University of Maryland, College Park

Pearl Diving Assignment 2

Jacob Frazee

Communication for Project Managers: ENCE424

Dr. Shana Webster-Trotman

October 21, 2023

 Frazee 2

Introduction

As the semester has continued to progress, I have not only realized the importance of
being an adequate communicator, but now I am learning how to effectively communicate with
others. I have had many opportunities where I get to use what we are learning in class. Whether
it is when I am giving feedback to my peers on the Bible study prep, giving speeches to rooms
full of people, or better managing my relationships with my family; I have been implementing
what we have learned in class which has been so eye-opening as to the importance and value of
communication. I hope that as the semester continues I will continue to get the opportunities to
put into practice the skills I am developing in class.

Writing an Email

Hello team,

I wanted to start by expressing my gratitude for your flexibility. I know and acknowledge that the
transition from the office to working at home has been long and tedious, so thank you for your
cooperation and compliance throughout the process. I hope you all are enjoying working from
home and able to spend more time with your families or just doing the things you love.

While the transition is supposed to be a good thing I have realized a couple concerning things.
As of recently, your work has seemed to be lackluster and it needs improvement. Prior to the
transition you were able to produce $15,000 dollars in revenue a week, but now it is down to
$10,000. I got to know you guys fairly well when I oversaw everything at the office and I know
what you are all capable of achieving. I do not know if the lackluster work is due to the transition
or if there are outside factors, but it needs to be resolved.

I know you guys are great workers and that you have what it takes. If there is anything I can do
to help you get back to the productivity level you used to be at, please let me know. I want to see
you guys thrive and for you to be happy while satisfactorily completing your jobs. Additionally,
if there are any concerns or questions please reach out to me.

Warm regards, Boss

Explanation:
I set this email up like I did for a few reasons. First, I started by letting them know that I
am proud of them for getting through the transition. Instead of just going right into the problem, I
compliment them and acknowledge the potential struggle they may have gone through. I end that
paragraph by saying that I hope they are able to do the things they love. This targets their pathos
by showing that I genuinely care about them. By targeting their pathos and illustrating that I care,
they are much more motivated and likely to follow through with my upcoming request.

In the second paragraph I said what needed to be said by addressing the problem. I was
direct and told them that they needed to improve. I also included specific numbers to appeal to
their logos so that they could logically understand that the problem I am speaking of is very real.
 Frazee 3

While doing this, I tried to establish that I know them fairly well which would hopefully make
them think about my character as the boss. Assuming I was a good boss, that should motivate
them to improve their work. This is the ethos at work.

In the final paragraph I again try to comfort them and appeal to their pathos. I am
comforting them by asking them if there is anything I can do and by saying that I want to see
them happy. I then end the email by asking them if they have any questions. I kept the email
sweet and to the point so that they could easily understand what it is I am asking them to do and
so that it does not seem like I am reprimanding them the whole time.

Boss Calls You an Idiot

This is definitely going to be a scary and an emotional interaction. Usually, when your
boss tells you something, you just have to listen to it and obey his orders. While you can have a
further discussion, it does not matter if you disagree with him or if he is being irrational because
ultimately he is the boss and you have to comply. Due to this, many people are afraid to speak up
to their bosses or question their logic. Most people are non-confrontational and just want peace.
However, there is a place and time when you need to draw the line and speak up for yourself.
When it comes to the work itself, your boss can critique you and suggest better alternatives, but
right when they start to attack your personal character (especially in front of all your coworkers)
you need to address the problem at hand. If you do not speak up for yourself, then people will
perceive you to be a person that is fine with getting disrespected and walked all over. If you do
nothing then you are basically asking for more trouble further down the line. So we know that we
need to respond to a personal attack, but what is the appropriate way to do so?

There are a couple ways that one could respond, some of them being better than others.
The goal of your response should be to establish that you will not tolerate being disrespected and
to deescalate the situation. So while it may be tempting to call your boss a jerk and to start going
through a list of insults that everyone in the office knows is true, you need to have self-control.
To do this you need to stay calm and to remove your emotions from the situation. Once you have
gathered your thoughts and are ready to speak you should first start by shifting the conversation
from the subject at hand to the fact that your boss just called you an idiot.

Keith Patterson et al. sum this up really well in their book Crucial Conversation: Tools
for Talking When Stakes Are High. They write that you need to “Speak up immediately, but
respectfully. Change topics from the issue at hand to how the person is currently acting. Catch
the escalating disrespect before it turns into abuse and insubordination. Let the person know that
his or her passion for the issue at hand is leading down a dangerous trail.” When you do all of
these things, you address the problem at hand that your boss just called you an idiot, and you also
are able to de-escalate the situation while maintaining a positive appearance.

