Class 1&2

We started our class in a non-traditional way. There were no tables or chairs in classroom, we all sat
on the floor. At the beginning of the class professor invited us to meet and greet everyone and form
a group of 9 people each. I tried to meet the all the new people whom I didn't know earlier. We
introduce Each Other among ourselves and formed groups of 9 people each.

There was one guy who could not form any group. Earlier he had come to our group and without
saying anything he left. So according to his explanation he could not form any group because we did
not keep a place for him. But our group members thought he left to form another group as he did not
say anything about whether he was joining our group or not. From here I learnt that clear
communication is very necessary in our daily life and we should not presume anything.

We agreed to follow some contracts with included confidentiality, honesty and active participation in
class. Then in the groups of 9 we discussed what our expectation from the course is and designed the
syllabus according to our needs. Once all the groups were done with this activity we formed a big circle
and started discussing our points. We could not concluded discussion as there was not much time left.
So we parked our discussion and agreed to continue it in next class.

After the class I tried to remember all the new people I have met, but I could not remember the most
of them. So in coming days when I met any new people in college I tried to remember the name by
talking them for some time and getting a proper introduction. This helped me in remembering the
names of the people.

Class 3
We again formed a circle and continued our discussion on deciding the Framework for learning in the
class. While forming the circle no one sat beside the professor. Then we started discussing and tried
to find out why this happened. Most of the people said because the profession have the authority
that's why students didn't go and sat beside him. So here we learn that people not comfortable with
the authority and they are afraid of them.

In the discussion we tried to convince each other to sit beside professor but no one was volunteered
to sit there. Then the professor emotionally said that he was sad because no one sat beside him, by
listening to this few students got up and sat beside him. From this incident I learnt that people can be
persuaded by emotions.

While in this discussion of authority be completely forgot about the discussion of the Framework for
learning in the class. Then we started discussion on how to write rejection letter to offer by any
company. I learnt that while writing any such response we should be assertive, less dramatic and
professional. I learnt that there is no need to mention them in a reason for not joining. But since we
want to work with them in future we should not give any negative comments. So one of the possible
way of saying is that we will not be able to join your company now but would like to work with you in
future.

I put forward my points few times during the discussion. But after the class I felt I should have
participated more and would to do so from next class. The people who did not speak were invited to
put forward their views.
 Class 4
As the class started some people sat in the corner. When the professor came he asked the people why
they were sitting in the corners. To this few people replied that they were sitting in the corner because
they were very comfortable at those places. The professor said that the people were sitting in corner
because they were trying to hide or they had inferiority complex. Then he said it is just his perception
which might not be true.

He told this type of perception come because we are culturally contaminated. He also perceived that
people sat in the corner because they were not willing to participate in the class discussions. So he
asked one of the student who was sitting in corner to go and encourage people to participate more.

There was a small activity conducted in which we were asked to observe each other in pair of 2 people.
Through this exercise I learnt about the difference between observation and perception. Observations
are facts which are very difficult to challenge whereas perceptions are adjectives and adjectives are
always relative in nature.

Then we learnt about the ego state of the people. There are three kind of ego States parent, adult and
child. In parent we have critical parents and nurturing parents, in child we have obedient child and
free child. We also learnt about the transnational analysis. There are different types of transactions
when we communicate. A complementary transaction involves one ego state in each person.
Communication can continue between two people as long as transactions are complementary. In a
crossed transaction the transactional response is addressed to an ego state different from the one
which started the stimulus. Crossed transactions are important because they disrupt communication.
Whenever a disruption of communication occurs, a crossed transaction caused it.

I tried to analyse all the conversations I had later to whether it was complementary or cross
transactions. Then I also tried to relate to which ego state I was in when I was talking to others and in
which ego states there were when they were talking.

Class 5
In this class professor narrated us a story. After the story professor ask us to write the name of the
most offensive character in the story. Then we formed the groups with common character of this
story.

