Matthew Brown

ENCE424
Third Pearl Diving Assignment
Select a quote from among the ones discussed in the beginning
weeks
The quote I will be using is that from week six by John C. Maxwell “Leadership is
influence, nothing more, nothing less”. I actually commented on this quote in class saying that I
had disagreed with it entirely. Now, after looking at it for some time, I have changed my
opinions about it and believe it to be true. When thinking about it, influence is everything,
whether it be because you are good at influencing or you are just in a higher power which creates
influence. The latter is what I missed when I made my statement in class. In my opinion, being a
leader comes down to driving a group of people towards a common goal with whatever means
available; hence, influence essentially sums up “whatever means available”.
A perfect example to illustrate this is the leadership of Adolf Hitler over Nazi Germany.
It is an undeniable fact that Adolf Hitler was an amazing leader (although leading his people
down a horrible path). Adolf Hitler was able to become such an effective leader by using his
influencing skills to push his people along a certain path. Hitler covered both areas of influence,
he himself was a very good influencer while he also took on a position of higher power. These
two aspects of influence made him such a good leader that he was able to push people beyond
their moral compass to accomplish his set of goals.
So how does this relate to being an effective project manager/leader? Well, as mentioned
previously, my idea of leadership stems from guiding a group of people towards one common
goal. Coming back to my example above, although Adolf Hitler during WWII was not running a
project team, the principles stay the same. If you as a project manager are able to have any type
of influence, you can guide your team to whatever the goal is, no matter how hard the task is thus
making one an effective project manager/leader.

What are two or three concepts you learned from the readings
thus far and how are you applying them?
Over the course of the past few weeks the weekly class readings have given very valuable
insights and practices. This information I have already been able to use in many of my classes
along with in my daily and professional life. Some of this knowledge I had always been aware
of, but it was very encouraging to actually see it published in writing. In the following sections, I
will discuss three different ideas from the readings that I found had the greatest impression on
my daily/professional life. These three different concepts are: typical classroom presentations,
treating the wait staff with respect and the acronym STATE, ‘How to Speak Persuasively, Not
Abrasively’.

Typical Classroom Presentations

A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking gives a good overview of the different types of
classroom presentations and the different formats that one should use. O’Hair tells us that in
many ways, classroom presentations are similar to formal public speaking but there are some key
differences. It is seen that there are three key differences: degree of formality, audience factors,
and speaker expertise. It is important to note that classroom presentations fall between typical
public speaking and typical conversational speaking when it comes to formality (i.e. it is less
formal then typical public speaking). Furthermore, it is important to note that those attending
typical public speaking functions are there on a voluntary basis which is in contrast with
classroom presentations to which the audience is usually not there on a voluntary basis (i.e. they
have to be there for the class). This is important to keep in mind because grabbing and keeping
the audience’s attention will be more difficult than with typical public speaking. Lastly, it is true
that when you go to a public speaking event, you assume the speaker knows what they are
talking about. This is in contrast to a classroom presentation where the speaker is usually forced
to speak on a topic regardless if they are knowledgeable about it or not. This is important to keep
in mind in that as a classroom presenter, you must establish your own ethos more so being that
you do not have the same credibility as a typical public speaker (O’Hair).
I now realize that these ideas are extremely important to grasp when doing a classroom
presentation. These seem like obvious ideas, but for me, I did not even think of these ideas
before reading this chapter. I was luckily able to have these ideas in the back of my head when
just this week I had a classroom presentation for one of my engineering classes. The presentation
was to essentially give an update on my progress of my robot. With these ideas in the back of my
head, I realized that my audience probably couldn’t care less about my progress on my robot
being that they were building the same ones. Furthermore, I realized they were also probably
thinking about why I am qualified to speak on behalf of the process when they are doing the
same process as me. With knowledge of this I decided to rethink my delivery strategy. I decided
to crack some jokes to keep the other students entertained and I decided to emphasize some
things I had done differently that might help the other students. With this I believe I was able to
keep the other students engaged in listening to me while also adding to my ethos by giving them
information about a new method that only I knew.

Treating the Wait Staff with Respect

Chapter 49 from The Essentials of Business Etiquette really confirmed what I had already
known and been taught. As mentioned previously, it was very nice to see this published in
writing being that these ideas I have always learned from experience, not from writing. The
chapter tells us to: ‘Greet your waiter’, ‘Do not speak down to the server’, ‘Say “Thank You”
when the waiter brings your food’, ‘If a problem occurs, be polite’ and ‘Don’t punish the waiter’
(Pachter). The chapter discusses that if one is not nice to a waiter, it really calls into question
their character. One of my favorite quotes “You can easily judge the character of a man by how
he treats one that can do nothing for him”, I believe, has some parallels to how one treats a
waiter.
As mentioned above, I learned how to treat service industry with respect not through any
writing, but through experience. I worked at a beach club for 5 years where I dealt with some
pretty horrible people. I told myself that I never wanted to be perceived like that by anyone and
hence I always make a point to be very nice to any service industry worker. To give a quick
example, this past week I went to MilkBoy on route one with some friends of mine. To be totally
honest, it was one of the worst meals I have had in a long time. It took 20 minutes for the waiter
to take our drink order, another 45 minutes to take our food order and by the time our food came
(which was horribly burnt), we had been there for over an hour and a half. Obviously a very
frustrating ordeal however I explained to my friends that we really don’t know whose fault it
was. Yes, it may have been the waiter’s fault, but it just as easily could have been the kitchen or
the bartenders. With that, I convinced my friends to just bite the bullet, so we tipped a normal
amount and left.

