University of Maryland, College Park

Pearl Diving Assignment 1

Aiden Jenkins
Communication for Project Managers: ENCE424
Dr. Shana Webster-Trotman
February 20, 2021
Introduction
Coming from a civil engineering student who usually must deal with quantitative
problems, Communication for Project Managers is a great experience to deal with more of the
qualitative problems that engineers face. Communication is key when talking to clients as a
project manager and it is important to be able to create meaningful dialogue pertaining
information about present and future projects. This essay will cover techniques I have learned so
far from this course and how I plan to use them as a future project manager. Additionally, I will
cover my results from 3 different personality tests and use this insight in order to build my
strengths and weaknesses in communication using concepts from the class readings. As a project
manager, it is important to be self-aware about what techniques work best for your personality
type and use these concepts to your advantage.
Concepts from Reading
The first particularly interesting concept from the readings is the skill of storytelling. The
reading, Five Stars, The Communication Secrets to Get from Good to Great, covers this in
Chapter 4 explaining how storytelling is at the heart of the Demo Day event for entrepreneurs.
For companies to be successful at these events, they must create a narrative around their services
and brand. As Geoff Ralston states, “Anytime you try to sell something to somebody, you’re
selling a dream” (Gallo, 2018, p. 50). In terms of being a project manager, the same techniques
can be used when talking to clients. By using the skills of storytelling to clients, project
managers can portray their company as a group of hardworking engineers with excellent
communication. By creating this image, clients are more willing to buy towards this dream on
current and future projects. As a future project manager this is a skill that I intend to use when
trying to sell my companies’ services to a client.
A second pertinent topic covered by the reading are methods of gaining an audience’s
attention. The reading, A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking, covers many strategies in order to
effectively captivate an audience. One of the methods that I could see myself most able to rely on
is the method of using humor. When handled well, humor is an excellent way to build rapport,
put people at ease, make key points, and introduce a theme (O’Hair, 2019, p. 110). I tend to try
to use an appropriate amount of humor in the workplace when possible in order to make light out
of a situation. As a project manager, if I am able to use humor to an appropriate degree, clients
will see me as a more approachable person. This is important in creating a dialogue with clients
as it will increase the communication about the information on a project. Project managers that
are harder to approach may have less chances to be able to give and receive information to and
from clients. In the future, I want to be able to continue using humor as a tool when speaking to
clients and coworkers.
The final interesting topic discussed in the readings is creating connections between
people inside your network. The reading, Networking for College Students and Graduates,
covers the types of people that are important for your network and covers how these connections
will be important in networking for employment. In general, it is important for many college
students to realize that they have more contacts then they first believe. These connections can
help get students on a head start on their networking for future employment (Faulkner, 2017, p.
61). I feel that this topic is specifically pertinent for me because much of the experience I have
gotten in the civil engineering field was granted to me by my Uncle. He gave me the opportunity
to intern for his company and has gifted me the knowledge on how to use AutoCAD as well as
the opportunity to work on many site design projects. Additionally, as a peer I try to help as
many as my friends as possible by using my knowledge and connections to their advantage.
Networking
Networking is an integral part of creating a group of people around you that can boost
your career interests. Since starting this course, I have tried to boost my networking skills by
being more active on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social media website where people can create
networks with their peers and coworkers. I have been working on trying to create more
connections through this website with my peers and being active on the website by sharing
information and commenting on posts. I feel that LinkedIn is a great tool to network and as I am
about to start my first full time job post-graduation, I am attempting to connect with more of my
future coworkers.
For the last semester of my senior year, one of the other classes I am currently enrolled in
is my Capstone class. In this class we have a semester long project in which we are designing a
new building and parking garage for the University of Maryland campus. I attempted to use this
class as a method in order to get closer with one of the project managers of my future employer. I
reached out to him asking if there was any files he could send me to try to guide my design
process and he happily obliged. Even though I will not be able to work for him until after my
graduation, I see this as a good opportunity to gain more of a relationship with my project
manager going forward. Even though I have already locked a job with his company, I think it is
important for him to know the lengths I will go to ensure our group will have an impressive
design. Telling him that I am the project manager for my group and that I will be doing a good
load of the work involved with this project shows him how much of an integral part to his team I
will become.
DISC Personality Assessment
From taking my DISC personality test it is evident that I have a generally dominant
personality. This means that I deal with issues by asserting myself and attempting to control the
situation. I find this to be believable as I tend to want to be in control of my environment. My
personality type specifically states that I have the “strong inner motivation to influence people
and circumstances.” (DISC). I tend to agree with this statement as I feel as I use my persuasive
abilities to get people to be in agreeance with me. I have a tendency to use this ability to my
advantage in a lot of my relationships with people. Some insight that I gained from taking this
test is that I have a lack of patience and ability to watch my dialogue in certain conversations.
The most important insight that I have gained from this however is that there is a potential to use
my skills in persuasion to help me out as a future project manager.
With my awareness of my abilities to influence others, I can use this skill in order to
deliver points in a Cause-Effect pattern. A cause-effect pattern is a pattern of organizing speech
points in order of causes and then in order of effects, or vice versa (O’Hair, 2019, p. 92). If I can
capitalize on my ability to influence others, I will be able to better connect causes to potential
effects using persuasive strategies. For example, if I were to talk to a client as a project manager
about wanting to include a particular amount of stormwater management facilities on a site, I
could use the cause-effect pattern to justify the extra cost. This can be done by presenting the
average precipitation of the area and compare it to the capacity of current facilities to present the
cause-effect pattern of if there are not enough facilities installed, flooding could become an issue
on the project site.
As shown in Five Stars the Communication Secrets to Get from Good to Great, there are
many great speakers that have used concepts that are seen as strengths in my DISC personality
test. For example, John F. Kennedy inspired his argument for space exploration by making the
statement “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind” (Gallo, 2018, p.
20). This statement is an example of using a persuasive message in order to give an argument a
greater meaning to the audience in mind. Similarly, when communicating with people in the
construction sector, I could use the same principle to persuade others that if they agree with my
argument that they will be helping a greater cause. For example, if I want to make the argument
to a client that there site should be more ADA accessible, I could persuade them by saying that
these improvements will ultimately enhance the experience of handicap people on the site. I
could go further by saying these positive experiences will ensure that these group of people will
be much more likely to want to come back to the site and spend their money there.

