Institute? It is a little over 31.
I am willing to personally testify for the technical talent, dedication, and commitment of the engineering teams. But the ability to express fully that talent and know-how and those accomplishments is somewhat lacking. I can see many examples in emails and meetings. They require too many exchanges and clarifications to come to an understanding and to reach consensus. This is due to a lack of good listening skills and confidence to articulate on the spot.
The net effect is that the engineering team is not getting their fair share of recognition for their accomplishments and their potentials to contribute more in the project. In the worst-case scenario, the engineering team is perceived as indifferent and ineffective.
There is nothing new in this situation. But we are trying to do something about it. In the brief lull after many key project put-backs in July, the storage driver team gave a presentation and implemented a communication improvement campaign with an IceBreaker speech for all team members.
What is an IceBreaker speech? It is normally given by a new Toastmasters club member as his/her first speech. It has flexibility in terms of what to say, but the basic goal is to break the ice with other club members and get people to know and remember you.
Why do we do this? It is an opportunity for the engineer to collect ideas, organize these ideas into something interesting to present, and deliver them to the audience. An IceBreaker speech embodies all the elements of preparing for a speech and presentation, from gathering simple ideas, writing the draft, revising, practice runs, to the final delivery. It is also a good team building event.
We had 11 participants in this IceBreaker event in July, along with 7 invited judges and evaluators from Sun's Speakeasy@SunBeijing Toastmasters club. All participants and judges were provided with a surprise individualized coffee mug.
This is just one way to raise awareness for this important and critical soft skill. A key takeaway for the participants is that this skill can be learned and improved over time and with effort. Everyone can make good progress relative to what they can do now. It is a small step and it is manageable by all engineers. Being an effective communicator is a lifelong effort.
Below is some feedback that I received from the participants.
"It's a good opportunity to improve your skills. There aren't many chances you'll be given so many positive comments and valuable advice from the judges for free! And it's fun, if you take it the right way."
"It's been a long time that I didn't write an essay in English without any technical words (TOI, technical review and so on). I even didn't know how to start it. I wrote the speech twice because of my bad organization about my thoughts. And I didn't have too much time to practice. However, all the audience listened to my speech carefully and I thought some of them really enjoyed it. So I was glad my work is of value. Also I could clearly see the ways to improve my speech better next time."
"After this activity was over, I think I learned more from this activity than I expected at the beginning. For the next time, how about limiting the speech subject to be related to our job and role. I think this will make it easy the to compare presentations and let the audience learn more from the presentation."
In conclusion, what new ideas do I get out of this? I think an ERI site-wide speech contest would be a good way to find good speakers, identify new leaders, and encourage all ERI members to appreciate the need to develop this skill.
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