University of Maryland, College Park

Pearl Diving Assignment 2

Shivangi Singh

Communication for Project Managers: ENCE614

Dr. Shana Webster-Trotman

October 29, 2022

As an aspiring product manager, I strongly believe that project management skills are one
of the important skills for all product managers. I have also understood why communication
skills are so crucial that we must master them to effectively manage a team. The reason is that
95% of the time of a project manager’s time is spent communicating. Having said that, this essay
highlights the importance of having great communication skills in a few of those scenarios where
we need to address the team’s lackluster performance, handle a demeaning crucial conversation
with a boss, the art of storytelling telling, important concepts learned, results and insights from
Big Five Personality Assessment.

Email to address the team’s performance

One of the HBR articles mentioned, “A number of factors can contribute to a team’s
lackluster performance: individual mistakes, strained interpersonal dynamics, a lack of
communication between the leader and team members, or some combination of all of these”
(Sugar, 2022). If I am a team leader and I have to address performance issues and the need to
improve them then firstly I would like to take some advice from my peer who has managed an
underperforming team, seek support from my manager and ask for his/her advice whenever my
team needs it. Before sharing feedback with my team, I would assess my leadership style and
might ask questions like how am I leading my team? How am I holding everyone accountable for
their work? After assessing feedback, I will write an email to the team as follows:

Hi Everyone,

We have been working together as a team for a long time and I think, by now, all of us know how
things run here. We’re a team and we have been giving our best to meet our deadlines. As a team
leader, I have been noticing that instead of our efforts, we have not been productive so far. I am
concerned about our team’s performance and the need to improve it. I wanted to discuss the
itemized list below outlining performance issues:
• There is a lack of attention toward new projects during meetings with other teams. This
has impacted our focus on current work as too many clarifying emails have been sent
back and forth.
• Team members have been skipping the last two important team discussions and other
team members have to come forward to meet the project deadline on time, resulting in a
slowed performance of the entire team.

This feedback is not meant to make anyone feel bad and I have no intention of replacing anyone
on the team as well. We have to work together as a team to move forward with the goal to
improve our performance in ongoing and upcoming projects. In order to do so, I would like to
take the following steps:
• Individual one-on-one meetings to understand your concerns, goals, and the areas
where one needs to focus on, and how I can help you to get required training if there is a
need.
• Meet bi-weekly as a group to check our performance progress, and address issues and
any communication gaps at team levels or others.
I would also like to inform you that upper management has assured us that they will provide
support and resources to us whenever we need them. As we know, our company strives for
excellence and firmly believes that we can tremendously learn from our failures and thrive while
overcoming challenges.

So, let me know if anyone has a different thought and what we can do together to meet our
company’s standards.

Best regards,
Shivangi Singh

In the above email, I highlighted two major problems related to team performance with specific
scenarios where those have been seen. Later on, I mentioned the actions that I would like to take
together as a team to improve each individual’s and hence the team’s overall performance. It was
important to co-create individual and team goals to strive for the best and think about the future
(Sugar, 2022).

A concept from group activity

One of the most important concepts that I have learned in a group activity is
communicating through storytelling. Communicating a story is one part but what your story is
and its elements are the most important of the two. Professor shared that our stories should be
thoughtful, and authentic, must show what we feel, and try to leave it on a positive note. Another
factor to consider is the content that we want to share (vulnerability), we should think about what
we share and why, how certain things changed us, and shaped our personality (protagonist). So,
the main elements of a good story are – emotions, background or context, chronological or
reverse chronological order, a hook, and transitional phrases. I have never given thought to the
fact that 65% of daily conversations are our stories.
This concept is very important to me because I believe that I am good at making daily
conversations with known people but when it comes to talking to unknown people, I generally
lack the context that I like to share. I feel that I become more vulnerable if I share something that
I am not supposed to share then I overthink about it. However, my perception changed about it
when Alexander Camacho shared his story during storytelling class. His story was very powerful
and emotionally engaging; he shared his challenges and vulnerabilities and how he overcome all
of those. So, I have planned to use this concept of using all elements of a good story in daily
conversations first, then learn how to communicate it effectively using storytelling techniques
mentioned in Five stars: the communication secrets to get from good to great. The reason for
adopting this in daily conversation is important for me to minimize conflicts that I sometimes
have with my family. I have understood that the context that I provide to them is often
incomplete and they cannot understand my intention. One recent example is, I had a conflict with
my sister last week about the venue where she is deciding to get married. In India, we have
usually very big families and invite hundreds of guests to our weddings. She told me her reasons
to book this place because it’s spacious, extremely beautiful and she has heard positive reviews
from her friends. On the other hand, I had a different view that she should not book such an
expensive venue. I told her about other things that she should be concerned about like décor,
food, stays, etc., but I haven’t shared the background story with her thinking that she is well
aware of them and that my parents are not in favor of spending money thriftlessly. They are more
conservative, prefer to have a low-key wedding, and secure our future in midst of current market
conditions. This might be a small issue but sometimes such small things create a mess. So, I have
planned to use elements of a story to keep everyone connected and in the conversation. This will
give me the overall ability to learn to communicate via storytelling even at my workplace where
one miscommunication can be a disaster.

