Final Report for my Personal Change Project

Angelica Curtis
Communications 2110-500
Professor Susan Knott
Date Submitted: August 1, 2018

Overview

For my goal I wanted to change my first initial impression when coming across an individual.
This was due to social stereotypes and prejudices. I was able to work on these communication
problems by becoming more flexible creatively, working on being other oriented through social
decentering and being empathetic. At work my focus was to create a third culture that created a
balanced environment for everyone and being mindful of my surroundings.

Unwanted Communication Pattern

When meeting individuals my first impression of them was always wrong. I noticed that I was
focusing on all of the things that society highlights. All of the things that don’t matter. In fact, it
was things that are considered stereotypes and prejudices. I wasn’t looking to understand them, I
was looking to see if they are what is considered normal to society. Here is a few examples to
show my communication faults:

Example one:

One day while I was at work, I went down to the cafeteria to order some lunch. While I was in
the cafeteria, I came across a girl who looked like she was mad. I avoided her because I did not
want to make anything worse. While she was in line to pay, I had ended up being behind her. She
made a comment about what I was eating. I laughed and had agreed with her. Turns out she
wasn’t mad. This was hard for me, because I have the same problem. I can totally relate, people
tend to avoid me because they tell me I look mean. So unless I am smiling people tend to stay
away.

The consequences to this conversation: I stereotyped this girl the way everyone else stereotypes
me. I could have potentially had a great conversation with her, possibly even became friends. My
biggest flaw in this encounter is basing the potential experience on what I see, not on the
knowledge. After she had made a comment, then I was motivated to reciprocate a conversation.

Example two:

A few weeks back I had formed a prejudice opinion of myself. I came across this guy who had
been in one of my previous classes. He had been working out at the recreation center the same
days that I had, Tuesdays and Thursdays. He is a cute guy, but I had been preventing myself
from introducing myself because I tell myself that it won’t be worth it. The conversation will end
badly, and it will become awkward everytime we see each other. I had said hi, and he
reciprocated said hi back, with a smile. Even though he was genuine, I still couldn’t get past this.

Consequences to this situation: I never got the chance to know this guy. This was because of my
shyness and my communication apprehension. I’ve always thought I’ve had high self-esteem, but
it turns out I don’t. I’m comfortable in my own skin, but I fear rejection.

Strategies

When learning about communication skills and how they are applied, I realized that I have quite
a few I could improve on myself. I am a shy person, which causes me be analytical in my head.
Because of this I wanted to improve my morale of my thoughts when first meeting people.
The first strategy I focused on was Intercultural Communication Competence (Beebe, pg 101,
107-108) through creative flexibility, social decentering and empathy. The structure behind
each of these are used to improve my communication. For creative flexibility, it was used for
“observing and responding while adapting my behavior to improve my response that is culturally
acceptable.”(Beebe pg 108) Social Decentering is used “when you take into account another
person.”(Beebe, pg 108) As for empathy, it is implemented when “you have an emotional
reaction when you have a similar experience with another person.”(Beebe pg 108)

I decided to work on these skills because I felt like they could really break the ice in my
communication. I believe that I already do these things to a degree, but I have a difficult time
showing it. I am a shy person, and do not talk much to people I do not know. As for empathy,
this is something I really needed to work on. I feel for people when they are going through a
difficult time or they have just experienced something hard, but my reactions do not show that I
do. I’ve been told I am cold, and that is something I really wanted to work on.

In the second strategy I worked on Third Culture (Beebe, pg 99, 104,) by working on open-
mindness and stereotyping. These skills are used when you are taking two different cultures and
creating a new “third culture.” (Beebe, pg 104)

This strategy was something that was really important for me to work on. I am a supervisor at
my job. It is really easy to jump to conclusions, which is why it was important for me to work on
this. I was really looking to create an environment at work where everyone felt comfortable and
understood.

