BUS709 Communication in Business Online Tutoring

How the readings, class activities, discussions observations and lectures have changed how you communicate at work or life:

Any place we go, we need to impart to account for ourselves to other people. communication is utilized in each and everything. Be that as it may, how we convey can vary from others. There is a moral and immoral method of communication. In this reflective journal, I am going to discuss my perspectives and information which I picked up in this subject and how valuable it is in my regular daily existing tasks.

At this point, there is formal and casual communication and it can be expressed through different ways of communication. communication can be written, verbally expressed, digitalized, and through signs. I used to be extremely sudden in my words and didn’t think before I talk, yet now. since the time I started taking this subject, I ran over the ethical methods of communication. It helped me to explore my words in the correct circumstances. I found out about the effect of utilizing moral words at work and in day by day life communication. Now and again our words are confused because of the misinterpretation of words, non-verbal conduct, and absence of focus which can contrast our thoughts with wrong meanings. The class exercises in this subject showed me how to remain cautious and engaging throughout the class activities and discussions. It is very important to use simple and expressive words to make others understand what you are trying to say. There can be cultural differences and a common language could help decrease the language barrier problems and could also help in eliminating it. It is very important to correlate our body gesture with our words as it helps the other person understand us more. It is very important to have a formal body gesture as stated by,

Gullburg, 2013, as cited in Ozuorcun, F. 2014, defines gestures and body language by stating that “gestures reflect and interact with cultural, linguistic, cognitive, and more general aspects of communication, showing systematic variation across a range of measures in each of these domains’’

I learned about Hofstede’s model of intercultural communication. It taught me about the society’s culture and how it adds value to its members. I learned how people from different cultures interact with others and it helped me comprehend the world better. I stopped generalizing individuals and quit deciding on somebody through ethical and racial divisions. It helped me learn new things about various cultures and I began mingling more with individuals. The class discussions where we talked about interpersonal communication, helped me improve how I interacted with people. I went over how great interpersonal communication encourages us to work in gatherings and groups. It showed me the significance of tuning in and accepting criticisms. It helped me improve my relationship with my partner as we can give and receive feedback among us, and we can sift through our issues without any problem. It also taught me to maintain eye contact and engaging body language while associating with Someone to make sure the other person is sure of your interest (Jackson, T., Dawson, R. and Wilson, D., 1999).  It helped me in connecting more effectively with my work colleagues and customers.

Through my class activities, I learned how persuasive communication helps us interact with our audience better. It gave me a confident approach to interact with their values, needs, and desires. It helped me build my confidence in the workplace. I learned to put people needs over mine at work and how I should be interacting actively and enthusiastically to make my work environment better and create better customer satisfaction.

The class exercises and conversations about organizational communication has helped me a great deal with my work. It helped me in defining my objectives and how to exchange information to stay away from confusion and resolve issues. It coordinated my enthusiasm towards accomplishing my objectives and perform better with my peers. I have a better understanding of my friends now. It likewise helped my oral communication and in the advancement of my education. It has widened my reasoning capacity and now I feel progressively certain while speaking my opinion.

The most important thing I learned in my class activities is managing conflicts and how to resolve them. It is the most crucial yet important factor to maintain a healthy work environment. I learned how to talk with the other person and identify the points of agreement and disagreement. We can develop an effective plan to mitigate conflicts between us as it is a key factor in achieving goals (Hussain. Z, 2013).

Bacon & Blyton, 2017, as cited in Tjosvold, D., Wong, A.S.H and Feng Chen, N.Y. 2014, defines the impact of undiscussed conflicts as “Conflicts seldom disappear by themselves and often fester and grow without direct discussion and action”

The things your assignment group did well or not so well:

Recently we submitted a group assignment and there were many ups and downs in the process of developing and evaluating it. The first complication was the development of groups who were going to work together. I was introduced to people with different cultures than mine. But it was a good attempt to socialize and learn more and more about others. We were given a topic of sustainability and our actions are not going to affect our society and cultures.

