Pearl Diving Essay 4

University of Maryland, College Park

Sebastian Asberg
Instructor: Dr. Shana Webster-Trotman
November 16th 2019
ENCE424, Communication for Project Managers
Introduction

As the course comes to an end, I would like to thank you Dr. Trotman for an interesting and
very useful course. I believe I will use the skills I’ve learned from you in this course
throughout my career. In this final essay you will read about why I think that Dr. Angelou’s
quote from the beginning of the course is one of the most important quotes we’ve talked
about. I will also talk about three new concepts which I think are very important when you
talk about a great communicator and finally, how I would have lead my team to being a
winner in the debate about the Big Dig project.

The Quote and its Meaning

The quote that I have chosen to talk about is the first one that we talked about in the class,
namely Dr. Angelou’s quote. The quote is the following: ​“I've learned that people will forget
what you ​said​, people will forget what you ​did​, but people will never forget how you made
them ​feel​.”. I believe that this quote is one of the most relevant to this course. During the
course we’ve had a big emphasis of talking, delivering speeches, and writing emails in the
form of stories. But not just any stories, we should tailor our stories in a way that they invoke
emotions into the person that we are talking to. This is because, as Dr. Angelou said, people
tend to forget many things but if you make them feel something when you deliver your
speech or presentation they will remember it for a long time. Since the entire course revolves
around being a good communicator as a project manager or a leader in general, making
people remember is a key skill to know. If people remember you, it’s more likely that you’ll
find that dream job, that your team work effectively or for you to make another friend.

An example of something that I will remembering my whole life is when I shared my first
kiss. I was about 14 and had my first girlfriend, Camilla. We had been together for about 6
months and I usually walked with her home after school since we walked the same way. This
time was different though, before she went into into her house she leaned in and we both had
our first kiss with each other. As this was my very first kiss I will always remember it and
Camilla because of the way it made me ​feel​. If I had lost this memory and someone told me
who I shared the first kiss with, I think I would have forgotten it as soon as someone told me
about it because I wouldn’t have the feelings associated with the memory. This is something
that illustrates the quote quite well in my opinion and explains why you should make people
feel something instead of telling them or showing them.

Concepts

The first concept that I found really useful is that of ​Contrasting.​ According to ​Crucial
Conversations​ contrasting is something that you can use when someone misinterpret what
your purpose with the conversation is. It will help build the safety back up by using a do/
don’t statement. This will ensure the other person that you respect them and their opinion,
which is the ​don’t​ part, but also reiterates your own purpose which is the ​do​ part. The don’t
part is the most important since it is the one that reestablishes trust.

Unfortunately, I have not yet tried this concept after I learned about it but I have a situation
which I had before I left for the US in which I could have used this technique. Before I left
Sweden I dated a girl, Isabella, for about 2 months. Before the summer break, I decided I
needed to talk to her about our situation and me leaving for the semester. Since we hadn’t
dated that long, I didn’t want to tie myself up to something that I didn’t know would last.
When I talked to her about it she obviously got upset because, from what I gathered, she
didn’t feel the same way. I tried to make her feel better but it was hard and I think I did a
rather poor job of it. If I had know this concept I think I would have dealt with it better, we
would have had a more meaningful conversation and both of us would have left feeling good
about the situation. This is why I will definitely use the technique when I get home and talk
to her again.

The second concept that I have is the ​STATE My Path​ concept from the ​Crucial
Conversations​ book. This is a way of having a Crucial Conversation where you are able to
talk about even the most sensitive topics without the other person taking offense or walking
away.

According to ​Crucial Conversations​, STATE stands for:

S​hare your facts, state what you have observed.

T​ell your story, say what you think has happened.
A​sk for other’s path, invite the other person to share their story.
T​alk Tentatively, tell the story as a ​story ​instead of a fact.
E​ncourage testing, invite the opposing view instead of rejecting it.

I used this technique last week when me and the Swedish person I came with was going to
book our flight home from Maryland after the semester is over. Since we came over on the
same flight, we both figured that we would take the same flight home. However, as the
semester has progressed I have observed that my friend wants to go home earlier than I want
to. Our original plan was to go home a week after the semester ends but now he is thinking
about going home before and he expected me to join, mostly because he feels bad about
leaving me here. I felt a bit hurt by this, since we planned to go home later. So we sat down
and shared our stories about when and why we wanted to leave. In the conversation I used the
STATE my path and it worked great. We have now decided to go home on separate flights,
no one is feeling bad about it and we have stayed good friends.

The last concept that we talked about and which I feel is very important for communication is
The Story.​ We’ve talked a lot about how the stories we tell are crucial to being a good
communicator, it makes people feel and think. According to ​Five Stars​, stories triggers a rush
of the so called “happy” chemicals like oxytocin and dopamine. This means that a compelling
story makes us more trusting, understanding and open for ideas than we otherwise would
have been.

The way that I’ve applied this so far is in what I write. When writing about things I used to
not elaborate too much on the details but now I’ve started doing it more and more to make
people empathise more with the stories. For example in the Pearl Diving, after the second one
my answers have become more story oriented which I hope is something that’s noticeable.
Another place where I’ve started using more stories is when I write cover letters. I am
currently searching for a new internship for next summer, since competition is hard I need to
distinguish myself. That’s why I’ve started writing the cover letters to the jobs I’m applying
to in story form. I have yet to get something back, but it will be interesting to see if it works.

In-Class Debate

My team’s topic in the debate was Big Dig - Con. I was appointed researcher by the team.
If I had been the team leader, I would first make sure everyone understood what we were
going to do. Then I would have gone around the table and made sure that everyone got to
share something about what they thought we should focus on. This is because according to
Crucial Conversations​ you need to build the safety in the group and make people comfortable
in sharing their thoughts with each other. After this I would make sure the group had their
defined roles, that everyone knew what they were supposed to do and then split everyone into
subgroups to work on our different arguments. On regular intervals I would have had a small
meeting where everyone shared what they had found out. I would do this so that others could
comment or share their thoughts about what the groups came up with and so that everyone
felt involved. Before we would present I would make sure that we put all arguments together
so that the people presenting could work on delivering our presentation.

Even though we didn’t win, I believe we did a good job in explaining our point of view and
what we thought of the project as a whole. I understand that I am biased, but I think we
deserved to win since I thought our arguments were better than that of the opposing team but
the panel obviously didn’t think so.

One think that I took away from the debate is the need for structure in the group. No one
really took on the leader job in the beginning, which meant it was almost anarchy with
everyone talking over each other about what we should do without any obvious leader as a
moderator.

Conclusion

In this essay you’ve read about why I think that Dr. Angelou’s quote about making people
feel to remember is what best summarizes this course. It’s something that is very useful when
holding speeches, compel to people’s empathy instead of their logic. I’ve also talked about
three concepts that I’ve learned in the course and which I find interesting. Finally I’ve talked
about the in-class debate that we had and what something I learned from it. Once again,
thanks for this semester Dr. Trotman and for the most useful course I had in Maryland.
References

Gallo, Carmine. ​Five Stars: The Communication Secrets to get from Good to Great.​ St.
Martin’s Press, 2018. Print.

Patterson, Kerry and Joseph Grenny and Ron McMillan and Al Switzler. ​Crucial
Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High.​ McGraw-Hill, 2012. Print.