Individual contribution statement

Our project began with brainstorming sessions on how to approach the task at hand. On this first level, we were discussing about so many ideas that I felt it was time that we pulled those ideas together and start working on the presentation. I forwarded to the group through our group leader, Katherine that we had already done enough brainstorming for the mean time and now had to make a plan of attack. To this end, I shared which ideas that my group mates contributed was acceptable for me, particularly Shawn’s and David’s.

I felt that it was important at that point for me to have expressed the need to get the ball rolling because if we spent to much time thinking about what to do, we might not have had enough time to properly and thoroughly research on our respective subtopics. Everyone needed to know what their jobs were going to be so they could have ample time to prepare for it. My contribution was an attempt to begin a synergy of the ideas presented by my group mates to form an actual action plan which was successful. My group agreed with what I was saying and we began to make concrete progress. We began to work on our separate research subtopics.

Towards this objective, I chose to work on Barriers in Communication. I took interest on the subject after making a brief online reading on the contents of some of the possible subtopics. I felt that this topic was essential to our main topic which was on Business Communications. I began my work first by internalizing the topic’s importance. I wanted to focus on the crucial points that hindered effective verbal communications and how to overcome those barriers. This direction led me to the CGAP website where I was able to obtain a discussion on several barriers to verbal communication.

This included incorrect vocabulary, misuse of jargons, and ambiguity. I was also able to obtain insights on other barriers such as accent, attitude, and manner of speaking. I was able to explain each of these barriers to my group and we were able to incorporate them as a substantial part of the presentation. I believe that these contributions were quite significant since they present the common pitfalls of communication which we want to avoid. My contribution to the presentation was able to substantiate that since people don’t always speak the same language, misunderstandings can often occur.

It supported the idea that different languages and technical words may cause significant confusion in verbal communications. I presented examples in the United States where more than half of the population speaks English only as a second language. I concretized this argument with examples in business and in education. These were important contributions as they added substance to the presentation and made it a lot more comprehensive. I drew from Barry’s 1980 book that effective communication can only happen when communication is free from any language barriers.

I researched on the possible ways to overcome the barriers which led me to Levy’s 2003 online article on effective verbal communication. This source provided general ideas on how to break the language barrier. These ideas included the use of correct vocabulary, avoidance of too much flowery words, and being an active listener. I sorted out the in formation from level to give the positive and negative effects of verbal communication, and then I was able to formulate some Do’s and Don’ts in verbal communication. This original contribution was essential to our presentation’s solutions to the barriers of verbal communication.

I contributed that an effective speaker has to use hand movements, adapt material and manner to the person speaking with; organize thoughts before expressing; sense the mood of the person or group, observe audience body language, and modulate tone of voice. On the other hand, speaker should avoid rambling, use of jargon unfamiliar to the audience, shouting, and speaking simultaneously with another speaker. My contributions were part of many bulleted lists that strengthened our presentation and I felt that they were an important consideration in the excellent evaluation of our work.

I think effective communication is essential to how a manager creates and develops effective organizational teams. In the dynamics of our group, I believe that effective communication played very well in getting our individual ideas across and synergizing them into actual action plans. I think that in the same way, effective organizational teams need to have open and unprejudiced lines of communication. The team leaders must be aware of the individual differences of his members and should do his best to bridge language gaps and break language barriers.

The team members should also be provided an atmosphere in which they can freely share their ideas so that the best of those ideas can be culled effectively from the group and put into action. Finally, I think that effective managers need to be effective speakers also because they interact not only with team members but also with outside forces that concern the work of the group. Thus, it is important that they follow the guidelines set by the report in making effective use of verbal communication.