University of Maryland, College Park

Pearl Diving Assignment 2

Leeron Carmi
Communication for Project Managers: ENCE424
Dr. Shana Webster-Trotman
Nov 2, 2019
Part A: Email

When thinking about how to write an email to my team addressing its lackluster

performance and need for improvement, I turned to “Crucial Conversations”1. This seems like an

email that is intended to share a ‘risky meaning’ and can easily be written too bluntly and

abrasively or oppositely not with the weight it is intended to carry. This chapter discusses how to

approach a delicate conversation that can bring up uncomfortable criticism using the five STATE

steps: Share your facts, Tell your story, Ask for others paths, Talk tentatively, Encourage testing. I

tried to employ all five of these tactics in the email I drafted below in order to most bring up this

subject with least abrasion and most effectively manage the situation.

Hello Project Managers,

I hope you all had a recharging weekend, we’ve got a big week coming up. As you all may

know, next week is a crucial checkpoint in our project, our investors are coming in to assess the

first phase of planning, and they would like to meet with our team specifically. I am a slightly

nervous about this meeting because as a team we have not been meeting crucial deadlines. Our

proposed budget is still in progress when the deadline was a full two weeks ago, our project

schedule is rough with tentative dates and holes, and we have only met with fourteen out of the

twenty-one contractors we will be working with. We have been working on this phase for about

one month now, but I am not confident that we have the results we need to assure our investors. I

have reviewed our hours and am not seeing a negative trend, for the most part we all seem to be

coming in on time and no abnormal amount of days have been missed by a single member.

However, I’m getting the feeling that we may not be working as efficiently as we can in the office

and we may have room to improve. I am still not positive where exactly we are lacking as a team,

but I think it may have to do with miscommunication and lost time as a result of that. But, I am sure

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Crucial Conversations, Chapter 7
that is not the only reason and am eager to hear what you all think. I have reserved the fourth floor

meeting space for us at 11:00 am so that I can hear everyone’s input into our performance and also

so that we can brainstorm a more effective work plan for this coming week and the rest of the

project.

I’ll see you all tomorrow morning,

--

Leeron Carmi

Project Manager, ENCE424 Enterprises

Part B:

This week, during our in class script writing activity, I learned the important concept of time

management. After watching the in class video of a dysfunctional team that does not communicate

effectively, our class was split into teams and tasked with rewriting the script for the video in a

more effective way. I believe my group worked very well together, we split up our roles fairly

quickly and with no contention. Then, we naturally moved on to the discussion questions that were

next on the assignment sheet and proceeded to discuss the different characters and how they each

could have handled the situation differently. We made thoughtful comments as a group and really

analyzed the situation deeply. Each of us chipped into the conversation and we all were very

engaged. However, at one point I looked up at the screen and realized that we only had eight

minutes left of the activity. I could not understand how we only had so little time left and still had

the script to write. And that is where I realized we fell short as a team. I think we had too many

DISC ‘S’ and ‘C’ type personalities on the team, and no one officially took charge. While we all

worked pleasantly together, we still could have benefited from one person taking on some

leadership role, as simple as keeping time. If one person would have taken on the role to watch the
clock and make sure we progressed at a faster pace through the stages, then we would not have

been so rushed to finish the assignment. However, I also learned how important it is to be able to

improvise as a group and keep calm under pressure. With just a few minutes left to finish the

assignment, I could already tell that the actors in our group were getting anxious because they did

not run through the script yet, which was not yet finished. Instead of finishing writing out the script,

we switched gears and decided to just talk it out. We all acted as sort of directors, making sure that

we all understood the purpose of the scene and what kind of actions the characters would take.

Because we knew we would not have enough time to go over the script, we wanted to make sure

the actors had a good enough understanding of the concepts we talked about so that they could

have an easier time improvising once in front of the class. The presentation was a bit rough, but for

such a last minute improvisation we were really impressed with our actors performance. Ironically,

while rewriting a script for a dysfunctional team, our team also encountered a stressful situation,

but understanding the importance of smooth teamwork, we handled the situation rationally and

really thought it through in order to deliver as best as we could.

Part C:

The scenario: my boss just called me an “idiot” in front of the entire team.

I really do I hope I will never have to deal with a situation like this in my professional

career, but unfortunately it is something that might happen to even the best of us. While “idiot”

seems more of a senseless accusation than a conversation, this exclamation is actually a part of a

very crucial conversation. In chapter five of “Crucial Conversations” I learned that when safety is at

risk, it is best to remove myself from the conversation and then try to restore it. When something

seems to be misunderstood it is good to apologize or use contrasting to clarify. But here, this is a

different situation. While these are all good ways to cope with your own thoughts or words, it
works differently when we are trying to cope with someone else’s, especially when they are spoken

as an outburst2. In a scenario such as this, it is important to start from the heart. Not only will this

open up dialogue and let the other person try to explain themselves, but it will also curb any

mirroring outbursts you might feel the need to display as a response. In this situation, I would try to

break the ice a bit by asking my boss why he feels that way. This would definitely be hard to do

considering I would be feeling humiliated, but it will break some of the ice and normalize the

situation a bit. As he would start explaining his story, tracing back the facts that happened to lead

him to accuse me this way, I would listen actively and then paraphrase what he had said in order to

confirm that I was paying attention to him. This would be difficult and embarrassing, but I would

have to remain calm and just focus on listening because ultimately I would want to understand why

my boss felt this way because I would value a good relationship with my boss as someone that

works with him daily. Before I try to disagree with him or explain myself, I would look for points

where I could agree with him, facts that I could verify; this will make my boss feel less attacked and

a bit safer as I move on to contrast his story. I will not outright disagree with him, instead I will tell

my story and explain my side in an almost factual and removed way, not as a response to his story

but as truly my own. I might build upon his story and add in information that I might have felt he

left out and I might explain how I feel differently about the situation. Once I had shared my side, I

would try to end the conversation peacefully, with as little animosity as possible. After this public

scenario, I would probably want to speak to him again in person or over email. In this more private

meeting, I might express my feelings about his inappropriate outburst and then I might suggest way

in which we could work together to make sure it does not get to a point like that again.

Part D:

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Crucial Conversations, Chapter 8
 On the big five personality test, I scored as follows: Openness- 81%, Conscientiousness-

56%, Extraversion- 19%, Agreeableness- 60%, Neuroticism- 90%.

I found these results interesting. They definitely work well with both my DISC and Jung

assessments. In the DISC assessment I am mostly Steadiness and Conscientiousness, which shows

that I care about other people and want to help them. This makes sense when looking at my pretty

high agreeableness score, I definitely try to be agreeable to most and avoid confrontation. My

extraversion also plays into my Introvertedness in my INFP as a mediator. However, I was

surprised to see such a high score for openness, but after reading more about the INFP personality

type, suddenly this made sense to me because mediators are also creative and imaginative, just like

this assensement makes me out to be. The Neuroticism was a new factor for me but one that I really

agree with. I do tend to be on the more pessimistic side, and this is good to keep in mind when

dealing with sensitive situations. Ultimately, I believe each of these personality tests are important

because they give us a more rounded insight into our personality and let us see where we can hone

certain skills.

Citations:

Patterson, Kerry, et al. Crucial Conversations. McGraw-Hill, 2012.