While in class, my professor had an exercise where he split us into four different groups and asked us to list things that would make a spring break vacation special to us. After the four groups finished jotting down their examples, he went on to explain that he split the four groups up based on how they scored in the 16 results test. Two of the groups where extroverts and based their decisions off either emotions or senses. The other two groups were introverts who also based their decisions on the same criteria listed before. Personally, I was in the introverted group that based most of their decision off their emotions or the spur of the moment. This exercise, for some reason, really made me think about how I've communicated with other individuals in the past, especially ones that are extroverted or have completely different personalities than me. Also, this exercise made me think of a possible discussion topic for this class in the future. Communication is a crucial part of management, and an effective manager needs to have the tools to be able to communicate with all types of people, no matter what types of personality they have. Personally, I live with six other roommates, and before I did this exercise I didn't even notice that I communicate with each of them in different ways. There are two people in my apartment that stick out to me the most that have completely different personalities and qualities from one another but still are able to communicate. The first individual has an extroverted, and aggressive type of behavior. Being in the marines might have helped in the shaping of his personality over the past couple of years, but communicating with him can become difficult. This exercise made me realize that I don't get as fired up when talking to him because I realize that he will become angry due to the emotions he frequently shows. Shouting back at a person with an aggressive behavior will get you no where because it will cause the situation to escalate quickly. Communicating in a calm and laid back style seems to be more effective due to the fact that this individual notices that the situation isn't as extreme as he foresees it. On the other hand, my other roommate is very introverted and doesn't seem to voice his opinion when people ask him questions or a situation comes up that causes him to make a radical decision. Communicating with this individual is just as hard, but in a completely different way. I try to communicate with this individual by being more stern and persuading him to tell me how he feels in certain situations, otherwise I would never know what is running through his mind. This group exercise made me realize how effective communication styles with different types of people are effective, and the lack of these skills can become detrimental in a work place.
The Health Management and Policy Field doesn't revolve around individual work. This field is driven by teamwork and ideas thrown out by multiple people in order to find the right solution to a health problem. I think the topic of effective communication skills/management techniques with individuals or groups of people could be an interesting future topic for my HMP 722 class. I believe fifteen out of the sixteen people in the class are HMP majors and management is crucial to the field. Learning about these different skills and communication techniques could really help us out in the long run if our goal is to one day become a manager of a department or hospital. Personally, I have had a manager who was terrible at communicating with her employees. This made the job unbearable and forced me to put my two weeks in after just seven months of being on the job. The manager is the engine of the team and the role model to their employees. If the employees don't feel like they can effectively communicate with their manager, than the quality of work will go down as well as their overall respect. Overall, I believe that this would be a very interesting topic to discuss in this class due to the fact that the majority of the people want to be future managers and learn the most effective communication skills that would be effective for individuals with different personality types.
Some great applications to your personal experiences. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteIt is important to keep in mind that everyone is different, thinks differently, and communicates differently. Introverts often need time to process their answers. Extroverts often process their answers outloud, so sometimes it seems like they are being wishy-washy to introverts. It's important to get to know your team, as you indicated, so you can know how they are processing their information.