University of Maryland, College Park

Pearl Diving Assignment 2

Kyle Shalit
ENCE 424 Communication for Project Managers
Dr. Shana Webster Trotman
September 21, 2019
Intro:
In a course with so much information about how we interact and behave with others, it is
important to understand as much about my self in order to become an effective communicator.
Because of the vast amount of information, the more I know about myself, the better I will be
able to apply concepts and identify skills that need to be worked on. The first test that I will
complete is the conflict resolution assessment, which will help me understand how I react in
crucial conversations and identify what methods I could improve on. The next test I complete
was the Jung’s Personality Test. This test will analyze if I am an introvert or and extravert among
other things. This information will help me understand myself better and allow me to improve
my communication skills. Lastly, I will apply concepts from Five Stars to craft two stories that
could be used for a job interview.
Conflict Management Styles Assessment:
The results of the conflict resolution style assessment showed that my preferred styles are
collaborating and compromising while competing and avoiding ranked the lowest. I mostly agree
with these results. When possible, I look for a solution that benefits everyone. This comes from
working with the other person to find common ground and a solution. I try to understand the
other side to reach a common goal. I generally don’t like conflicts, so it makes sense that
competing was ranked lower. I was slightly surprised that avoiding was ranked so low. I do not
enjoy conflicts and sometimes push them off. The test did not ask too many questions, so that
could be why the results are not perfect. The avoiding questions all asked about situations where
I was already in a conflict. Most of the avoiding I do comes before the conflict. Once in a
conflict I work to solve it as quickly as possible.
I do believe that my conflict style helps with my communication. The ability to
understand what the other side desires and wants is incredibly valuable. I try to make tense
conversations as comfortable as possible by appeasing others. If I can work with the other person
to come to a compromise. Additionally, my ability to understand the other side helps me
recognize when conversations are getting out of hand. I read people well and can identify when
the situation may be getting unsafe or when I need to shift my style of speaking to drive the
conversation a different way. I look to reach a mutual purpose with the other person. When I
understand what the other person desires, I try to see how I can also reach the same or similar
goal.
The one conflict style I wish to improve is competing. There are times when I should not
or cannot appease the other party in the conversation. In these situations, I will need to hold my
ground and explain why my position is better than the other. Because I avoid conflicts, my
confrontation and argument skills are generally weak. I will, however, have to be careful. I
cannot start arguments in every confrontation that I encounter. I will be careful to practice this
skill only when necessary.
Jung Personality Test:
The results of Jung’s Personality test were a lot more detailed then what I expected.
When reading the short intro before the test, I believed that it would simply tell me if I was an
introvert or an extravert. I was happy to learn about the many other character traits it would
assign to me. The test categorized me as an Extravert-Sensor-Thinker-Judger. My initial reaction
was one of surprise. I typically had thought about myself as in introvert. I have often enjoyed
long periods of time to myself without any other interaction. I can eastly sit alone in my room all
day while perusing the internet, watching Netflix, and playing video games without interacting
with a single person. I rather intermingle with those who I already know than constantly reach
out and try to expand my network of colleagues, friends, and acquaintances. However, the more I
think about some of my more recent experiences, the less surprised I am. For example, my time
of the career fair was an incredible success due to my ability to reach out and communicate with
strangers. I had one recruiter tell me “you’re not like other engineers”. This comment was in
reference to my ability to communicate with others. I also can look back at the time I was elected
to be recruitment chair of my fraternity. This position was completely centered around talking to
others and creating new relationships. Perhaps this position sculpted me into a more extraverted
person. Overall, I see how I am an extravert who occasionally likes a little time to himself.
The Sensor-Thinker-Judger portion of the results seem to line up with my personality
very well. Relying on facts and using reason have always been a part of me. I am more easily
convinced by arguments based on logic rather than emotion. Additionally, I am a very organized
person who typically works on a schedule. Every assignment and errand I must complete is
written in my planner. Losing planner be an absolute disaster. I would almost rather lose my
laptop or my phone. Furthermore, every folder and notebook I have are color coded for classes.