Figure 1: DISC Personality Results

Conflict Management Styles Assessment
From taking my conflict management styles assessment, I have realized that I am equally
as competitive as I am accommodating when dealing with conflict. The competitive style of
conflict management can be described as a “shark”. A shark will typically value their goals over
relationships, meaning that a shark will seek to achieve their goals even if being at the cost of a
relationship. The accommodating style of conflict management can be described as a “teddy
bear”. A teddy bear typically value relationships over their own goals, and when forced to
choose will sacrifice their goals in order to maintain relationships (Conflict). The most
interesting part about these results are how they seem to contradict one another. To best explain
this, I feel that my goals and my relationships are both very important to me and I tend to put one
over the other based on the situation.
Being competitive during conflict management may be helpful in showing loyalty to my
company over my relationships with my peers. For example, there have been moments where I
have been invited to hang out with some of my friends on a work night or when I had an
important exam the next day. The majority of the time I declined these requests as I value my
goals in my civil engineering career more than quality time with my peers. A technique to
respond to these situations may be to use rhetorical questions as covered in A Pocket Guide to
Public Speaking. Rhetorical questions do not invite actual responses from the audience but
instead makes them think (O’Hair, 2019, p. 111). For example, I could pose the question, “What
would you do if you were in my shoes?”
Being accommodating during conflict management may be helpful when trying to show
my family or friends loyalty in trying times over my goals. For me personally, striving in school
is one of my most important goals in life. Last Spring when COVID started to become an issue
in Maryland, I decided to stay in College Park and work from my apartment by myself while
others decided to go home. During Easter break, I was faced with a tragedy where one of my
close friends from high school passed away. In this moment, I decided to stay home for the
remainder of the semester in order to be closer with my friends and family during this time. As a
future project manager, I can use the technique of creating common ground with my coworkers
as covered in A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking. People can be won over when expressing
interest in their issues and creating a common ground (O’Hair, 2019, p. 111). If an employee
requests an extended amount of time off because of a loss in his immediate friend group or
family, I can use my experience in order to relate with his issues. This will put the employee at
ease as they will not have to worry about work throughout a trying moment in their life.
Figure 2: Conflict Management Styles Assessment
 Competing/Accommodating

