Pandemonium

Welcome to Weikin’s Blog Post on ES2007S. Today, I will be reporting “live” from an actual conflict situation at NUS. Taskforce Alpha, a team of 5 students (Eunice, John, Andy, Steve and Janice) has been assigned to work together on a project. This project is important as it will comprise 50% of their final grade in their module. However, one of their important teammate, John, is currently MIA and is holding on to a critical component of the project. To make matters worse, the deadline is in 3 days! The other teammates are extremely unhappy about this and are about to go on strike! I questioned the team leader, Andy, about what went wrong and why are the teammates so unhappy.

Me: “Andy, what happened to John?”

Andy: “We were waiting for him to compile the project, but he just called me to inform me that he is now in Malaysia attending a Liondance competition. He claims that he did not know that he had to compile project."

Me: “Why are you guys so angry then?”

Andy: “In the first place, John told us he was extremely busy this semester, so we gave him the least work. He was supposed to write an introduction for the project and compile the project once everyone completed their part. In the end, he did not even write the introduction, this responsibility was pushed to another teammate, Eunice, to perform. Whenever we have group meetings, he was always the last to arrive and the first to leave. He barely contributed to this project."

Me: “Have you all tried talking to him?”

Andy: “Yes we did, but he kept telling us that he was very busy. We tried to understand his problems, but this is the last straw!”

Andy storms out of the room.

Everyone seems really angry and confused. I'm trying to reach John for comment but he is unavailable. What caused this situation to arise? I believe that one of the main issues is that John has not been responsible for his actions and did not bother to be accountable. The team failed to identify this problem early, leading to the current situation. What should the team have done? What can be done now? We will now ask our in-house EQ experts, Brad Blackstone and his team of bloggers, for advice.

Stay Tuned!

Effective Communication Skills? Whats the point?

Prior to taking this module, I asked myself several questions. Why should I take this module? Is it going to be useful/interesting? Is it easy to score? Does it have heavy workload? Is effective communication really that important?

Being a Year 4 student, this would be my second last semester in school and incidentally the last unrestricted elective module I would have to take. Why did I choose this module instead of a “fun” and “easy” module like Basic Japanese or some of the other highly bided modules? To put it frankly, what drew me to this module was the opportunity to learn how to write resumes as well as interview skills. At about this time next year, I would be out there hunting for a high-paying job (hopefully), competing against thousands of fresh graduates. What is going to separate me from the others? A properly written resume is only going to qualify me for an interview. Which is why effective communication so important! From that point on, everything is going to rely on my communication skills. From getting hired to climbing the corporate ladder, all these will depend on effective communication skills.

However, this module has it immediate uses as well. Year 4 focuses heavily on the Honours project, which in turn focuses heavily on research report writing as well as presentations. The only way to score well will be to rely heavily on effective communication skills, as I will need to present my points as clearly as possible, ensuring the examiners understands what I am showing them.

I’m pretty sure there are other uses for effective communication skills, but that would be another blog post for another time. Time for this monologue to end.