For projects, I like to be team leader in order to be in charge of the group. I organize and manage
people well and try to work to make things as efficient as possible. Ultimately, I have had too
many experiences where relying on others has sometimes backfired, so I enjoy being the one in
control.
These results do line up well with the results of the DISC personality test. My two
leading DISC factors were influence and steadiness. I had initially been surprised by influence
because one the leading factors because of the strong social connection with it. This is exactly
like my initial surprise to being labeled an extravert. For the same reasons I mentioned before, it
makes sense that I got this result. Steadiness also lines up with the results of the Jung personality
test. Steadiness lines up a lot with using logic and facts to come up with arguments. Additionally,
I am organized and like to plan things out of head times. Overall, since both of these personality
tests produced similar results, it should confirm their accuracy.
Overcoming Adversity Story:
Bad team experiences seem to happen to many students and professionals. Recently I had
one of these bad experiences. Three of my peers and I were tasked with designing a lathe for a
machine design course. The group had weekly assignments throughout the semester to help
break up the work but also had a longer report due the last week of class. A week before the final
report was due, I got a message from one of my groupmates saying that he had bombed the last
exam and could not pass the class even if he got a perfect grade on the project. The group still
had large portion work to complete and would be set behind massively if this one group member
stopped helping us out.
To solve this issue, I spoke to the group member privately. I had developed a personal
relationship with this student throughout the semester and hoped that I could convince him to
take on some part of the project. I was able to convince him to do the computer aided design
drafting of our lathe. He had more experience with the software than the other two group
members and I and could likely complete the task in four hours instead of the seven it would
have taken me. Had I not developed the personal relationship with this student he may have just
ignored me and made the workload for the rest of the group unbearable. In the meantime, the rest
of the group focused on the more difficult calculations and write up. Overall, we were able to
finish the project on time and to a standard that we were all proud of.
Problem Solving Story:
Two summers ago, I worked for an engineering design firm that focused on HVAC
(Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning) and MEP (Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing) design.
The drafting of these designs was done with a program called AutoCAD. For each project, the
design team would develop a set of drawings that included many sheets for each of the systems,
details, and specification sheets. Each of these sheets has its own title, date created, drafter and
issue number among other things in a space called the title block along the right side of the
drawing. Often, this information changes when new revisions are made. Additionally, the
addition of the of new sheets can cause problems such as renumbering. All of these changes also
would need to be updated in the table of contents on the cover sheet. These modifications to the
drawing take a great deal of time and can be rather irritating.
On a day when my workload was light, I spent some time researching features of
AutoCAD in order to improve my skill in with the that was new to me program. I learned of a
recently developed feature called “Global Attribute Editor.” None of my superiors had heard of
this yet. This feature allows someone to create components of the drawing that can be change
form a dropdown menu. The information that is changed would update on the individual drawing
and the table of contents. Additionally, some parts could be updated once in the menu and
change on all drawings. I set up a template that had this feature built into it for all future
drawings. This change made is far easier for me to create a set of drawings and quickly fill in all
components of the title block. When changed needed to be made, I could change it once in the
menu rather than update each individual sheet. Not only did this save me time during my
internship, but also saved and will continue to save the time of all company members.
Conclusion:
All the information I gathered about myself was incredibly insightful and can help me
improve my communication skills. There are so many aspects of communication that I would
like to master, so it is important to know what I am already good at and what could be improved.
The results conflict management style assessment and the Jung personality assessment did just
that. While some of the results were things that I already knew, I have also learned things about
myself that were surprising. This information will be valuable going forward in this course.
Lastly, these two stories could prove to be incredibly beneficial. I have four interviews coming
up in the coming weeks. Preparing myself for questions that I may hear from a potential
employer could prove to be a major benefit in the hiring process. I look forward to using what I
learned form this assignment in the near future.