Communication Skills Report: Analysis of Challenges and Solutions

This report analyzes a case study involving Kelly and Hendry, employees at United Technologies, highlighting communication challenges stemming from differing listening styles. Kelly, seeking to have customer service representative training completed within two weeks, faces delays due to Hendr...Read More

0Running head: COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Communication skills
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note:

1COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Introduction:
Kelly is a staff at United Technologies, a Chicago based company. She is having a
conversation with Hendry, the manager of the company’s customer service outsourcing in
Indonesia. Kelly had asked Hendry to get all customer service representative training done
within two weeks, however gap is found in the communication process between the two people.
This report looks at the communication challenges facing Kelly and Hendry and suggests to help
Hendry overcome the challenges.
Communication challenges facing Kelly and Hendry:
The conversation between Kelly and Hendry reveals many communication challenges
between them. This is because of different listening style employed by both. This is seen when
Kelly ask Hendry to provide training to all customer service representativeness within two weeks
and Hendry was not sure about completing the task within the deadline. However, when Kelly
said that task needs to done with clever scheduling and get it done with two or three days to
spare. Hendry however trained only 65% of them after two weeks and he affirmed that he
mentioned about the monsoon before for causing the delay. Hendry was willing to say that
monsoon was delaying the training process because of delay in getting around the city and he did
not understood Kelly’s message of getting the work done as quickly as possible. So, the process
of communication and interpreting each other’s message was not clear between Kelly and
Hendry. This occurred because Hendry was practicing surface listening style by just focusing on
the literal meaning and he did now follow depth listening to understand the underlying message
of the speaker.
Solutions to overcome the challenges:

2COMMUNICATION SKILLS
As Hendry is not understanding the Kelly’s message of getting the training work
completed within 2 weeks, he can overcome the challenge by changing his listening style. He
can improve his listening skill by focusing on the underlying meaning of the speaker and
avoiding any interruptions in between. In addition, he must also show his interest in the speaker.
The case study shows that although Hendry had certain doubts during the communication with
Kelly, he never stopped and asked questions or paraphrased what Kelly said to make the message
clear. This led to the conflict between two parties. Hence, the important strategy that Hendry can
adapt when he does not understand the message of the speaker is to ask question and paraphrase
what you have understood. This process of asking question is likely to resolve the conflict. In
this way, Hendry can create an atmosphere of communication.
The component of repeating the message and paraphrasing is structured process of
listening and responding to others. In case of Hendry, strategic listening will also resolve his
communication problem. He can do this by identifying the real motivation and driving force of
the speaker. Secondly, effective questioning is also important because to open new opportunities
of communication and build relationship with speakers like Kelly. In the case scenario, Hendry
could have used probing and reflective questions to understand the interpret the message.
Predicted effectiveness of the strategy:
The mentioned strategy of active listening and effective questioning is likely to improve
the communication process. This is because the listening and feedback approach changes the
manner in which information is processed by an individual. However, the method of processing
the information is also likely to change depending of the personality of person. Hence, Hendry
communication and listening skills will be affected by his personality types too. He might be an

3COMMUNICATION SKILLS
extrovert or an introvert. His personality attributes can be determined by the use of tools like Big
5 Questionnaire, Myers Briggs Type Indicator or the 16 personality traits questionnaire. Hence,
if Hendry is an outgoing person, it will be difficult for him to engage in active listening skills as
such person like to talk more than listen. However, if he is a reserved and self-contained sort of
person, then he can easily employ thee active listening skills for improving his communication
skills. If his personality type is not suitable to active listening skills, then he can focus on the
dimensions of self to improve his self-awareness and self-esteem needs. Hence, with personality
development, any limitations in
Conclusion:
The report summarized the communication challenges facing Hendry and proposed the
approach of active listening and questioning approach to overcome the barrier in communication.
This process has high probability to improve the communication skill of Hendry because asking
risk question is the heart of communication. Such process can help Hendry and Kelly to
understand each other more closely.