Speech to Gulf Breeze Toastmasters
4/15/2020
My
speech assignment for Pathways is to discuss my communication style.
There is an evaluation and the results told me that I am a DIRECT
communicator. My response was a resounding, ‘Duh!”
There
have been a few clues along my career path that have indicated to me and others that this may be the case. For instance, in the early 90’s I was working in Chicago at a phone office. The Engineer had designed some overhead cable rack to go in where other structures that held up a fire suppression system above the equipment already existed. These are huge iron bars, held up by ¾ inch threaded rods that hang from the ceiling. I
called the Engineer and told him about the problem. The Engineer was very confident in his drawings was arguing with me that I was wrong. I was looking right at it. Back in those days, it was forbidden to ever have a wireless phone in the switch room. So, I put him on hold, I set up the phone system by the area. Then put my headset on. On the other end of the line, the Engineer heard me on his headset, me grunting and gasping while counting pssssst 1…psssssst 2…psssssst 3. He says, “What are you doing?” I said I’m doing pullups on the structure that you say doesn’t exist.
Direct Communicators like to get to the point with undeniable, unarguable results.
A
while later I was promoted to be one of the first roles as a Site Team
Leader at Nortel. This was a hybrid approach that the company was trying out where they wanted highly technical testers to also manage the projects. Where before you had to be one or the other a tester, or a
manager. I loved that job, it was challenging and it also pushed me into managing large projects and people. It also introduced me to a
lot of soft skills training to be a manager. More than anything it taught me how to interact with different groups. Mostly, because I had walked in each of their shoes. Contract Installers, these were normally less technical, less skilled, and high drama individuals. Employee
Installers, these were fairly technical,
fairly skilled workers, fairly low drama most of the time. Employee
Testers, highly technical, highly skilled, and thought they were the real owners of the project. Then there were the Contract Testers. These guys expected trumpets to be played as they entered the building. They were very technical, very-skilled, very, very, very, high-drama. If they didn’t like the job, they could shut you down because they held the aces, they had skills that no one else had. Then I got to play
Orchestra leader and make sure all that mix of drama types got to the end result of actually finishing the project let alone on time and in the budget.
Now I should say, it was still a project environment in the Telecom industry, so that is to say every single project was under the crisis of time and budget and very high pressure, and very chaotic. As it turned out my communication style,
Direct, is very well suited for this type of environment. So
I made sure everyone was aware of the problem, which was typically we only had so many days to complete something and that we couldn’t work overtime and that we needed it done faster. Individually, by type, I
discussed daily how we would reach the solution, adapting to how I explained to each. Sometimes, adhering to one's ego, another being almost forceful about what I expected, to another through empathy.
Direct communicators like to bring order to chaos, things to be efficient, communications to the point
I
later got promoted to become an Operations Project Coordinator. That’s a fancy term for Project Manager for half the pay. This was an entry to the big game. I was on a temporary assignment from Chicago to St. Louis on the SWBT account. The account was in crisis and they began snatching up a lot of us from Chicago to come there to fix the account. I moved to Dallas, TX, and managed all projects for what was known as MOKA. Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas. I was now touching projects throughout the entire lifecycle. I worked ridiculously long hours. I wrote tons of work procedures, I built
processes instituted metrics and KPIs, I set accountability standards
and in after
2 very long years, that account was the best account in the business.
Again, this was all in crisis when I got there, not so much after a
couple of years. This is where I began to find my weaknesses which were a
painful learning process for myself.
You
see direct communicators thrive in a competitive, goal-oriented, results-driven environments. They struggle in day to day normal work that may be ‘boring’. Suddenly the company culture was concerned about how people feel and how well people communicated in such. Are we rewarding people. I’ll be the first to tell you I hated it!! Why in the world would I reward someone for just doing their job? That’s so stupid.
I’ll
admit I learned a lot in my mind at this time in my career, but I
didn’t practice it. I transferred over to the next crisis area, to the next, to the next. Each reinforcing a style but slowed my growth a
great deal. But company cultures evolve and so did I. Eventually, I
had to be checked, put in my place multiple times, fired once, but eventually, I had to take communication skill development seriously.
Fortunately,
I’ve had a lot of good management training through the years and absolutely one of the most helpful was joining Toastmaster 9 years ago.
It’s taught me so much. I still get queasy when other officers talk about getting balloons and all that for an induction ceremony
But I understand and I now see the value in that is how some others tick. I remember when I was President of this club and one of our members when to compete in the Division contest. She didn’t win at that
level
but she was sort of turned off by the experience because they didn’t get a certificate stating they were even in the contest. I didn’t get the clues on this, but after Joetta made me aware, we made a certificate for this person and presented it to them at the club, thanking them for representing us so well. The appreciation from this person really was touching to me. It sort of crystalized to me these lessons of how other people communicate differently and have different personality types than I do. It reinforced to me that I needed to change my style to try and be a better communicator sometimes.
I
know through my career where my communication strengths are per my direct style. I’m decisive, confident in my decisions, and I’m very results-oriented. When the going gets tough and no one steps up, I’ll take over and IT WILL BE DONE. It’s just my way. But through
Toastmasters I’ve also come to know my weaknesses, I need to slow down and do more to build relationships and be more empathetic to others needs for their feelings. My ability to work on those weaknesses has provided me a very undeniable strength and that’s to be a better communicator.
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