A521.4.4.RB_MalvoisinLeon

Some of my nuances during a verbal message or communication with a group or individual includes not being able to make eye contact with the person I’m communicating with, lost attention in the communication and my body language sometime would reflect that I’m not engaged in the conversation.  Reading this week modules have helped me a tone already.  They’ve helped me identify my weaknesses and how I can reduce or eliminate them so I can become a more effective communicator.

How I will use the information in these reading to improve my ability to communicate with sincerity and congruence begins with me to fully understand the concept that the author is conveying.  Denning talks about to be authentic and that an effective leader’s life story is authentic; furthermore, he mentions that it is important for a leader to tell a story with a positive tone (Denning, 2011).  Certainly, I had instances where I did not talk with a positive tone and wasn’t authentic at all.  I remember an instance when I first joined my company and new little about the work I was doing.  That was in the first year I was hired as a manufacturing engineer, level 1.  I was presenting a project on a new complex design and the audience was full with experienced engineers, managers, and supply chain analysis.  I began my presentation by telling my name and what the presentation was about.  Less than minute within the presentation, my voice started trembling and I started to sweat at the podium as I tried to make some eye contact with some of the audience members.   My mind started wondering what are they thinking of me as I was presenting the project. Do I have their attention enough to get my point across?  I attempted to use humor and fail badly at it; only one person from the audience got my jock.  Then I realized that my presentation wasn’t consistent. It didn’t have the right beginning and end.  I just went into the details soon after I told my name.  As a result of that it made my message incongruent and I felt horrible that time and wanted to get off the stage.  It didn’t notice how bad I was until I started thinking about it after the presentation was done and no one asked questions on the presentation.

The changes I would make using the technique of Jargon are the following:  Begin my presentation with a story. A short story of myself that can relate to most people in the room and the presentation; that would allow me to be more authentic and the audience would pay more attention to the presentation.  Furthermore, the story would have to be said with a positive tone and context to display confidence in myself and lure in the audience. One of the stories I could have mentioned during the presentation is one about customers’ management since we had suppliers in the room as well. I could have started of by saying that success in today’s market place implies having a skilled workforce that is passionate and committed to customers of the organization and then entice those customers to share their success stories, obstacles overcome in the process with other customer. Furthermore, what I should have done is as identify by Whalen (2007), take control of the meeting and the room and develop a good feeling of raptor with your audience. Certainly that would have made a big difference in the outcome of the presentation.

Reference

Denning, S. (2011). The leader's guide to storytelling: Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. John Wiley & Sons/Jossey-Bass

Whalen, D. J. (2007). The Professional Communications Toolkit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

A521.3.4.RB_MalvoisinLeon

I grew up on an island in the West Indies, Haiti. The island was politically unstable and unemployment was high.  My parents had to struggle to make ends meet.  I’m the youngest of 4 sons.  At the age of 12, my mom decided to venture out of the island to America in search of a better life and career to support the family while my dad stayed on the island to raise four boys and making sure that we go to school to earn an education.  My family didn’t have much money.  My dad was a carpenter and my mom is now a retired nurse.  What both of my parents strongly believe in is that education is the key to a better life anywhere.  Without an education life will most likely be a struggle for most people.  Both of my parents didn’t have a high school diplomat, but they live their lives in such a way that would enable their sons to see their struggle of life without an education and making sure that we stay in school to earn our diplomas and degrees.   When I was 13 years old, my dad started teaching me about responsibilities and the way of life.  He started taking me to his workplace and let me shadow him all day, seeing the work he does and questioned him about details of is job and the ups and downs.   I remember few specific stories he told me about work that has an impact on me until this day.  My dad told me that in life if you find a career or a job no matter what the job is, make sure that you excel at it and you know it well.  If you can maintain that good work ethic, you will become an expert at it and have lots of credibility which would bring lots of clients to your business.  I grew up with that mentality to strive and learn what I do and do my best to do it well. 24 years later, now I’m working in the world leading aerospace company as a Lead Engineer while pursuing higher education at EARU.

What my dad taught me has helped me work better in my organization and becoming a better team player as well.  I’ve maintained great credibility at work due to the work ethic my dad taught me and the education I’ve earned during my childhood.  Now, I excel at my job very well, and many people come to me for guidance to complex projects.  Now, I can proudly say that I’m an expert in my field with lots of credibility.  As identify by Whalen (2007), two of the main credible characteristic of people are expertise and trustworthy. My expertise has help me feel right at home in my organization and work greatly in my team environment.