Something else that I would probably try to be cognizant of is my body language. If I am

saying all the right words with the right tone and attitude but my body tells a different story, then
the situation could easily be intensified despite my best efforts to prevent this from happening.
So, while addressing my boss, I would keep my demeanor in a calm and confident position. I
 Frazee 4

honestly think that the confidence pose we learned in class would be a good default to go to. This
illustrates that you are still staying in control of the situations and that you are keeping your
emotions in check.

All together, I would first get into the confidence pose with all my fingers touching and
then I would interrupt by saying the following: “Excuse me boss, while I understand your
concern for the matter at hand, it is not necessary or appropriate for you to make personal
attacks. I feel like I am being disrespected. I would like to stop this conversation for a second,
and then we can come right back to it. I am not going to feel comfortable being a part of a
conversation where you raise your voice and attack my intelligence.” While this may seem a bit
dramatic, you need to establish that this type of behavior is not acceptable and that it will not be
tolerated in the future. This response also refrains from making any personal attacks back at the
boss which helps to calm the situation down.

Storytelling

The year is 2018 and I am an ambitious young student looking to make a name for
myself. I am about to start my junior year of high school in a dual-enrollment program through
which I will receive an associates degree in math, physics, and engineering by the time I
graduate highschool. I had never been truly challenged before in my life and I was ready to
tackle the challenge. However, I did not fully understand the challenge I was about to partake in.
After creating my schedule, I realized I would be taking 19 credits my first semester in almost all
STEM classes. I knew that it would be a lot, but I was so excited to finally get into the work that
I was genuinely passionate about. I remember gloating to my friends and family how great I had
it.

In addition to starting the dual-enrollment program, I was training every day for cross
country. I would show up to practice and for two hours every weekday I would give it my all.
While it admittedly sucked, I was able to become friends with some of the most amazing guys I
had ever met. We would hang out after practice and often ended up going to Waffle House for a
midnight snack. The only problem with this was that I did not have a ton of money. So, I decided
to ask my boss at the restaurant I worked at for more hours. So, I went from having a relaxing
summer to going full throttle by taking 19 credits, being a part of a sports team, and working a
job 3 nights a week. Being a young and ambitious person, I was only thinking about the
positives: educational success, staying fit while making friends, and money. However, I quickly
realized that I was in over my head

As the first two weeks went by I was still excited to finally be a college student and to see
all my friends that I missed over the summer. Then exams and projects started to come in school.
I never had to study for exams before, but now I needed to not only study, but I needed to also do
hours of homework that accompanied the classes. A couple more weeks passed and I started to
become exhausted. I was rarely getting eight hours of sleep and went from one task to another
like I was a robot. I quickly became dissatisfied with where I was, but I knew that I had to push
through. Eventually, I somehow made it through the semester with straight A’s, more money, and
a cross country season under my belt.
 Frazee 5

While it still was a success, I realized that as the semester went on, I was just going
through the motions. I learned in my classes, but I wasn’t able to dive deeply into the material; I
was hanging out with friends, but I didn’t have the energy I needed; I was making money at
work, but at the cost of my sleep. I realized that the quality of my life went down and that while I
was able to push past my limits, I knew I did not want to do it again.

The next semester was coming around and I was scheduled to take 18 credits. So, I first
called up my boss and told her that I couldn’t continue to work during the school year. I also told
my tennis coach that I would show up when possible, but that I would be focusing more on
school. After doing these things the semester started up and it was almost surreal. Even though I
still had a big workload, I was falling in love with my classes again. I was researching the
concepts I was learning in class and putting much more effort into my homeworks and projects. I
was happier and much more productive. I was genuinely shocked by how much of a change it
made.

Through this whole process I learned a couple important life lessons. First, I learned how
to endure through challenging times. While this was an important lesson, I would argue it was
not the most important. The most important lesson I learned is that when I focus my time and
efforts on one thing, I fall in love with it and I am able to be much more productive. I learned
that it is necessary to slow down sometimes in order to do your best at everything you do.
Ultimately, it is better to do one thing really well than to do everything okay.

Personality Test

Out of all of the personality tests that we have taken so far, this is the one that I found
was the least accurate (in my opinion at least). While it is still fairly accurate, I think that I
should have scored differently for the first three categories.