STATE, ‘How to Speak Persuasively, Not Abrasively’

Lastly, chapter 7 in Crucial Conversations tells us about the acronym STATE which is a
tool to be able to “…Speak Persuasively, Not Abrasively”. STATE stands for: ‘Share your facts’,
‘Tell your story’, ‘Ask for others’ paths’, ‘Talk tentatively’ and ‘Encourage testing’ (Patterson).
The chapter tells us that the first three letters describe “what to do” and the last two letters tell us
“how to do it”. We are told that one should start with the least controversial and most persuasive
arguments. Next, we are supposed to give our side of the story and then encourage the other side
to give their side of the story, along with any facts they would like to share. The last two letters
‘T’ and ‘E’ tells us to make sure that we tell our story not as fact but as a story and also make the
other side feel comfortable when sharing their story and facts.
One of the most important takeaways I got from this chapter was the second ‘T’ in
STATE, “State your story as a story – don’t disguise it as a fact”. I believe this is really
important to do in that everyone has a different perspective on everything and therefore, really
any story is all about perspective and not based on actual fact. Over spring break, I was able to
identify when I was making the mistake of telling my story as if it was a fact. A quick example
of this is when my friend group got separated in Miami due to a miscommunication. From my
point of view, I had known that I had shared our exact plans and times with the other car of
people (it was a large group of us so we all couldn’t fit in one car). The argument just went back
and forth because I realized each of us were telling our ‘stories’ of what had happened as fact. I
realized this and took my friends perspective in that maybe he just didn’t understand what I was
saying or missed part of what I was saying. It was all resolved once I lead on that it must have
been a communication error rather than someone’s fault. I do not know how the situation would
have played out if I had not read chapter 7 yet. I believe it would have been resolved just fine but
I believe it was constructive to realize that the reason the argument went back and forth was
because we were telling our stories as facts.

Reflect on an in-class debate activity

A couple of weeks ago our in-class activity was to have a debate. My groups topic was on
the big dig and we were assigned to be ‘pro’ big dig. After the first couple of minutes, the team’s
positions were decided to which I was given the videographer position.
If I had been chosen as the team leader, I would have followed the outlining strategy in
chapter 14 of A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking. In my last pearl dive, I spoke about chapter 14
and how we used it in the big dig in-class activity. The following is a piece from my last pearl
dive which explains the different types of outlines we did and which I would have employed if I
was team leader: “The book tells us that there are two different outlines that one should make
over the course of developing a speech: the working outline and the speaking outline. The
working outline’s essential function is to organize all the information that will be included in the
speech. It uses ‘the evidence you’ve collected, to develop supporting points to substantiate them.
Completed, the working outline will contain your entire speech, organized and supported to your
satisfaction’ (O'Hair)”.
Essentially how our team operated is almost exactly how I would have operated our team
if I was the team leader. This is because we ‘did it by the book’. To give a brief step by step
process, the researchers would have been instructed to start the working outline which would
contain the actual meat of our argument. While this was going on, myself, along with the other
positions besides the researchers, would be thinking of a good hook to start our speech off with.
After the researchers had gotten some information down, I would have instructed the presenters
to walk around to each research group to begin creating their speaking outline. On a side note, I
think it would have been very difficult for someone other than the person speaking to develop a
speaking outline. By the end of our short time span, we would have a speaking outline for each
of the presenters to conduct the debate. As said in my last pearl dive “In all, chapter 14 of A
Pocket Guide to Public Speaking gave us a quick and easy method to develop our speech in a
short time span for this past in-class assignment”.
Overall, I was very pleased with my team’s performance. We were organized, efficient
and we inevitably won the debate. My biggest take-away from the activity was that A Pocket
Guide to Public Speaking really hit the nail on the head with this topic. The steps I would have
taken and the steps we did take pretty much mirrored their process for creating the two different
outlines.

Complete the free online DISC personality test

After taking the test my results were as follows: 45% Influence, 43% Dominance, 7%
Steadiness and 5% Compliance. After reading the meanings of each of the categories, I would
say I agree with the fact that I should have a large percentage in Influence, Dominance and a low
percentage in Steadiness and Compliance.
When it comes to a large percentage in influence and dominance, I always found myself
to be a ‘go getter’. When problems arise, I am not one to push them off and usually deal with
them as soon as possible. This follows me into my work in that I am not a procrastinator. I am
one of those people who try to check things off on my calendar as soon as they come.
Furthermore, I am not afraid to speak up and have no problem communicating with anyone that I
need to. These traits all speak on behalf of my high percentage in influence and dominance.
On the other hand, my low percentage in steadiness and compliance were not a surprise. I
am not one to have good patience. I will often become internally frustrated however I am good at
covering it up. My self-awareness of the fact that one of my strengths is not patience has allowed
me to become good at ‘putting on a show’. In many situations I realize that I know I am just
being impatient and am in the wrong for being frustrated, so with that, I won’t let others know
how I am feeling. When it comes to being a project manager, being aware of what you are not
good at allows you to at least cover it up. Part of being a leader is about perception, the way you
are perceived by your followers. Regardless of your weaknesses, as long as you are able to cover
them up in the workplace, it is just as good as not having them at all. Lastly, my low score in
compliance I believe has to do with my unorthodox way of thinking. For as long as I can
remember, I have always gotten comments “why are you doing it this way?” to which my
response is always “Because it works for me.” I personally don’t see a low percentage in
compliance as a weakness because if the job gets done, the job gets done.
 Reference List

O'Hair, Dan, et al. A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking. 2016.

Pachter, Barbara. The Essentials of Business Etiquette: How to Greet, Eat, and Tweet Your Way
to Success. 2013.

Patterson, Kerry, et al. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. 2011.