Timothy Ogunsola

April 1,2023
ENCE 424
Professor Webster-Trotman

A.
Good afternoon Team,

Hope all is well, I’d like to address some issues with the productivity and efficiency of the
performance at the company. Although I know the team has been trying their best I have noticed
some issues. Within the last quarter the company's product development has gone down by 36
percent which has also resulted in a huge earnings loss. The investors are rightfully disappointed
although I do believe that they are being hard on us.

From my observations there are a few primary causes for this issue. The first cause I believe
comes from poor communication amongst the team members. This lackluster communication
creates confusion and complications for the project. This in turn causes a delay in time and then
inevitably cost. Another potential cause for the meager performance is a poorly laid out and
unorganized schedule. In hindsight it has become clear to me that the delegation of tasks on the
schedule was done in a way that was a lot of conflict between tasks. This puts a lot of
unnecessary pressure on our workers to get tasks done within an unrealistic time frame. This then
created fatigue among the team members. This ongoing fatigue throughout the duration of the
quarter led to burnout. I feel as though this was the main contributing factor in the large
productivity drop during the latter half of the quarter. Moving forward I promise to be more
attentive to the amount of tasks given. I would like to also address some software issues that we
have been having in the last few months.

We will have a meeting next monday to talk about how to address these issues. Understand that
i’m not mad I just know that we can do better

Thanks
Timothy Ogunsola

B.
One technique that I found was using mutual purpose to resolve conflicts. Crucial conversations
describe mutual purpose as “Mutual Purpose means that others perceive that we are working
toward a common outcome in the conversation, that we care about their goals, interests, and
values. And vice versa. We believe they care about ours. Consequently, Mutual Purpose is the
entry condition of dialogue. Find a shared goal and you have both a good reason and a healthy
climate for talking.” (Pg 69) Mutual purpose means that during a crucial conversation we use the
idea of having a common outcome heading into the conversation. Additionally make sure that
the person we are talking to understands we are invested in their wellbeing and goals. This
creates an atmosphere for talking that reduces the likelihood of animosity and conflict during the
conversation. It's also important to make sure that our feelings are genuine otherwise our
inauthenticity will come out during the conversation. It's imperative that you are really
introspective and ask yourself several questions before initiating the dialogue. Questions such as
“what do you want from this” , “what do I want others to gain from this?” and “do I genuinely
care about their wellbeing”.

This technique is really important to me because as an aspiring project manager I'll have to deal
with a lot of conflict and animosity. To be better prepared when these problems arrive in the
future. Using the principle of mutual purpose to resolve conflict and to hold crucial
conversations. I will be working with a lot of people from different backgrounds and different
personality types. Keeping mutual purpose in mind gives me a systematic approach to take when
I have to have a difficult conversation.

I plan on using mutual purpose by implementing this with crucial conversations that I have
moving forward. In fact I have already used this in several conversations that I have had within
the last few weeks.

One example is that a few weeks ago I had a discussion about the importance of the
representation of black women in the media with my classmate. This was a crucial conversation
because if they continued to be ignorant I would no longer interact with them. Entering the
conversation I saw myself asking the questions from crucial conversation chapters such as "what
do you want from this” , “what do I want others to gain from this?” and “do I genuinely care
about their wellbeing”. First I wanted to emphasize the importance of media representation for
black women and how it affects their self esteem. Second, I wanted the other person to gain an
understanding of how the existence of certain stereotypes in the media is extremely harmful.
Lastly I cared about how their perspective could affect the wellbeing of black women that they
interact with. This allowed me to enter the conversation cool headed. As a result of this new
approach I made sure to bring some evidence and examples of how that individual's perspective
could be very problematic. After a long discussion the person agrees to be more aware and
respectful moving forward.

I also used this technique in another crucial conversation that I had with my roommate about
their hygiene and cleanliness habits. They would leave plates on the dining table and not clean
up after they were eating. They would also often leave clothes in the living room, as they would
sometimes take a hoodie , or sweatpants ( because they wore shorts under their pants) off in the
living room and leave them there. Even worse they would sometimes leave their socks in the
living room too which was extremely off putting. Instead of getting angry I gave myself some
time to collect my thoughts (which is what I usually do) but what I did differently this time is
that I asked myself those questions from the crucial conversations chapter. "what do you want
from this” , “what do I want others to gain from this?” and “do I genuinely care about their
wellbeing”. First I knew I wanted my roommate to change their habits. Second I wanted for my
roommate and I to have a living space that is presentable and up to standard. Lastly, I genuinely
care for my roommates' well being because I wanted them to develop habits that will benefit
them in the future. When it was time for conversation I made sure to reiterate throughout the
conversation that the change would not only benefit me but also greatly benefit them in the
future too. After the conversation they seemed very understanding with an intention to change.
Although bad habits typically die hard, I'm sure with time their behavior will change.

