I was the committee chairperson for a CCA in NUS last year. We organized an event called ‘Mastering Interview Session’. It was a workshop to train students on proper conduct and the dos and don’ts during interviews. We got two speakers from company X. After receiving their confirmation, we started our publicity.. We got a good number of 300+ registered students. We then prepared surveys to help us understand what the students were expecting from the workshop. The information was compiled and sent to company X a week before the session.
Two days before the session, company X called and said to postpone the workshop as the speakers were busy. However, we could not do so as the publicity and registrations were done. They said they understand and will make sure the speakers turn up.
On the day of the workshop I received a call from my branch president saying there is a big problem. My CCA is a student branch of an international organization and the company X had sent an email complaining about our student branch’s misconduct, to the main branch. I was shocked to hear this because so far the communications between us have been good and they had even confirmed their coming the day before.
Later the company called me and said they would like to break ties with our club as we have been dealing very rudely. When asked where the communication went wrong they said the speakers were offended by the survey information we had sent. The survey contained information on what the students were interested in, however the speakers had found it to be demining as they thought that we were trying to tell them what to say during the workshop, which was not our intention.
I would like to know what could have been done in this situation, not only from my committee’s point but from the company’s point as well, since they had their own problems for having speakers who were busy.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Why effective communication skills are important to me!
During my course of internship as a sales intern at Lucenta technology during the 3 months vacation I realized how important communication skills are. To be honest, I don’t find myself to be afraid of approaching someone or starting a conversation. Nevertheless I realized there is more to communication then just being confident and not afraid of speaking.
During my internship I met with many clients, gave many presentations. During these presentation/meetings I was very comfortable to be standing in front of a number of staffs and executives and convey my message clearly. Hence I was well appreciated for being a good speaker. However, this was not the case of the first impression I gave my supervisor.
The internship itself was a very different experience. Firstly, the working environment and the people were very different to those I meet in school or my family and friends. Hence when it came to communicating with the staff, I was rather hesitant and afraid of offending them or saying something wrong.
On my first day, I started off being as formal as possible and talked little. As the days went by my supervisor was under the impression I was a rather quite person… However when I started my meetings with my clients and presentations my supervisor was rather taken aback… and he said to me I was like a mouse that suddenly went boom (I don’t remember the exact phrase)… But what he really meant was that my first impression was that of a person who was very quite and shy. But when he saw how I did my presentations and led my meetings he realized that his impression of me was very wrong. I believe this was because of the wrong image I portrayed during the first few days of my internship. This could have been due to my lack of knowledge on how to communicate and behave in different environments. This case of an office environment is just an example, there are bound to be many other scenarios. Hence it is very important to understand the different modes of communication and how to communicate with different people. This is the reason why I have taken this module and why effective communication is important to me.
Cheerios:D
Keerth
During my internship I met with many clients, gave many presentations. During these presentation/meetings I was very comfortable to be standing in front of a number of staffs and executives and convey my message clearly. Hence I was well appreciated for being a good speaker. However, this was not the case of the first impression I gave my supervisor.
The internship itself was a very different experience. Firstly, the working environment and the people were very different to those I meet in school or my family and friends. Hence when it came to communicating with the staff, I was rather hesitant and afraid of offending them or saying something wrong.
On my first day, I started off being as formal as possible and talked little. As the days went by my supervisor was under the impression I was a rather quite person… However when I started my meetings with my clients and presentations my supervisor was rather taken aback… and he said to me I was like a mouse that suddenly went boom (I don’t remember the exact phrase)… But what he really meant was that my first impression was that of a person who was very quite and shy. But when he saw how I did my presentations and led my meetings he realized that his impression of me was very wrong. I believe this was because of the wrong image I portrayed during the first few days of my internship. This could have been due to my lack of knowledge on how to communicate and behave in different environments. This case of an office environment is just an example, there are bound to be many other scenarios. Hence it is very important to understand the different modes of communication and how to communicate with different people. This is the reason why I have taken this module and why effective communication is important to me.
Cheerios:D
Keerth
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