The first thing that I found surprising was that my highest score was in extraversion.
While I can definitely be an outgoing person, I prefer to do things alone if possible. For example,
If I have to do a project, make a long car drive, or just work out at the gym; I would prefer to do
all of these things by myself. I think one of the reasons that I scored highly in this category is
because, even though I do not prefer to be with groups of people, I am good at handling myself
in those situations. Since I can act very extroverted when I want to, the test may have thought
that I enjoyed being extroverted just because I can do it well.

Another reason I might be disagreeing with my score for this category is because I do not
want to be described as someone with an extroverted personality. I looked up what high and low
scores for each category mean and, according to Cherry Kedra, people who score highly in this
category tend to “Say things before thinking about them” and “Enjoy being the center of
attention.” I recognize that sometimes I like doing these things, but I would like to think that I do
not do them a lot.
 Frazee 6

The second category I thought should have been scored differently was my openness.
After reading about each category, I felt like openness was the category that I most closely
related to. I should have gotten a higher score than 69% and it definitely should have been my
highest score. So why the difference? I think it could be due to the way that I feel like I am open.
I love getting new challenges and tackling abstract concepts when it comes to STEM related
topics. I think these arguments/debates are essential to improving the field. On the other hand,
when it comes to things like art, I think abstractness is stupid because it is totally subjective. I
have never liked going to art museums or seeing sculptures that look like a 5 year old could have
built; I am simply not interested or impressed by it. A lot of the questions on the quiz were
geared towards artistic openness instead of conceptual openness which I think is why I scored
lower in this category than I thought I would.

The last category that I disagree with is the conscientiousness category. I felt like this
category should have been at least ten points lower than what it was. While sometimes I will be
proactive by making a to-do list, I usually fall behind and end up procrastinating on most of my
assignments. I have had several assignments so far this semester that I have not been able to
complete because I procrastinated and ended up not having enough time to complete it.
Additionally, while I do like planning things out, if I go on a vacation I will never plan stuff out.
I love being flexible and having the freedom to be spontaneous.

Overall, I realized that I disagree with my results for ⅗ of the categories. I think it is
partially because of how the test is structured (as mentioned before) and partially because my
results don’t reflect what I want. As we mentioned once in class, people will often use their logic
to find reasons why their emotions are valid. To an extent, I am probably disagreeing with some
of these results because I want to feel more independent (not extroverted), creative (more open),
and spontaneous (less conscientious). Going forward, I plan to look at these areas of my life to
see if they match what I think, or if they match what the test portrays.

The two categories that I received scores around what I expected were agreeableness and
neuroticism. The agreeableness score makes sense because a lot of the time I am impartial about
what other people think. I still do care and want them to be okay, but ultimately I am not going to
let their feelings/emotions impact me in a negative way. This can also begin to explain why I
have such a low neuroticism score. I rarely get discouraged and even when I do, I know that
dwelling on things that I can’t change will not do anything. So instead of thinking about only bad
things, I focus on the positives while simultaneously improving the bad things.

I thought that this personality test was fairly similar to the other ones we have taken. My
favorite one was the DISC personality test because I feel like that one made me realize more
things about myself than any of the other tests. The results for these tests mostly agree; they only
have a few points that they do not align on. However, it is definitely beneficial to take multiple
tests because of these discrepancies. Taking multiple tests also allows the test taker to see what
they are consistently scoring high/low in. Additionally, while these are all personality tests, they
all test for slightly different aspects of personality. Taking multiple tests lets the user see the full
picture of what their personality is.
 Frazee 7

Personality Test Results

 Frazee 8

Works Cited

Faulkner, Michael, and Andrea Nierenberg. Networking for College Students and Graduates.
Pearson Learning Solutions, 2017. Print.

Gallo, Carmine. Five Stars the Communication Secrets to Get from Good to Great. St. Martin’s
Press, 2018. Print.

Kendra Cherry, MSEd. “What Are the Big 5 Personality Traits?” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind,
11 Mar. 2023,
www.verywellmind.com/the-big-five-personality-dimensions-2795422#:~:text=Many%20c
ontemporary%20personality%20psychologists%20believe,openness%2C%20conscientious
ness%2C%20and%20neuroticism.

O’Hair, Dan, and Hannah Rubenstein and Rob Stewart. A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking.
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2019. Print.

Pachter, Barbara, and Denise Cowie. The Essentials of Business Etiquette: How to Greet, Eat,
and Tweet Your Way to Success. McGraw-Hill Education, 2013. Print

Patterson, Keith, et al. Crucial Conversation: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High.
McGraw-Hill, 2011.