C.
If my boss called me an idiot in front of my team my first reaction would be to get angry and
immediately retaliate for disrespecting me in front of my team. This is why I would initially
implement strategies from ch 6 of crucial conversations “how to stay in dialogue when you’re
angry, scared or hurt”. It's very easy to see why in a situation like this for your emotions to get
out of control and for things to escalate quickly. But it's important to remember that emotions can
make you say things that you regret. Ideally saying you regret to an authoritative isn’t a mistake
we’d like to make.

Chapter 6 of crucial conversations mentions how you need to develop the ability to have control
over your emotions.The to do this the book mentions claims that you have to make “Claim One.
Emotions don't settle upon you like a fog. They are not foisted upon you by others. No matter
how comfortable it might make you feel saying it-others don't make you mad. You make you
mad. You and only you create your emotions.”(Pg 94) You first must understand that you’re the
one that has control over your emotions and technically no one has the ability to make you mad,
rather it's your reaction to someone else's actions and behavior that gets you heated. So initially
when i’m insulted by my boss the first reaction would be to act on the anger. To avoid making
this mistake the book mentions a strategy called “The path to action”. Which has several steps.
The first step is to “See and Hear” what the other person is saying. Second is to tell a story in
your mind of what happened. Next you have to feel your emotions and do your best to influence
them towards a positive one. Lastly once you're in a positive mindset you can now act.

Putting this mechanism into practice with the situation at hand proves to be very effective. Once
the boss calls me an “idiot” and feels the emotion of anger, I proceed to the next step which
would be the story you tell yourself. There’s several ways to look at the situation at hand. The
story I feel would be most effective in this scenario would be something along the lines of “the
boss has probably been really stressed out this week, maybe I should ask him how he’s doing, he
hasn’t lashed out like this before he must have a reason”. This benefits me because this makes
me think of the other person's feelings and emotions instead of only thinking of my own.
Formulating a more caring story sets me up perfectly for the next step in the “Path to action”
which is Feel.

The story I have developed allows me to feel sympathy. Now that I'm in a sympathetic state I am
able to act in a way that's positive and benefits all of those that are involved.

Now there’s a few actions I can take that would be sympathetic in nature. One thing that comes
to mind is to bring coffee or donuts as some sort of peace offering.The boss seeing that he called
an idiot in front of the whole team and me responding with sympathy may throw them off. This
will likely lessen the tension between my boss and I as I went out of my way to give something
to my boss to demonstrate compassion and show them how important our relationship is to me.
Another thing I can do is get my team members to vouch for me and call out my boss on
behavior. This allows the boss to see that his actions didn’t just impact me but the rest of my
team. At the moment it might be easy to want to find a sneaky way to get back at your doing
something so disrespectful. So as to what I would say to my boss at that moment I would likely
defer to the rule of “if you don't have anything nice to say then say anything at all”. At first you
may think that you look weak because you didn’t say anything but this will help keep the peace.
If I instead give in to my initial emotions then I would have likely said something hurtful and
that I might have regretted.

This strategy hits all three of the rhetorical devices (ethos, pathos and logos). It appeals to ethos
by getting my peers and workers to vouch for competence and credibility. Once my boss sees
how much I’m loved by the people that I supervise they quickly realize the baselessness of their
insult.

It appeals to pathos by trying to sympathize with my boss and understand where they are coming
from. This is further emphasized by asking the boss how they are doing and buying them donuts
or coffee as some sort of peace offering. This will allow the boss to be vulnerable and open his
heart up. As I learned in class this strategy will be one of the most effective because emotions
have a strong effect on the brain.
To appeal to logos I would probably provide the boss with statistics and facts that show how
much my presence has benefited the company. Specifically numbers and graphs that show how
much productivity and efficiency has gone up as a result of supervision.

D.
After that lecture we had with Alex I began to see the importance of storytelling when
connecting with people. The structure to storytelling as Alex gave it is that you start off with a
hook. This is because first impressions are everything and you want the listener to be
immediately interested in what you are saying. Next you need it to be from the heart because you
want to be authentic and when you aren’t being sincere others can feel it. Once you're sure it's
from the heart you have to give them your story.

The book goes into greater detail about the different types of storytelling and the way to apply
them. According to Five Stars “The story can be delivered in about 60 seconds. One of the
challenges with storytelling is keeping the audience’s attention without putting them to sleep
with a long, ponderous story. Details are vital, but it takes practice and feedback to keep your
stories compelling and brief”(Pg 172). A story has to have seven elements for it to be impactful.
First is that it has to be a story. Second, it has to be interesting. Third, it has to be authentic.
Fourth, it has to be very detailed. Fifth it has to have a surprise at the end. Sixth, through the
story it has to have characters that the listener cares about. Lastly it has to have conflict.

Using these elements I will now craft a story of when I faced adversity. This will be a story of
how I learned to run the hurdles track and field event in high school. It started off in sophomore
year of high school when I was doing different track and field events. I was already doing sprints
like the 60m, 100m, 200m and 300m. But I saw some other students doing hurdles which looked
really cool. So I told my friends that we should try it. They said “no way” because it seemed
scary. To be honest it looked scary to me too but for some reason that made me want to try it
even more. So I joined the training group with the other people participating in hurdles and
began to train with. It starts the very stretches and drills that you do when getting ready to do an
extensive running workout. But it also included extra stretches for your hips since hurdles put a
lot of strain on your hip flexor muscles. Initially there was a lot of stretching and pre-exercises
before we got to the actual thing. Understandably due to the biomechanics of hurdling and the
different motions your body has to go through to hurdle.