Avoiding

Working on better deescalating the situation instead of beginning an

argument. I tend to always think my side of argument is the only right
side and sometimes fail to take into account the feelings and points the
person I am talking to has. This tends to happen in my family mostly.

Figure 3: Conflict Management Styles Results

Jung Personality Test

The Jung personality test is formulated into 8 different personality types, with 4
identifiers being the following: Extraverted/Introverted, Sensation/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling,
and Judging/Perceiving. Based on my results, I am an INFJ or an Introvert-Intuitive-Feeler-
Judger.
Even though I like to be with my friends in social situations, I am not the biggest fan of
being in large groups. When I am around people, I am not completely familiar with in a social
situation, I tend to find myself to go off to the side. While I do not see myself as being shy, I
definitely see myself drawing my energy from the time I get to spend alone, and I do not need to
be surrounded by people constantly (Jung). For these reasons, I agree with the introvert
personality I was given in my results. Comparing this to my DISC results, I feel being
introverted goes hand in hand with being dominant as it is easiest for me to control a situation
when it is thought out in my own head.
I often see myself thinking about how my actions will impact me in the future when it
comes to school and work. In many instances this causes me to overthink my actions and let my
imagination go to work when thinking about different timelines that could have occurred if my
actions were different. In my head, I don’t see many outcomes to be straight forward and rely on
the potential of past and future actions. For this reason, I agree with the intuitive personality I
was given in my results. When relating this to my DISC results, my dominant personality comes
out as being the reason why I tend to want to be in control of situations that have already
occurred or may occur in the future.
Taking the Jung test in the past, I switched from being a thinker to a feeler for the 3rd
personality trait. Whether it’s the different format of questions or thinking about the questions in
a different context this time around, I got the feeler trait while I tend to think through logic more
often than through my feelings. I never shy from focusing on whether a topic in conversation
could potentially be illogical rather than focusing on the feelings of the other person. This is
most evident with how I conduct dialogue with current events or politics. For these reasons I
tend to disagree with my feeling personality I was given in my results.
When it comes to my lifestyle, I tend to want a life that is orderly, planned, and
controlled. This is very evident from my judger personality trait that I got from my Jung test
results. This almost exactly goes hand in hand with my dominant personality that was given to
me from my DISC results. Both the judger and the dominant traits express that I like to be in
control of situations as well as my lifestyle (Jung). For this reason, I extremely agree with the
judger trait I was given in my Jung test results.
Figure 4: Jung Personality Type Results
 Works Cited
Conflict Management Styles Assessment. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2021, from
http://www.blake-group.com/free-assessments

DISC Personality Report. (n.d.). Retrieved February 18, 2021, from

https://www.123test.com/disc-personality-test/id=fIGLJ4WAI6Z7VMR&version=

Faulkner, Michael, and Andrea Nierenberg. Networking for College Students and Graduates.
Pearson Learning Solutions, 2017. Print.

Jung Personality Report. (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2021, from

https://www.123test.com/report/HUIUC15LAYN8GHR0FJ/

Gallo, Carmine. Five Stars the Communication Secrets to Get from Good to Great. St. Martin’s
Press, 2018. Print.
O’Hair, Dan, and Hannah Rubenstein and Rob Stewart. A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking.
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2019. Print.