The last strategy I strived to be Mindful. (Beebe, pg 106) “To be mindful, you are consciously
aware of what you are doing, thinking and sensing. You are acknowledging the connection
between your thoughts and deeds when you interact with another person from a background
different from your own.” (Beebe, pg 106)

I wanted to work on this strategy for personal and work related reasons. Being mindful will
improve my overall morale with work and my personal life. I chose this to help myself grow as
an individual.
Constraint

I think my biggest obstacle was creating a third culture at my job. My team consists of many
different backgrounds. Each person has a very different perspective on their career. I wanted to
create an environment that was comfortable with all of my team. However I did learn that with
many different backgrounds, it is hard to create that third culture as a group. So I changed my
initial strategy to work on creating third cultures with individuals on my team.

Another obstacle that I found myself experiencing, was my thoughts. It was easier for old habits
to reoccur. Stereotyping people before actually talking to them. Throughout this experience I
came across several times where I had placed prejudices on them before interacting.

Implementation

To start I mentally reviewed all of my relationships I have at work, with friends, and family. I
thought about how each had begun and what my initial thought was. I made a mental note if my
impression was correct or not. I worked on being mindful of my environment and observed
individuals before making assumptions. I started conversations with hello, and introducing
myself. I worked on listening intently to the individual, found both similarities and differences in
our choices of words, as well as responses. Once I was able to do that I formed an idea of what
type of person each individual was based on the knowledge I had gathered from our
conversations.

I took a training program, InsideOut Coaching by Franklin Covey, and have implemented it into
my job role as a coach. The point of this method is to coax an individual in providing what they
think the problem is and then coming up with their own solution. By coaching my agents this
way, I was able to work towards creating a third culture. Through this I was able to be
empathetic with scenarios that I could relate to when I was an agent. With this method of
coaching, it also gave me more leg room when understanding our differences and allowed me to
become more mindful. I was mindful by being attentive and conscious of my surroundings, as
well as being able to adapt to my environment. Because I was able to work on being mindful,
social decentering naturally came along with it. I really took into consideration the employees
feelings and their perspectives on work.

I pulled each employee aside and had a personal conversation with them. I did this several times
throughout the month. I emphasized on my concern for their needs, but also the importance of
their work ethics. I was able to push aside any preconceived ideas I had for the goals of each
individual for the month. Through this process I have been able to start the process of creating a
third culture. I have noticed that my team has began to work harder and continues to push
themselves, not only have we started to be mindful of each other, but it has created an open door
effect on the communication amongst the team.

Outside of work, I have worked on my communication skills wherever I go. I have found that my
biggest struggle is when I am alone. I have a hard time meeting new people and opening up.
That’s when my old habits kicked in and I started created prejudices and stereotyping
individuals. I allowed my shyness to kick in and take over. For instance, in the previous scenario
above, I had walked into the recreation center to go to my weekly kickboxing class. I had
noticed this guy who had been in a class with me the previous semester had been working out the
same days I was there. He’s a cute guy, but like always I formed an opinion of myself and let it
take over. I told myself that it won’t be worth it and the conversation will end badly. Then it will
be awkward everytime we see each other. I forced myself to say hi, and he said hello back and
even smiled, but I couldn’t push myself to say anything else. I just walked away. I placed a
prejudice on myself. I did okay because I was able to say hello. However, the better option
would have been to read his non-verbal cues(Beebe, 180) such as his smile and initiate a
conversation.

While in my exercise classes I worked on being mindful. I took note on body language and facial
expressions to see how each individual reacted to people walking in front of them to get into the
classroom or to put equipment away. I was able to pick up on what was considered acceptable
and disrespectful in their culture. I used the politeness theory (Beebe, pg 45) to try and received a
positive outcome. This helped a lot with my communication skills non verbally, because they
slowly realized that I was trying to be respectful of their space and values. In a way we created a
silent third culture. Being attentive in this scenario was very helpful in this situation. Another
thing that I could have done to be more efficient is to simply ask. I have found that if you kindly
ask someone of another culture a question like that, they are nice about it and will simply
respond. I declined to do this response because I didn’t want to offend anyone.