After a few weeks it was time to finally run over a hurdle. In my mind I thought I was prepared,
I told myself things like ”it’s just a hurdle there is nothing to worry about” or “the worst thing
that can happen is that you fall and if you do, you’ll get back up”. Even with all that prep that I
still hesitated. I ran out of the starting block but bailed out as soon as I got to the first hurdle.
Second time I ran out of the starting block and actually followed through. Even though I didn’t
really hurdle the barrier, it was more of a jump. But I was still really proud of myself because I
still did it.

When I first started out I was the worst out of all my peers. All of the other students who were
competing in the event were better than me. Even though they were older than me and have been
competing in the event for longer than I have, it was still a little bit discouraging. But I didn’t let
that stop me. I continued to train for hurdles during practice. I even sometimes before and after
practice further tune my technique. Of course it didn’t happen overnight but in due time I got
better and better. By the end of the winter season I was able to surpass some of my teammates
and qualify for the regional meet. This was a very moving moment because I started a few
months earlier not knowing anything about hurdling than after weeks of intensive hard work I
was able to receive the fruits of my labor. I then ran at the regional track and didn’t qualify for
the next round of meets. However I did PR and was left with a hunger that remained unsatisfied.

This experience taught me several important things about adversity and challenges in life. The
first is that failure is a necessary part of the process. When you fail it means you made a mistake.
The initial reaction may be to beat yourself wondering what you could’ve, should’ve done. But
you have to remember that no one is perfect and people never get things right the first time. You
must first know what not to do before you know what you should do. These failure help build
resilience which is an essential skill to have in life

It also taught me the importance of consistency when you are trying to develop a skill. You can
really want to get good at something but if you don’t repeatedly put in the effort and time then
you won’t see the results. Little everyday is better than nothing at all. Which leads into the next
lesson that I Learned from this experience.

The phenomenon known as Delayed gratification. This concept prior to my experience as a track
athlete was pretty foreign to me. This is because prior to this most things I wanted were easy to
me so I didn’t have to try too hard to get good at most things. But this was different, it
challenged me and was not something that I got good at overnight. It takes weeks of intense
workout in the rain and cold. Weeks where I felt like I wasn’t making any progress or worse the
weeks where I felt like I was taking steps backwards. But because I chose to be patient with
myself, I eventually received the benefits.

E.
After completing the Big Five Personality Test feel like it's pretty accurate an agreeable in
regards to what I think of of myself

For Openness I scored a 92% which I feel is accurate because these people described it as
abstract and complex. Which are skills that I use a lot as an Architecture major. A good sum of
my assignments require me to think outside of the box and conjure up solutions to problems that
don’t have one simple concrete answer. It also said that people that scored high on this section
tend to be really creative, which is something else I agree with. This is clearly demonstrated in
the versatility of my portfolio where you can see the long range designs I have made through my
design process.

The next dimension is conscientiousness which I scored a 50% on. I feel like this wasn’t accurate
because it says that people that score low in this area are impulsive and easily get sidetracked.
Which isn’t how I would describe myself at all. I feel like I am very disciplined and focused on
my goals. However in regards to organization I’m not the best at that so I could see how I could
score low there.

The next dimension is Extraversion of which I scored a 35%. I’d say I agree with this a lot as I
do get drained from constant social interaction. Additionally the majority of friendships I have
formed have been initiated by the other person as I usually don’t seek out social stimulation even
though I do enjoy it from time to time. Although recently I’ve noticed this aspect in me changing
and I find myself seeking social more and more.

The agreeableness dimension score of 77% is something else I also agree with. I’m generally a
very emphatic person and I am strongly influenced by other people's emotions and body
language. If someone is in a bad mood or not feeling good I can often tell by their body language
and they are carrying themselves. Also when there is a conflict I often choose the compromise
that makes as many people happy as possible.

For the fifth dimension of Neuroticism I earned a score of 65%. I feel as though this is pretty
accurate because a majority of the time I don’t let negative emotions get the best of me but
unfortunately sometimes they do. But this is something I've been mindfully working on for the
past months and something I will continue to improve on.

Compared to JUNG personality assessment which classified me as an INFJ which I feel aligns
with the Big Five personality traits. As both describe an individual who is emphatic , intuitive
and introspective. The percentages in the DISC personality also align with the percentage in the
big five personality test. For the DISC personality test I scored highest in Conscientiousness
which I feel directly translates to the high openness score that I got from the Big Five Personality
test. So in my case it seems that the different personalities support and complement each other.

These different assessments are extremely helpful because they allow you to take a closer look at
yourself. This helps you see what ways in which you like behavior and others ways in which you
could possibly improve.