In class this week we covered chapter 4 in the book about relating to others in groups and teams.
One class day focused on the different roles a person plays in a group and the types of communication they display. The activity was to assign characteristics/group roles to ourselves and to the members of your group. I liked the idea of the activity of seeing how our perceptions of ourselves were stacked up against how others perceived us. I didn't like having to categorize my other group members into characteristics that were the extremes. I think that was hard to do and, most likely, not very accurate since most of us met only a few weeks ago.
Another class day we talked about how culture affects communication. I think it was very interesting to watch the videos on communicating with Japanese and Chinese people in the business setting.
Communication rules are something I really wouldn't have thought about prior to meeting with someone from another country, but they are very important. I looked for other videos on gestures in communication for other languages and I found this one for Russian. I thought it was really interesting especially about the ear pulling on a person's birthday.
I like reading comics so I thought I would leave you with a comic about customer service that I think applies to communication.
-Rachel Page