Crucial conversation with a demeaning boss

As mentioned in Crucial conversations: tools for talking when stakes are high, “When
it’s unsafe, people start to go blind (Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, & Switzler, 2012, p.50). The
same thing happened to the boss when he called me an idiot. He has been feeling unsafe because
of unmet deadlines which occurred because of legal complications of the company (since no
context has been provided in the question, I am assuming that he had been discussing a missing
deadline in front of the entire team). The techniques that I will use are ‘learn to look at safety is
at risk, forms of silence and violence, your style under stress’ first. As per the score in Style
Under Stress, I have a Silence style (Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, & Switzler, 2012, p.49, p.54,
p.56, p.61). In this situation, when my boss made a comment safety is at risk, his form is
violence, and mutual respect is at the risk here.
Now I will apply the next techniques: step out of the conversation, build safety, and find
a way to make a dialogue about this situation. I will use the ‘Contrasting’ technique to build
safety and make a dialogue, that is, confirms my respect.
I will mention, “Boss, I understand your concern but calling out an idiot is not something
even you would have liked to say to anyone. Let me put this in perspective. It was an unfortunate
event that we could not deliver what we have said instead of our team putting 100% effort to
finish the project on time. But we were working with other teams who were handling legal issues
and we had been informed that they have been given a pass. It was at the last moment that we
had been informed, we cannot deliver this project until next week”. (Patterson, Grenny,
McMillan, & Switzler, 2012, p.77, p.80).
If I would have not read Crucial conversations: tools for talking when stakes are high,
then I would have not handled this situation very well. My stress style (as per the Style Under
Stress test) is Silence, with which I agree. I would have walked out of the room or stayed quiet,
without mentioning anything because I felt disrespected. However, I have learned the mentioned
techniques on how to handle such condescending conversations. I have decided to choose
‘Contrasting’, not ‘Apologizing’, not ‘CRIB’ technique because we know our mutual purpose,
but our intents were misunderstood. Boss has disrespected me (he might be in a bad mood, or
maybe he has a violence style under stress) because he was angry that timelines were missed and
unaware that we weren’t at fault here.

Story of overcoming adversity

This section highlights one of my experiences from my previous job at Airtel, India when
I worked as a software engineer, and we were a small team of 5-6 members who had been going
through some challenging times in the organization.
Back in June 2019 at Airtel India, organization had been going through some internal
departmental reorganization. Many teams were split into smaller teams to create scrum teams.
My team was one of the affected teams, we were 6 members – one was a team leader, three were
backend software engineers (including me and one was serving a notice period), one was a new
hire and the last one was an intern. We had just started working on a brand-new project, the year
goal of the organization - building a B2B onboarding platform, from scratch that demanded more
resources on the project.
But, one day we were told that the VP of the organization and senior management had
demanded that they would like to see the pilot version of the platform. Because of that, we were
stressed because we had lack of resources and were short of time to build something in two
weeks with any front-end developers.
To everyone’s surprise, I put my foot forward and asked my team lead to let me develop
the front end of the platform/website. Since I had always been planning to learn new
technologies, but I never got such a chance to build something because of ongoing commitments.
I thought that it was a brilliant opportunity to own something and build it from the root.
Happy to see my proposal, my manager and team lead decided to put new hire and intern
with me whom I could mentor because they were in the training phase, and it was an opportunity
for them to show team collaboration in such tough times when we were dealing with limited time
and resources.
Because of that, we had to put in more than 60 hours and even weekends to learn a new
programming language, and new technologies, and build a system architecture within two weeks.
I divided the work among the three of us based on the skill sets that we had because we had to
optimize. I took the responsibility to integrate more complex existing software within the
organization as I was aware of most of them. The new hire learned a new programming language
and started development. Interest of the intern was more inclined toward working on user design
(UX), so he took ownership of that. Making it work was a real challenge because I had been
working on my tasks along with mentoring two colleagues.
And finally, with enthusiasm, cooperation, and collaboration, I was able to build the very
first version of the website with the help of my colleagues (new hire and intern). We presented
this version, and although we got some mixed feedback on its look-and-feel, but management
was satisfied because they wanted to see if their ideas can be turned into reality.
And at the end of the second quarter (Jul-Sep), I was given an award and recognition as a
‘GEM (Going Extra Mile) of Airtel’ and being a good mentor.
This experience has changed my mindset and self-awareness because that was one of the
most stressful times in my professional life. Post that, I did some self-reflection on my
capabilities, my skill set, and my strengths and weaknesses. I realized that I am good at
mentorship and motivating people. From there on, my manager used to make me the buddy to
new hires. I have always felt proud that I took that opportunity as it has made me more confident
in taking on more challenges in my career.

