Communication
Communication involves collaborating, sharing and exchanging information both verbally and nonverbally. An effective communicator is honest and straightforward in his or her thoughts. However, I believe the most important quality in becoming an effective communicator is to first become an effective listener.
My Experience:
At my job with Texas A&M Information Technology, I work alongside two other student workers and am managed by four different bosses. One boss lives in Tennessee and the team manager/primary boss is on maternity leave. In addition, us student employees have different work schedules and are not always able to easily collaborate, even though we share the responsibility of a full-time employee. Our bosses assign us numerous projects and miscellaneous tasks that we divide among ourselves. Furthermore, our bosses sometimes do not tell one another when they give us projects so it is easy to become overloaded with work. When this first happened I immediately stressed out and began panicking. I accidently missed a crucial deadline from one project because I was helping another boss draft password security emails. I owned up to this mistake, but then communicated with my bosses the stress this job was imposing, as I did not know which project was highest priority. After discussing the issue more, the entire team was unaware of the various responsibilities each other assigned to student workers. Therefore, we began having weekly student worker meetings to discuss the priorities of our ongoing projects and miscellaneous tasks so we would understand which work was more important and divide the jobs accordingly.
What I Learned:
Before working at the IT department, I thought I was a good communicator since I had an outgoing personality and loved talking. However, this job has taught me that effective communication is so much more than talking, or even public speaking. I learned that effective communication involves honesty. I am now much more comfortable asking questions and requesting help when needed. I have also become a better listener, as I often am required to relay messages from boss to boss or boss to student. These communication skills will be useful in the rest of my life as I will always be required to work on teams and communicate any issues that may arise.