I choose Pradeep Patel as the most offensive character of the story because:

 Without knowing the reasons he started hitting Ashok (His actions were voluntary)
 Instead of talking to them he reacted in a very aggressive way (lack of thinking)
 Just by superficial approach he took his action (coming to conclusion without analysing)

Then we were asked to discuss about it and come to a common conclusion. As we started the
discussion no one was listening to other group. Here I learnt that listening is different from hearing.
While one group was presenting Idea some people started smiling. I felt this was very insensitive and
we should not be doing any such act. From my group the other person presented the idea but once
other started asking questions I jumped in and answer their queries. I did this to help my friend as he
did not answer. But the professor gave the hypothesis that I interfere in the personal space of my
leader. And people interfere because they do not have the trust in the leader what they want to show
that they are powerful.

I pondered upon this stuff and ask few of my friends if I do it to them on regular basis.
 Class 6
We again started where we left off in the next class to discuss the story and come to a conclusion.
There were few new students in class today. They simply sat with any group they wanted without
knowing why we were divided into groups. Later we narrated the story and ask them to pick a group.
Our team did not try to communicate to them to bring new people to our side. Again when the
discussion started people were not listening to others and they were rigid on their selections.
Professor gave the observation that we were simply trying to negate the other person. All the
communication what was happening were complementary transactions and they could go till infinite
time.

Professor told us about few terms like BATNA, ZOPA. BATNA stands for better alternate to negotiated
agreement and ZOPA stands for zone of permissible agreement.

There are two kind of negotiations - integrative and distributive. All these negotiations can result in
four different types- win-win, win-lose, lose-win, lose-lose.

We kept on discussing but could not reach at any conclusion. I deducted from the discussion is that
we were not able to reach the conclusion because we were not listening to others and all the
transactions happening where complementary.
 Class 7&8
Assertiveness Vs Co-operation

Locus of control

Locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they have control over the outcome of
events in their lives, as opposed to external forces beyond their control. I believe that I am a person
with an external locus of control most of the times. I leave things to luck. But sometimes I display
qualities of a person with an internal locus of control. This is usually when I underperform or do not
meet my own expectations.

Comparison with others

We compare ourselves with others a lot of times in life. There are infinite metrics on which we can
compare ourselves with others. But I think it is unfair to compare ourselves with someone else. We
typically compare the worst thing about us to the best we presume about others. Comparisons put
focus on the wrong person.
 Class 9&10
Jensen-Tuckman model

Source:

https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/the-little-book/9780273785262/html/chapter-
044.html

Stress Interview

It is used by employers to put a candidate under intense pressure, to assess how a candidate handles
work overload and pressure. The best way to handle such interviews according to me is to maintain
composure and remain calm. We should not lose our confidence and assertiveness. We should not
allow our emotions to leak out. Never get intimidated by the interviewer’s questions. We should avoid
leaking any unnecessary information about ourselves in front of the interviewer.

Class 11
Problems with my English communication

The biggest problem that I face with English language is articulation. I find it difficult to structure my
thoughts and put them into words to clearly and coherently deliver a message. It happens a lot of
times that I can’t convey to the other person what I am actually thinking. I take long pauses in between
while speaking to recollect words in my mind. To overcome this weakness, firstly I need to read a lot
and then practice speaking.

Questionnaire

Sir gave us a questionnaire in the class to assess our ego types. My score was high on nurturing parent
and adult whereas low on obedient child and critical parent. The difference in scores between CP and
NP was very high in my case. For a healthy ego state, there should be low difference between these
scores. I need to try and bridge that gap in order to become a better person to interact and work with.

CP-7
NP-17

A-28

FC-13

OC-10

Class 12&13
Challenges faced by me

After watching the video, I realized that my biggest challenges were overcoming anxiety, articulation
and rate of speech. I need to modulate my speech. This would help me to attract audience. I realized
that when I do not have the content, I tend to get nervous, and that affects my oration. The first thing
which I need to do is to build content, by reading a lot. I will fix 1 hour daily to read books, magazines,
articles etc. to build content as well as vocabulary.

Challenges faced by the group

The major challenge was lack of coordination among the members. We prepared our own parts but
did not bother to take a look into what the other person has prepared. If we would have done that,
the flow of the presentation could have been much better and coherent. As a team, we could have
utilized our time much better, if we had taken some time to plan out everything. I believe we did not
fully realize the potential of our team and started working individually which showed up at a later
stage as we were not well prepared on the final day.

