MGMT 535 2.3 Taking someone to lunch

This video made me think of who I would want to take to lunch to get to know better, someone who I may not see eye to eye with at work. Immediately I thought of someone who used to work in my department that, given a chance to have lunch with her, I would so that I could understand how our dynamic became so broken. First let me provide some background. Tracy started working in the financial aid office about 6 months before I did and when I came on board I was very impressed with her knowledge and when given a choice on who I wanted as an office mate I picked her. At first, everything was great, I asked questions and she seemed so willing to help me. As I became more comfortable I asked less questions and gained a lot more confidence.

After six months I went to the manager and asked for more work. I wasn’t bored at all, I just wanted to continue to learn my job and expand my student base so that I could help in more areas. This initiative that I took didn’t go unnoticed and two years after being there I was promoted to manager (four years after that, I was promoted to assistant director and then two years ago, associate director). I was thrilled and took on my new challenges head on. Everyone in the office excited about my promotion except for Tracy. In her eyes, she had been there longer therefore she should have gotten the promotion not me. To her it was all based on seniority not knowledge or ability to get the job done. Any time a new employee came on board, she made a point of telling them that she should be the one in my position. This caused some tension in the office at times.

Looking back on this now, I would have loved to have taken her to lunch. It would have been so easy to do in the early days of her disdain for my advancement in the workplace to ask her to be open and honest with how it made her feel. Was she mad that she was not promoted? Did she want to be promoted? Talking to her about what was bothering her may or may not have made a difference in how she interacted with the office and how the office interacted with her over the years. Tracy was always willing to help campuses or students; however, she became very defensive if she was told something was not done correctly on an account. She immediately shut down and no matter what was said you couldn’t convince that there was a better, easier, or correct way to work the account.

The advantages of having an open and honest dialogue with others in the workplace helps in many ways. First, it provides a sense of trust and understanding within the department. Knowing that everyone is comfortable talking to each other helps with the feeling of community. You can go to each other for help, to vent about an issue, or just talk about life in general. Second, the work environment is pleasant, everyone wants to come to work because it a place that fosters cohesiveness, empowerment, collaboration and being a part of something bigger.

It takes one person who will not or cannot be a part of the group for whatever reason, that will tear down that cohesiveness and keep a department divided. Sadly, in some cases the only way to fix this is to get rid of that person who is causing the problem. Maybe having lunch with her early on would have changed that. I know that should I come across this situation again I will not let it fester I will approach it head on with fairness, openness and communicate in a way that we both feel comfortable with.

The Meaning of Words MGMT 535 1.4 Reflection blog

I loved this TED talk for the exact fact that it was about the meaning of words. I have a tween daughter….tween. Who made up that word? Not a little kid anymore but not yet a teen: tween. She and her friends are discovering a whole new world of words, changing the meaning of those words as we know them. Take the word ship. You and I know this word as a water vessel, something that floats on water. To her and her friends, it means relationship harmony (two people you want to see together) so they would say, “I ship you and Brad.” Triggered, shook, quaking, etc., these are all words that have other meanings from what you and I know. These words describe feelings for her and her friends. It is a way for her to express herself, anger, joy, happiness it falls into these words and phrases.

Now onto the workplace. I work in financial aid and the list of commonly used jargon that we use is endless. Anyone outside of financial aid would have no clue as to what we were talking about. A typical conversation goes like this, “Anna, can you look at the EFC for this student? The FAFSA shows one thing but the awards are wonky. The COA is correct as well.” Umm what? EFC stands for estimated cost of attendance, FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid and lastly COA stands for Cost of Attendance. We throw out this jargon like it is hello and goodbye. Walk into any university financial aid office and you will hear the same words spoken. Koenig talks about how a word can give one a key to into the brain. Is the word worth knowing and understanding if it only gets us into one brain. But if it gets you into millions of brains, well then you hit the jackpot! So in financial aid, these words are our cultural norm, we understand and use them on a daily basis. It is what helps us communicate with each other.

Chapter two talks about how we use communication for multiple purposes. We can use the same language with completely different objectives in mind. Effective communicators will motivate, teach, clarify, inform, and persuade depending on the audience. This is done with words like good job, you are doing great, this is what you need to do next, help to communicate our needs and desires inside and out of the work place.

To close this out I wanted to go back to the video and the word that Koenig defined…sonder being the idea that we all think of ourselves as the main characters and everyone is just extras. I find this happens in the work place. For example, in financial aid we feel we sonder, we are the main characters and the other departments are the extras. This is not to diminish the other departments at all, it is means that we deal with so many students, campuses and advisors that we speak our own language. When we talk to the “extras” we have to make sure that we speak in a way that they can understand. It applies to management as well. We need to make sure that we are speaking the language by being active listeners, asking questions, communicating in various manners so that the message is easily understood.