This will also help me analyze if there have been any developments in my communication skills over a span of the next six months.

These three changes are expected to help me improve my communication skills specifically my presenting competency and my nonverbal communication with people. The Gantt chart referred below has the necessary timelines which I am expected to follow in the span of the next six months. I have promised myself to follow this religiously and I sincerely hope to see an improvement in my skills thereon.