Reflection

Sitting back and reflecting is a very important part of learning and better understanding yourself. In my blog post I am going to reflect on two experiences and lessons I learned in my MNGT 470:(Leadership, Communication, and Teams in the Virtual World) class. Im going to focus on reflecting on 5 specific aspects of my experience, Recalling, Recapturing, Relating, Rationalizing, and Redirecting.

The first lesson that I learned in this class came from Experiential Learning Blog: Online Communication — delivering bad news message. In this assignment we were asked to deliver bad news to someone. We were given several different prompts to choose from and then from there we had the freedom to choose how we would address the prompt we choose. The goal of this was to be address bad news in a kind manner but also be able to get the point across clearly.

During the assignment I felt really stressed. I feel like when you are giving someone bad news it’s something that you don’t want to mess up. I felt that I had to take a lot of time on this message to make sure that I was getting the point across but was doing so in a kind and concise way. I knew that I was just writing this letter to another class member but I still felt a lot of pressure and stress. I felt that this letter could make or break my relationship with this person and it wasn’t even real, it was just and assignment.

This assignment relates a lot to something I experience often. I am a Resident Assistant for the University of Nebraska Lincoln. I work hands on with all of the residents in my building. There are several time through out the year I have to provide them with bad news. Sometimes it’s news about being too loud and needed to quiet down while other times it’s about a problem them might be occurring in the room. The worst yet is when you have to share with them they have violated a conduct and you have to right them up. Even though I have delivered bad news to people many time before for some reason this seemed a lot different. If was different in a sense that I felt more pressure to deliver a perfect message to this person I didn’t know well because I felt that it would make or break a relationship with them. I wasn’t sure how they would handle it and what was the best way to approach them. In the residents hall I know most of the residents and I know their personality so I makes it easier to provide them bad news in a way that would be fitting to them

I thought this assignment was so helpful. The other part of the assignment that I enjoyed was actually receiving and email. This part of the assignment really allowed you to sit back and deeper reflect on your on email. I could not be more please with the email I had received. It was concise to the point and very will written. The thing that really made this email great was that there was a voice recording attached. I really enjoyed this part of the email because it allowed you to actually hear the person and their tone of voice. In emails it can hard understand someones tone but with a voice recording attached it makes it easier. It also helps to make it more personal.

If I had to go back and do it all over again I would. I would do so because I have learned so much from this assignment and there are still things that I could work on and change. One thing I think that I would do was provide a voice recording to allow the person on the other side to hear my voice and my tone. I would then in the email rephrase what I was saying so that they had it down on text to refer back to. That way at any time this can reflect back on the email without have to listen to the voice recording.

The second lesson that I learned in class comes from the Capsim Inbox Redux. The Capsim Inbox Redux is a simulation where you would receive multiple emails and had to pick and choose what ones you would respond to first and how you would respond. Based off your choices and responses you were evaluated in five different areas initiating, organizing, problem solving, communicating, and leading.

When I did the simulation the first time I felt a lot of pressure and anxiety. I had no clue really what to expect. When it first asked me to rank myself and all these different areas it really stressed me out because I had not clue what I was going to really be doing so I didn’t know how I should rank myself. When you first open up the simulation it runs your through a couple of things before you start. I could not figure out how to work all the different parts and became angry and frustrated. At that point I was just annoyed and decided to open up the simulation and just go for it.

Going through the simulation the second time I felt better. I didn’t feel a sense of anger when I started because I knew how to navigate everything and what was expected. I did though still fell a lot of pressure. I felt that because it was the second time around that I needed to really work hard to improve my scores.

This assignment relates to my personal experience in so many different way. This is something that I do on a day to day bases. With a busy school schedule and a resident assistant job I only have time usually to sit down and check my email, Slack, GroupMe, and text once and evening. I have a lot of different people I am in communication with from people high up in the residents life all they way down to residents themselves. Each night I have to sit down and prioritize what things needed to be responded to right away and what things can wait. I feel that I am really good at getting back to them and responding well but the simulation was a lot different than what I was use to.

I think that I struggled in some ways with the simulation because, it was almost as if you were to be thrown into a job with not training. You were given some background information but that was it. Some things in the simulation had questions that anyone could answer but others I felt that you could answer better if you had been in the job a while and better understood your role and task. I think that in my day to day life I know my role and job as a resident assistant so it makes it easier to understand what people are talking about and I know how to properly respond.

I think overall this was a great learning experience for me. I thought that I knew myself well but I clearly didn’t I ranked myself a lot higher than what I scored. I think the biggest thing that I can take away from this though is that I’m the type of person who looks too much into something I will start to overthink things and second guess myself. In the first simulation I just went with my gut instinct and the knowledge I had. The second time I wanted to score higher that I spent a significant about of time really reading through emails and trying to figure out the perfect answer. I kept questioning myself and noticed I began to get angry with myself.

I think that if I was to do this again I need to find a balance between getting through things to get through them and over thinking them. I think that if I can find a balance where I look into thing enough to get a good answer that I would be able to score better.

I would encourage people to take this simulation as you can learn a lot about yourself. You might learn that areas you thought you were good in could use some improvement. This simulation will challenge you but it will be worth it in the end.

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