A520.3.5.RB_SienkiewiczRaymond

The concepts of supportive communication aren't entirely foreign to me, thankfully, and I've been practicing the use of some of these ideas for a little while. I remember first hearing about "I" statements in a high school health class, and I was advised early on in college to work on eye contact and general communication. As for the PMI program, this is already built into my workplace through regular feedback sessions and annual performance reviews.

I do, however, see where I can further integrate ideas from the book. Certainly, I can stand to better learn assessing communication situations as times for coaching and times for counseling, as there are times when one or the other might be conducive to the growth of subordinates at the office. I also think I could stand to be a little more honest about my opinions in certain circumstances, which I think would help build congruence between myself and higher leadership. 

I also think that myself, and my entire organization for that matter, could stand to do a better job of being more supportive in our communication with and about other organizations we need to work with. Especially when talking about the actions of other Air Force IT organizations that don't necessarily mesh with our objectives and timelines, we tend to make rather broad, evaluative, and organization specific statements, and we aren't always the most understanding of whatever circumstances they may be working under. This leads to frustration for us, and certainly strained relationships overall.

I believe that if I were to practice supportive communication, and eventually set the example for my organization, it would certainly go a long way towards increasing trust and confidence between our members, and might over time improve morale and unit cohesion if we felt we were on the same page, could lean on each other, and had the confidence that when things happened we would be judging the problem, not the individual. Eventually, if we can provide supportive communications to our partner organizations, our IT support mission might see improvement as we would likely be more focused on constructive feedback targeted upon actual problems, rather than wasting energy and effort upon any friction created by perceived lack of support.