Root cause analysis

I created a fishbone diagram keeping lack of confidence as the main problem. The causes which I listed
down were lack of experience, lack of practice, anxiety, articulation, vocabulary and problem with
language. I need to pick up all these causes one by one and improve upon them.

Psychological contracting

A psychological contract is a philosophy, not a formal written plan or obligation. It helps the involved
parties to mutually share their expectations. This could play a key role in establishing a better mode
communication between them. They need to be maintained in order to sustain a robust and healthy
psychological contract.

Class 14
Why do we feel anxious?

Sir told us that anxiety happens when ego states jumble up. Anxiety is a feeling of unease, worry or
fear. It happens when we are not able to cope up with the situation. A little bit of anxiety could be
good as it makes us more alert and focused. But too much anxiety can make us tired and unable to
concentrate. If we can find out the root cause of our anxiety, we can develop ways to cope up with it.
We need to think of it from an adult ego state to find out actionable items which can be measured in
terms of improvement.
 Class 15
Tenses

We were given a chart by sir using which we can form sentences in a very simple manner. There were
4x3 different variations of types of sentences which can be formed using that chart. This really helped
me to understand how sentence formation should happen. The way it was explained along with Hindi
translations, made it even clearer for us to learn.

Gunning fog index

The gunning fox index is a readability test for English writing. It estimates by giving a numerical value,
how clear is it to understand by a reader. My gunning fox index value was 12. This is on the higher
side. To improve upon this, I need to try to form shorter sentences and try using simpler words.

Gunning Fog index. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunning_fog_index/

Class 16&17
We learnt about the written communication in these classes.

PAIBOC Analysis

PAIBOC stands for Purpose, Audience, Adaptation, Information, Benefits, Objectives, Content. It is a
very important tool which can be used to assess the effectiveness of a message. We need to analyse
what would be the most effective way of doing that by delving deeper into each of the aforementioned
steps.

Deadwoods

Deadwood refers to the excessive use of meaningless words which do not add up any value to the
content of the message. People tend to use redundant phrases to make their writing appear full of
content. Writing must be clear, concise and accurate. In that way, the reader would not lose interest
while going through the text. To avoid using deadwood phrases, we must use simple words to convey
complex ideas.

Jordyn Fishback. (2014, October 8). Avoiding redundancies and deadwood phrases. Retrieved from
https://prezi.com/7f65tr7gwpmf/avoiding-redundancy-and-deadwood-phrases/

Movie – 12 Angry Men

An eighteen-year-old boy has been charged with murdering his father and the proceedings are held
in a New York City court. The family lives in a slum. The prosecution presents two crucial witnesses for
the murder.

After the final arguments are presented, the Judge instructs the twelve-member jury to come to a
unanimous decision. He further states that a guilty verdict will result in death sentence as per the
provisions of New York State laws .For either of the decisions, the jury members should reasonably be
convinced.

The court clerk ushers the 12 member jury into a private room and reminds them that their decision
has to be unanimous.

Each of the twelve jurors are introduced to us as they are introduced to themselves. The characters
are well draw out and individual, each with his own personality. The tension of the characters draws
the audience in from the start. We imagine that the case is open and shut, 11 me saying guilty and 1
not. We feel the discomfort of Henry Fonda as the other characters belittle and mock how he can see
any reasonable doubt in the case. But we also share his victories and the enthusiasm as he proceeds
to refute or add doubt to the arguments for guilty and are captivated and draw in as other jurors begin
to see doubt in the proceedings.

Throughout the 95 minutes-movie, Henri Fonda uses many negotiation tricks and techniques to win
each and every juror to his cause and obtain a unanimous not-guilty decision:

 Blocking the negotiation as a minority (decision has to be unanimous)

 Use of silence in negotiation to force the other party to reveal its thought
 Management of negotiation timing (use of breaks) and energy low and high of the participants
 Open or secret voting to use or disqualify peer-pressure
 Give-and-take with minor and insignificant concessions given while keeping the eye on the
end goal
 Divide and conquer, forge alliances
 Use of strong emotions, good and bad from both sides