We tried our best to do well throughout the assignment process till submission, we worked really hard to provide the best information for our climate change report. but yet we faced some difficulties. The first was to divide the assignment tasks between our group members as it was a different topic, we had to investigate and search for the information that we were going to include in our report. There was a lot of available information on this topic, but we had to make our report unique and interesting. Due to Covid19 chaotic situation, we were moved to online studies. So, there were sometimes connectivity problems and we couldn’t meet to discuss our givens tasks. The second problem was that some of my group members flew back to their countries with different time zones, so it was difficult to schedule online meetings. There was another problem and it was the language barrier and inefficiency in English. Some of us made many grammatical and structural mistakes and we felt like lost in some parts of the assignment. There was an indication of a lack of group meetings and discussions. There was hesitation and less interaction between members of my group. There was critically low follow up on the tasks done and the tasks left to be done. and it delayed the deadline we decided to finish with the report but yet we were able to finish it before the official university deadline. Some of my group members didn’t know how to cite quotes and do the references. We took some information from a scholarly website and mistakenly lost the website before we could write down the references. One of my group members quoted information from Wikipedia which made it totally unreliable and we had to change it in the end time to make it authentic. These all happened because there was a lack of communication between us and we didn’t check another person’s part until they were done with it. We also didn’t go to Online Tutoring sessions and consultations to help us get a better understanding of what we were supposed to do.

These were the difficulties that we faced throughout the assignment process but still we managed to do our best. I made new friends and learned about them.

What you could do to improve in future group work:

To improve my future group assignments, I would host a meeting with my group member and discuss the whole topic of the assignment and then we can decide who is going to wear on what part as it is going to be easy for everyone and they can pick up the tasks they are more comfortable with.  Then I will discuss the assignment criteria and structure that we are going to follow throughout the tasks. I will host regular meetings with my group members to keep a follow up on the work that we have done so far so that in the meantime we can discuss it within the group. We can prioritize the tasks and keep a note on the side of every note where we can write references so that we don’t miss them in the end. We must also attend all Online Tutoring sessions and we can ask our teachers more questions related to the current situation of the assignment. The other strategy would be to write a rough draft first and then discuss it with the whole group so that we can clear out all of the wrong information present in it before we write the final report. It would help us finish everything before submission and will give us a lot of time to review the progress we have made. It will ensure the quality of our work.

How you will go from here to become a better communicator:

Before I took this subject, I had a very casual way of communication. I used to be abrupt with my words. I did not what to talk about and how to talk in formal situations. I had conflicts at work and an aggressive and forceful tone. Throughout this semester I learned a lot from this subject. I learned to differentiate between formal and informal communication and how communication skills can help us in life. It helped me build trust and I interacted with more and more people. IT boosted my confidence and morale in dealing with new people. I used to be scared of interviews as I didn’t know how to prepare for it and what to say at the right time. I recently got a new job because I was confident enough to speak and present myself in a profound way. I have better clarity in my words and my body language follows my mind and tongue. I have got an improved relationship with my partner as instead of showing anger or fighting over conflicts, we can actually talk and resolve our issues and stay happy. I have a new motivation and a productive approach toward my goals. I have. A better understanding of the importance of teamwork and sharing ideas and how it leads the whole team towards success (Kumbhar. V, 2013). I have learned how to mitigate conflicts between myself and other people. I have developed a better trust of my work colleagues on me and we discuss through our tasks to help each other out. My good communication skills have resulted in a battering relationship with my clients and I have developed their loyalty. This is the first time I have ever interacted this much with my peers in university. I got confident and less hesitant to talk to other individuals and make new friends from different cultures and races. I started learning about other cultures present around me and diversified myself with a new way of thinking and decision making. I started to have a better understanding of the things around me and my responsibility towards them. My class participation had a massive increase because I felt confident to speak what I thought was right. I started speaking simple and untestable sentences to make it easy for even a non-English speaker to understand me and communicate with me. Sometimes there is not even a need for words, communication can be done through actions and signs. I have created better opportunities for myself as I started interacting with more people and started socializing. The optimistic approach in me gives me new tasks and challenges to help and groom myself even more.

References:

Colegio Santa María del Camino. (2015).Colegio Santa María del Camino / The Importance of oral communication.

Fisher, T.L. and White, M.F. (2004). Signaling Pathways: The Benefits of Good Communication. Current Biology, 14(23), pp.R1005-R1007.

Hussain. Z, 2013, ‘Effective communication brings successful organizational change’, The Business & Management Review, Vol.3 Number-2, January 2013

Jackson, T., Dawson, R. and Wilson, D., 1999. Improving the communications process: the costs and effectiveness of email compared with traditional media.

Kumbhar. V, 2013, ‘ Economics of Transport and Communication’ M.A.-II, Edition: 1, Chapter: Business Communication, Publisher: Distance education Center, Shivaji University,

Ozuocrum, F. 2014, The Impotrance of Body Language In Intercultural Communications’, EUL Journal of Social Science Aralik

Tjosvold, D., Wong, A.S.H and Feng Chen, N.Y. (2014). Constructively Managing Conflicts in Organisations. Annual Review of Organisational Psychology and Organisational Behavior.