My first obstacle with creating a third culture within my team was difficult because I was going
about it all wrong. I realized this when I was really being attentive and mindful of my team. I
needed to change my focus to creating a third culture with each individual separately. Each
individual on the team is unique and different. To tackle this, I began sitting down with each
employee separately. I wanted to get a better idea of what they wanted out of work. So I began to
be more attentive and critically listen (Beebe, 134) so I could focus on facts (Beebe, 135). While
observing, I made sure to ask questions (Beebe, 135) and then I would paraphrase (Beebe, pg
136) my employees response to ensure we were on the same page. This was exactly what I
needed, this is what helped start the evolution of each individual third culture. My employees
recognized that I am here to assist them and help them grow as individuals.

As for the second obstacle, I was my own constraint. Being alone was my biggest weakness. It’s
like my confidence just drops. I found that my old habits would happen due to being shy and my
own non verbal cues kept individuals away. Once I had realized what was going on I worked on
my self talk. (Beebe, pg 46) If this did not work and I found myself forming opinions of
individuals before talking to them, I would stop and think about five nice things about them.
Surprisingly this helped! I haven’t completely kicked this habit, but this technique has really
pushed me to not jump to conclusions.

One strategy I felt like I really did not improve on was my empathy. There were instances where
I was empathetic with individuals, but overall I do not feel like I had very many opportunities to
work on these skills.

Results

In the beginning I wasn’t too fond of the idea of keeping records of conversations I have had, but
it actually gave me some really great insight. It really showed me what my strengths are and
what I could improve on. I would say this is a very positive experience. It has pushed me to be a
better communicator and become more attentive to non-verbal cues. I found that I wasn’t getting
the full picture at times because I wasn’t paying attention to the conversation as a whole. This
was especially true when it came to workplace conversations. My team would tell me what I
wanted to hear, but I did not noticed until this experiment that their non-verbal cues were telling
me different.

The only negative consequence that I experienced throughout this period was not pushing myself
when it came to my limits. I have gotten pretty good at reading nonverbal cues and listening.
What I need to focus on is my self-confidence. I believe when I improve on my self talk, my old
habits will become lesser and lesser.

Overall, I am satisfied with the outcome. Even though I have only made little progress, it is still
progress. As I have improved, it only makes me grow as a person individually and
professionally.

Communication Accommodation Theory (Beebe, pg 109) speaks volumes to my strategies,

because I had to adapt my behaviors in order to become more mindful, creatively flexible, and
other oriented. I had to really pay attention and change my behavior in order for me to
accomplish my goal in starting a third culture. It’s impossible for you to do this without adapting
to each other. You have to be mindful of each other and really showcase your understanding and
respect for each of your cultures. Once you have done that, then you can really create a new
culture.

Recommendations

I will continue to work on these strategies. I believe communication drives everything. It is key
to solving many problems in the workplace and in our personal lives. Becoming a better
communicator will make me grow as a person and allow my career to flourish. Great
communication gives us optimal opportunities. I will continue to work on the strategies like
suggested previously, if I do not see an improvement in empathy, then I may work to develop
this skill outside of the workplace.
I would really like to work on the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory. (Beebe, pg 354) I
think it is important to have different relationships with different level of management. I feel like
some of my relationships blend because I coach the team I once was an entry level employee on.
I do not want to give the impression that I will be lenient and allow them to goof off. On the
same note, I want my employees to feel like they can come to me about anything. I would also
like to work on the politeness theory. (Beebe, pg 45) I really think this theory could improve
communication overall. I believe society is lacking mannerism more and more each day. When
we respect each other, we allow ourselves to learn from each other, we create trust and a bond.
Working to improve skills in this theory could create better relationships.

Works Cited
References:

Beebe, S., Beebe, S, Redmond, M. (2017) Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others.

Accessed. July 2018

Clark, C. (2018). Conflict Management Skills. Available at

https://slcc.instructure.com$CANVAS_COURSE_REFERENCE$/modules. Accessed . July
2018