Week 3 assignment: listen and respond

Skill(s) Being Assessed: Communication (active listening, oral communication)

Criteria for Success: In this assignment, you will:

• Create a 1–2 minute audio response (using your own original voice) with clear and consistent sound quality throughout.
• As a supervisor, address all aspects of the problem identified by your co-worker clearly, cohesively, and concisely.
• Tailor the content, tone, and language of your response to the audience.
• Summarize the speaker’s message, incorporating all of the speaker’s main points clearly.
• Convey openness and approachability.
• Appropriately use informal and formal language.

What to submit/deliverables: Informal voicemail to a colleague (use Kaltura or mobile device to record voicemail).

What is the value of doing this assignment? This assignment gives you an opportunity to practice active listening and oral communication in a workplace setting, all of which continues to hone your communication skill. You will demonstrate the use of appropriate tone and language, and practice conveying openness and approachability in your response to a co-worker. Whether at work or at home, it is critical to tailor approachability and language depending on the audience and purpose.

Communication is a universal skill and one you will continue to refine as you progress throughout your professional and academic careers. This assignment asks you to use what you’ve learned in the first three weeks of the course about active listening, audience analysis, and responding in the workplace. Worried about where to start? The good news is that you’ve already established your foundation with these practices by reading through Chapters 1, 3, and 6 in The Art of Public Speaking. This assignment will use what you learned in those chapters to help you record and compose your response.

Your goal for this assignment is to: Practice your communication skill. You will do this by applying active listening and oral communication strategies to appropriately reply to a voicemail message from your co-worker.

What you need to complete this assignment: To complete this assignment, you will need the following resources:

Scenario: Your organization recently shifted to remote work. Since that time, you have heard complaints from a few co-workers concerning the lack of collaboration tools and difficulty effectively collaborating in a remote environment. Your co-worker recently left you a voicemail expressing extreme frustration with the lack of collaboration tools and has asked if there is something that can be done to help the organization select and implement a collaboration tool.

To address the problem of lack of collaboration software, as a team leader you will reply to your co-worker to acknowledge their concerns and let them know you are planning to establish a task force to research effective collaboration tools and suggest replacement technology.

This job aid will help with this assignment submission [PDF].

Steps to complete: In Week 3, complete and submit your assignment in BlackBoard using the following steps:

STEP 1: Listen to the voicemail from your co-worker

STEP 2: Record a 1–2 minute audio message (using your original voice) to your coworker in which you:

• Acknowledge your co-worker’s concerns by summarizing their message and asking any clarifying questions.
• Outline your plans to help resolve the issue by establishing a task force to research effective collaboration tools.
• Reiterate your understanding and empathy for your coworker’s concerns and that you will be available for further discussion as needed.

STEP 3: Submit your audio file to Blackboard in Week 3.