Big Five Personality Assessment

Big Five Personality Assessment measures key personality traits (OCEAN) and the
scores that I have got in percentages: Openness (92%), Conscientiousness (79%), Extraversion
(42%), Agreeableness (77%), Neuroticism (23%). I would say that I totally agree with the
results, they are my almost true personality traits of me. The Openness trait highlights that I am
creative and adventurous and generally don’t follow traditional ways. I won’t deny the fact that
since childhood I have always been the one in my family who has chosen different pathways to
build my life and career. I am one of the first generations in my family who have come abroad
for higher studies, and no one has ever given a thought to doing so. I always wanted to learn
more about people around the world, their cultures, and their values and I also wanted to
experience what it is like studying abroad and living with entirely new people. This idea to
discover new experiences have always been a driving factor in making different decisions in my
life. The conscientiousness score says that I am organized and determined and forego
gratification for sake of long-term achievement. I am more surprised by this score because one of
the factors that I consider whenever I decide on something is my long-term goals. I always keep
my short-term goals and long-term goals. For e.g. I have been letting go of my joy of traveling
and skipping my crafting hobby for almost one year. I usually enjoy it because it rejuvenates my
mind. But because of grad studies, interview preparation, and an on-campus job, I could not do
these things because my first priority is to secure a job and I know these things can be put on
hold. Being an introvert, I enjoy my company and I find it mentally draining to engage socially
very often with people. I do like to have friends, talk to them, and go out with them but doing it
often is sometimes a challenge. With a score of 77% in Agreeableness, I agree that I am an
empathetic and emotional person, I put the needs of others ahead of mine and I like helping
people and taking care of others, it gives me a sense of happiness and a sense of responsibility as
a human being. I think that because of my positive outlook toward life, nature and people help
me to overcome the challenges that I have been facing till now. I have been patient in situations
when my family had been through times during covid physically, emotionally, and financially. I
kept my calm, hope, and positive energy to maintain a balance.
However, Jung and DISC personality assessments mention traits of personality type
(ISTJ) and my high steadiness (42%) and compliance style (24%). Jung’s personality is similar
to the Big five in two traits Introvert and Judger but different in Sensor and Thinker traits. Big
five more accurately depicts my personality traits as compared to Jung. Whereas DISC traits
depict mostly my personality style during work. DISC is not similar to the Big five personality
assessment. I realized that taking different personality assessments was very beneficial to me.
The reasons are – I am more self-aware, and I know why I do what I do because I do what I
think. Why I do make friends who have more or less similar traits as I have. This is my
personality; everyone has a different personality and sometimes we appreciate our differences
and sometimes not. Now, I am also aware of the fact that though my steadiness could be one of
the traits but depending upon the situation I can flex my preferences and act accordingly. I know
why I react in certain situations and why I don’t. I strongly believe that these assessments have
made me reflect more on behaviors, traits, and actions. I know my strengths and weakness. From
now, I am going to keep a track of how I can improve myself to become a better version of
myself.

Conclusion
I would like to summarize some important lessons that I have learned from the readings,
class exercises, and Big Five personality assessments. I have learned, at least theoretically by
answering questions 1 and 3, how to manage crucial conversations with a team and a boss. I put
myself in that situation and thought about how I would have reacted without knowing ethos,
pathos, logos, and conversation techniques; and after learning techniques. It is truly amazing to
see, how the mind works when it has learned something new. I would apply learned techniques
even in any situation with my family, friends, or colleagues. I have also learned how including
the seven elements in a story engages listeners and makes them curious to know the end of the
story. I applied this technique to a small grocery store story with my flatmate as well. In closing,
I would like to say that this essay gives me the time to reflect back on different skills that I need
to learn and my personality traits to become more self-aware - a path to becoming an effective
communicator and a project manager. I could relate to the quote:

“Look outside and you will see yourself. Look inside and you will find yourself.” ~ Drew Gerald
 Works Cited

O'Hair D. Rubenstein H. & Stewart R. A. (2019). A pocket guide to public speaking (Sixth).
Bedford/St. Martins.

Sugar, A. (2022, August 9). What to Do If Your Team Is Underperforming. Harvard Business
Review. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2022/08/what-to-do-if-
your-team-is-underperforming

Gallo, C. (2018). Five stars: the communication secrets to get from good to great. [Unabridged]
New York, NY, Macmillan Audio.

Faulkner, Michael, and Andrea Nierenberg. Networking for College Students and Graduates.
Pearson Learning Solutions, 2017. Print.

Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2012). Crucial conversations: tools for
talking when stakes are high (Second). McGraw-Hill.
Big Five Personality Assessment