Reference                          

Whalen, D. J. (2007). The Professional Communications Toolkit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

A521.2.3.RB_MalvoisinLeon

Ms. Adichie delivers a powerful story to her audience, well presented and spoken. Her story has a beginning, a middle and an end that everyone in her audience can absolutely relate to.  She begins by introducing herself, and tells the audience what she does for a living which is storytelling among many of the skills she possesses.  She starts off her storytelling by telling the audience a story on her background, given a date, where she grew up, and when she started reading and writing.  As shared by Adichie in the video, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story (TED, 2009), as a child growing up reading Americans and  British children’s books, when I started writing at the age of seven the characters in my books followed the same characters of what I read about as a kid.  All my characters were white and blue-eyed, played in the snow and ate apples.  Ms. Adichie started off by telling a clear story.  A true story about herself that will help capture and retain the audience’s attention.  Here are few of the main elements of springboard story that she covered in her speech intro; as identify by Denning (2011), “The change idea being communicated by the story is clear and worthwhile and the story is based on an actual example.  She goes on by giving an additional example of how powerful a single story can be.  Which she illustrates by mentioning how she replicated the characters in her book base on what she had read about as a child in her kid novels.  As quoted by Adichie in the video, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story (TED, 2009), “My characters also drank a lot of ginger beer, because the characters in the British books I read drank ginger beer.  Never mind that I had no idea what ginger beer was”.  Certainly, what Ms. Adichie is implying is that the story she had been thought as a child replicates itself in her work and creates a preconceive notion of certain things in life without knowing all the details or facts.  That can be a dangerous thing, and she wants to change that way of thinking so no one is pre-judged or miss-judged.  Another key element she used in her story to make it a good springboard story is as identify by Denning (2011), the story makes clear what would have happened without the change idea. 

Her storytelling skill is very similar to what is discussed in the book and what I have learned thus far from this course.  She dresses casually and uses proper grammar throughout her whole speech.  She maintains eye contact with her audience and share few jokes every now and then, and then bring them back to her story.  She tells a springboard story that is authentically true and that can be validated or checked, if needed.   As stringboard story is about something that has really happened, not a made-up story about something that might occur (Denning, 2011).  Her story also has a single individual as the story protagonist which is herself, and she plays the hero role of trying to change the preconceive notion of people from Africa.  She does that by telling stories as well as writing books to help educate the young minds and the grown-ups.  Her stories has no pitfalls as she tells it in a minimalist fashion.  She gives numerous examples of how a story or a preconceive notion can impact someone’s life.    As stated by Adichie in the video, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story (TED, 2009),) “So, after I had spent some years in the U.S. as an African, I began to understand my roommate's response to me.  If I had not grown up in Nigeria, and if all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I too would think that Africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals, and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves and waiting to be saved by a kind, white foreigner. I would see Africans in the same way that I, as a child, had seen Fide's family “.  This is a great example that put things in perspective, pretty much seeing the image of Africa from an American view point and help relate that vision to her audience.  Ultimately showing them the negative preconceive notion that she would like to change from people perspective of Africa.  To conclude, she links the change idea to the story by closing with a very powerful ending.  As stated by Adichie, “I would like to end with this thought: That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise” (TED, 2009).

References

Denning, S. (2011). The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative. San Francisco, CA:  Jossey – Bass.

 
TED. (2009).Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transcript?language=en

A521.1.4.RB_MalvoisinLeon

I work in the aerospace industry for one of the world leaders in commercial aircraft manufacturing, Boeing.  The company enrolled over 159,469 employees globally (Boeing, 2016). One of the common stories being told by leadership over and over again is about safety. Safety in the workplace is one of the number one concern for the company. The company wants to reduce the amount of injuries that occur in the workplace, and make the workplace a safer place to work at.  The company has defined a logo called “Go for Zero” and is posted in every building and every floors as possible.  As identify by Employee Safety (2016), “At Boeing, our goal for employee safety is as clear and simple as our workplace safety program’s name: Go for Zero – One Day at a Time. We aim to achieve this goal day by day by eliminating all workplace injuries and ensuring an environment where all employees go home in the same shape as when they came to work” (Para.1). In every team meeting or employees all hand meetings, safety is brought up to remind the workers to work safely.  The implication that this story has on the organization is that it encourages and reminds the workers to work safely and shows that the company cares about the wellbeing of its workers.

Certainly this safety storytelling promote the goal and ideals of the organization.  Since the program started there has been a reduction in injuries occurrence in the workplace. If we look at the Propulsion Systems organization of Commercial Airplanes as an example. That organization had a huge decline in injury rates. As quoted by Kim (2009) “The organization’s lost workday case rate fell to 0.4 in 2007 and 0.19 in 2008. What’s more, it’s working on a streak of more than 500 days and 1 million hours without a lost workday case “(p.25).   The organization statistic has shown how this mindset or storytelling has taking hold in the company and help creating a culture of safety.  Furthermore, this story has helped describe what the company stands for and who its employees are.  It shows that the company has deep concern about the safety and wellbeing of it workers.

Hence, this storytelling about safety has created a culture of safety in the company.  Therefore, the company has outline the meaning of injuries and demonstrate Boeing’s commitment to driving safety for all employees, one day at a time.  As stated by Employee Safety (2016):

• We value human life and well-being above all else and take action accordingly.
• All incidents, injuries and workplace illnesses are preventable.
• We are personally accountable for our own and collectively responsible for each other's safety.
• By committing to safety first, we advance our goals for quality, cost, and schedule

Certainly with a low or zero injury workplace more workers will show up to work daily and perform their tasks; as a result, it will help boost the production rate of the company and its revenue or profit.

References                                                          

Boeing. (2016, June 3).Retrieved June 3, 2016, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing

Employee Safety. (2016). Safety Guiding Principles. Boeing. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing#Employment_numbers

Kim. J. (2009). There Really is a “YOU” in Safety. Boeing Frontier. Retrieved from http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2009/june/ts_sf01.pdf