08 Oct When we communicate, as we have explored throughout our semester, we are not always as effective as we would have hoped.

Business Communications

When we communicate, as we have explored throughout our semester, we are not always as effective as we would have hoped. However, with open-minded reflection and ethical awareness of our audience’s reactions, we will know when we need change. Understanding conflict resolution then helps us decide what to change and how.

But in addition to changing, taking responsibility for miscommunication helps build our reputation as a trustworthy communicator. So, we must be prepared to present our process – realizing, correcting, and creating a plan to improve – in order to assure our audience we will do our best to avoid miscommunicating twice!

We are at the halfway mark, which is a perfect time to reflect on your team progress so far. In this step you must identify the most prevalent issue of communication breakdown your team has experienced since Module 1, and design a conflict resolution plan to ensure more successful communication as you move forward.

Remember: miscommunication or ineffective communication does count as a conflict because the potentially negative outcomes – from a loss of productivity to a loss of profit – are extensive.

 Each of you should identify the issue you feel has weakened your team’s communication in the previous project steps, and create a presentation to share your thoughts and modified communication plan. However, keep in mind gaining multiple perspectives should be part of resolving conflict effectively, so you will need to include a clearly dedicated section of your presentation for gaining your team members’ feedback.

You will then hold a virtual meeting using Canvas Conferences to present to one another and collaborate to decide on a plan for resolving the issues each of your team members has brought up. Be sure to choose the option to record your Canvas Conference, so participation is clear. Following your team meeting, have your designated summarizer synthesize the main ideas from the presentations as well as the new communication plan in your team thread. See Using Conferences as a Student: Canvas Tutorial WorkshopLinks to an external site. for help.

Finally, this week is an opportunity to catch up on past steps. During your meeting, you may also include a slide or slides to revisit any two previous project steps and discuss these with your team to regain points. This will also strengthen the project through reflection and increased contribution of diverse perspectives. Be sure to label your slide clearly with the specific step(s) you are revisiting so your grade can be reviewed and amended.

For the content of your presentation, please use the following six steps to design a conflict resolution plan that will address your communication breakdown. Additionally, review this week’s resources on the different presentation media you can use, and choose one you believe works best.  

Clarify the issue:

Identify and explain how well you believe your team has been communicating.

Describe, in detail, the most detrimental example of communication breakdown the team has experienced so far. What went wrong, where, why, and how?

 Identify the common goal:

Explain the requirement or expectations for the week(s) in which the communication breakdown occurred.

Identify and explain whether or not the team has stuck to the original communication plan set in Module 1.

 Analyze the perspectives of your teammates in this communication breakdown.

What were their reasons for not being able to meet the goal?

Why do you believe the original communication plan did not work in this instance?

 Brainstorm solutions that consider these perspectives as well as your own.

Identify what you did, if anything, to correct this incident of ineffective communication.

If you did nothing, explain why not. If you did attempt a correction, explain what you did and what happened – i.e. did it work?

Regardless of whether your correction worked or not, describe at least two possible solutions that could have corrected this communication breakdown and why this change would lead to more effective communication.

 Identify, in your opinion, the best of those two solutions and explain why you believe it is the best choice.

 To prevent this communication breakdown as you move forward to Module 7, create a brief formal list of rules based on the solution you identified.

How and why is the solution you came up with using the six conflict resolution steps stronger than the actions you actually took in reality?