Communication Assignment Analysis

I spoke with my friend Rachel for this assignment. I practiced explaining the problem. Rachel can talk for hours about herself and not listen to others. Wanting to address the problem for some weeks, I now had the perfect opportunity to do so with this assignment. In preparation, I read the suggestions for communicating criticism on page 119, from the book. For the setting, I chose to have this talk in private with just the two of us. I know that another mutual friend of ours agrees with the problem, however, I didn’t want the talk to turn into an intervention or make her feel uncomfortable. By controlling the setting, I felt that the context was appropriate for the criticism. There were a few struggles. In the planning stage, I didn’t want to order or direct, but when it was game time, I slipped up a little and may have started a few …show more content…
At this point, I knew that I needed to bring up my solutions. But I realized that some of them were ridiculous. We talked about the issue and made it a conversation instead of a monologue. My suggestions led to a compromise between us. With a solution in place, I was almost ready to leave.
Luckily, I remembered that I had one more step to communicate my message assertively. I could tell Rachel was drained from the conversation, but I knew that I needed to confirm that she understood the message and would be sticking to our agreed upon compromise. I politely asked if she saw this proposed solution working in the future. She was honest and said she didn’t know but that she would try. This was all that I could ask. She hasn’t monopolized a conversation in a whole day since I have talked to her. This indicates that the message was received. It is unclear how long it will last or if she will slip up.
In the future, I will be more careful in my word choice. The heat of the moment had gotten to both of us. I think this will just be something I become better with