Interpersonal Communication

Improvement
Raul Flores
Salt Lake Community College (Redwood Campus)
Communications 1010-011
April 14, 2015

Overview:
For the last 10 years I have been in a leadership role in the hotel business. This has been
in the capacity of supervisor, manager and director of a department. In all my years of
experience, I have always had a weakness in conducting effective meetings. This semester, I
have made it my personal goal to find new ways to improve overall communication amongst my
work team and in turn working towards conducting effective meetings. This proposal will layout
the foundation I need to make my goal of conducting more effective meetings at work a reality.
Description of Problem:
This unwanted weakness stems from having a lack of organization when it comes to
preparing for a meeting, thus failing to execute the meeting. In my professional career, I have
participated and conducted countless meetings. In the past, my preparation for these meetings
has consisted of a scratch paper with bullet points to hit during the meeting. Aside from that, I
have not done the necessary leg work to ensure the effectiveness of what I am presenting at the
meeting. According to (Adler, Elmhorst, Lucas, 2013), poorly run meetings waste time and
money (p. 211). Ineffective meetings is not only caused by lack of organization, also a lack of
team communication. This is not to say I lack the necessary communication skills when it comes
to leading my team, furthermore there is much opportunity for me to grow as a leader and
progress my teams communication in order to be more efficient. There is a strong correlation
between both communication concepts. This lack of cohesiveness is best summarized by (Adler,
Elmhorst, Lucas, 2013), workers cited a lack of team communication and ineffective meetings
as the top reasons why organizations arent more productive (p. 211). This weakness of mine
has effected my overall growth as a team leader and has hindered my efficiency as a manager.
Resources and Constraints:
I have many resources available to me to assist in reaching my goals mentioned above.
My communications textbook is a great tool to start with. I also am surrounding by many great
leaders at my workplace to learn from. I am also very fortunate to have a very good friend that
has been in my same position in the past and also happens to still work at the hotel. When I need
suggestions or advice, I feel really lucky to have him as a very accessible resource. I also having
a great support system in my wife at home who understands the workings of creating a good
team. With the many resources available to me as guides, I am very fortunate to have only one
constraint. That is a chaotic and busy life. Aside from working 50+ hours a week, I attend school
full time and have a family (wife and two daughters) at home. Making time to prepare for
additional works outside of work is a challenge.

Recommendations:
In coming up with a realistic plan to meet my goal, to improve on communications skills
in order to conduct an effective meeting, I must refine and practice on my own overall
communication as a leader with my team. By bettering my communication amongst my team,
this will promote better organizational environment (Adler, Elmhorst, Lucas, 2013, p. 111) which
will make it easier to conduct effective meetings. As stated before, these communications
concepts are very closely related. The first phase of my plan starts with creating effective
communication in my team. The following steps in creating a cohesive team is taken from
chapter 8 (Working in Groups) from my communications text book (Adler, Elmhorst, Lucas,
2013, p. 197). First step is filling functional roles on my team. This involves assigning essential
functional roles to each team member that are necessary in getting work relating jobs done. Next
would be recognizing both our team and personal goals. By establishing common goals amongst
the team, this will contribute to the work success of my team as well as avoid hidden agendas
along the way (Adler, Elmhorst, Lucas, 2013, p. 201). After these roles are assigned, I will
promote desirable norms amongst my team. Having these norms in place will ensure we are on
the same page in regards to ground rules and our company culture. Norms will also establish a
set expectation within the group. Next step is to promote an optimal level or cohesiveness. This
is probably the most important of these first steps to me personally. Cohesiveness is the degree to
which team members feel themselves part the team which will in tern make them want to remain
a part of the team. As the textbook stated (Adler, Elmhorst, Lucas, 2013, p. 204), you can think
of cohesiveness as a magnetic force that attracts members to one another, giving them a
collective identity. It is important to note that when teams have high cohesiveness, this tends to
lead to members being happier. In the context of the hotel business: happy team members leads
to better service which leads to happy guest which equates to higher revenue and thus happy
owners. This part is the key to a solid team. The ways to improve the level of cohesiveness
amongst my team involves establishing shared goals, creating shared norms and setting
interdependence among the team members. Another way the level of cohesiveness can be raised
is through team building exercises and events like quarterly department parties or annual retreats.
This will create shared team experiences which will build better unity.
Effective communication amongst our team will establish better foundation to be able to
hold more effective meetings. Phase two of my plan involves methods on planning and
participating in meeting which will create more efficient and satisfactory results. Meetings are a
part of every job. According to (Adler, Elmhorst, Lucas, 2013, p. 211), between 11 million and
20 million business meetings take place each day in the United States. Chapter 8 in my
communications textbook (Adler, Elmhorst, Lucas, 2013) focuses on Effective Meetings. Step
one of my phase two plan involves distinguishing what type of meeting I will be conducting.
This will range from information-sharing, problem-solving or decision-making meetings. Once
this criteria is set, I will make an agenda for the meeting. An agenda is a list of topics that I will
be covering during the meeting. This is a very important factor to a effective meeting, as stated in
my textbook (Adler, Elmhorst, Lucas, 2013, pg. 217) a meeting without an agenda is like a ship
at sea without a destination or compass. My agenda will consist of meeting time, location,
invites, background information, items and goals to review during the meeting. My agenda will

also have a set time limit for how much time we spend on each item. This part of the meeting
process is called the pre-meeting work. As stated in my communications textbook (Adler,
Elmhorst, Lucas, 2013, pg. 219), the best meetings occur when people have done all the
necessary advance work. The next part of the plan will involve me executing the meeting itself.
At the beginning of the meeting I will identify the goals of the meeting. Then I will provide the
necessary background information depending on the action item or issue. Next step would be to
establish the opportunities for how team members can help out during the meeting. I will then
layout the time constraints for each topic discussed. Similar to the team norms, I will also
establish the parliamentary procedure which is the set of rules in which our team makes
decisions and conducts business. Here is is important to state that once the meeting is underway,
I will highly encourage cooperation and ideas from all the team members involved. I invite new
ideas and discussion especially if the items we are meeting about are vital to our teams success.
In keeping with the meeting schedule, I will have a time keeper for the sake of keeping
discussions on track. Regardless of what the topic or issue being discussed, I have noted that it is
important for everyone to keep a positive tone starting with myself as the team leader. When all
the planned items have been discussed, I will conclude the meeting with a three-part strategy. I
will make the signal when time is up, summarize the meetings accomplishments and future
actions, and finally thank the team members for their participation. The final part of this stay is
the follow-up part. The follow-up after the meeting will involve four steps: distribute summary
of the meeting to the participants, build an agenda for next meeting, follow up on other members
and ensure all action items discussed are taken care of. This concludes my plan on how to
conduct an effective meeting. To recap: pre-meeting work, conducting the meeting and follow-up
the meeting.
Summary:
To conclude my proposal, I would like to restate the reason for this paper: to improve on
my biggest weakness when it comes to communication at work. With my plan in place, my goal
is to improve on my communication skills in order to conduct effective meetings at work. I am
the Director of Guest Services at the Hotel Park City. At any given time depending on season, I
manage between 15-25 team members. We strive to make every guest experience as uniques as
their own signature. We hold many different meetings among my department. We do daily standup meetings and monthly department meetings. I am excited to input this plan immediately. It is
my hope that in doing so, I will have a more cohesive staff, better communication amongst our
department, become more efficient and have effective meetings.

Works Cited
Adler, R & Elmhorst, J .(2013). Communicating at work: SLCC custom text (2nd ed). Boston:
McGraw Hill.