Question

Describe a project that you worked on, either personally or professionally, that was hampered by communication difficulties and interpersonal challenges. Based on what you have learned about emotional intelligence and cultural and generational awareness, what recommendations would you make to improve interpersonal and team dynamics? Explain the rationale behind your recommendations.

Answer 1

Scenario-Time when I failed to speak was during a class project presentation. Reasons for silence were similar to what is mentioned in the case as:

• I was not 100% prepared on the topic of presentation technically. Lacked knowledge on few basic terminologies
• It made difficult for me to answer few complex questions asked by faculty panel members.
• Also my team members were not very fully prepared and often failed to interpret our presentation to the class and faculty
• All above made us nervous and fumble during the whole presentation

1. For the tongue-tied following strategies can be used:
   • One should to try to make the conversation active and engaging
   • Another should try to answer a query and continue the conversation, if one fails

Recommendations and rationale:

• Call the name of the person as in team of specialization etc. or let’s say a better person to answer the question. This will endure the person/s to come up and answer
• Make the conversation engaging by re-directing it to the other members, so that everyone feels themselves as important part of the conversation and expert to answer on queries
• Another should try to answer a query and continue the conversation, if one fails
• If not able to communicate or have the 100% knowledge on the topic, one should rather break up the topics into fragments and then try to find and answer in small sets and subsets. This gives confidence in the person and team and also eventually helps to think in a progressive manner
• All team members need to encourage each other, by appreciating the comments and engaging the conversation in an optimistic manner