So I started my “Open Communications” course at Business Objects today. Immediately off the start, there were just so many things that PDEng could take away and integrate into their courses or even integrate into their own process. Some topics that were discussed in today’s lesson were signs of effective communication, skills of effective communication, ways to ask questions, ways to listen, and ways to provide positive or constructive feedback.

Some main ideas of this course were taken from FranklinCovey’s course on “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. However, this course is strictly focused on developing your communication skills (and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg). Most of the students in the course were from the sales, HR and finance side of the company who were already great communicators and are taking this course to strengthen their skills.

One of the objectives was to learn to communicate as a team. The activity for this objective was to build a tower out of newspapers, and the team with the tallest tower wins. Before the teams got down and dirty, everyone was given a piece of paper that indicated whether they were a “double agent”. The goal of the double agent was to become as disruptive as possible to the team activity via any form of negative communication. People on the team can then send the double agents outside for a “timeout” if they think someone is disrupting the team. Of course, there was no double agent. Then the class discussed about what were some characteristics of a good team, and why people were being sent out from the room.

Anyways, I’m too tired to type any more so I’ll stop here. I have another full day of this class tomorrow and maybe I’ll write up another post about it. If this class sounds cool, you might want to apply to Business Objects for your next work term! Hahaha

*disclaimer: I am in no ways affiliated with the HR recruiting department nor am I involved in the hiring process