To: Tamera Phillips

From: Joel Burget

Date: 4/22/15
RE: Personal Change Final Report

Overview:
The unwanted communication pattern I have been having is the fact that my lack of notice and
understanding of facial expressions and body language. This causes me to lose important
messages when trying to communicate. My main strategy is to utilize active listening skills to
pay more attention to the person I am talking to with an emphasis on facial expression and body
language. The biggest constraints I ran into was trying to rewire my habits This can take
considerable effort to rework habits and create new ones in their place. I decided to run most
vocal queues while at work on the phones where that is my only clue to their mood or emotions.
For the body language I decided to watch that while sparring as this I can try to see what they
are thinking to better read them to be able to block more accurately. The results have been
promising as I have gotten better at reading body language but vocal queues still needs more
work. It seems to be working if I keep up on it. My recommendation is to continue working on
these strategies. I can still improve over time.

Unwanted Communication Pattern:

My unwanted communication pattern stems from my lack of understanding and notice of facial
expressions and body language. This causes me to miss out on vital clues and context in both
personal and public context. This can cause me to misread the situation and give the wrong
information. This has also lead to conflict as I have misread the other persons intentions and
had thought them to be aggressive or angry.

Strategies:
My Main strategy involved actively focusing more on facial expressions and body language. By
using the Look-Listen strategy(pg 132) to focus more on the person I am talking to. This method
has you stop what you are doing and turn your full attention to the person you are talking to.
This forces you to pay more attention to the person you are talking to.

Constraints:
The biggest constraint was the simple fact that I have trouble staying focused on people
especially when I find the conversation boring or am working on something else. This affects me
mostly at work when I am trying to listen to our clients while notating the case and they are
telling me largely irrelevant details. Another large constraint for me is that I dont notice some of
the small details in the face or body position.

Implementation:
My plans for the vocal aspects of my plan went into effect while at my job answering phones.
This allows me to not only work with many people but lets me practice on people I do not know.
This also allow me to practice as their voice is the only thing I can hear. This has worked very
well as I have forced myself to pick up on vocal queues as they are the only clues I have to work
with. This has actually been very successful. it has allowed me to practice on many people from
different backgrounds, age groups, and even education levels to pick up on common voice
tones that transcend these groups. I have had great practice these last few weeks and now can
usually pick up on their mood and frustration level based on the first few lines of interaction. I
have also begun to listen better while working on other tasks and have improved my work
performance by being able to type and listen at the same time with near perfect accuracy. The
biggest change since Ive put these practices into effect is my customer satisfaction rating has

gone up to nearly the highest on our time with the lowest handle time on calls. I have been
consistently below the required time to the point it is almost too low.

On the flip side of things I decided the best way to practice reading body language was during
sparring matches while training in TaeKwon-do. This one has not been anywhere near as
successful as reading body is harder than voice. The setting has had more of an impact than
expected. Although a good idea on paper, trying to read their posture and block punches and
kicks is far more difficult than expected coupled with the simple exhaustion of sparring. There
has been some improvement but the goal of predicting their attacks based on visual cues
remains farther in the future with more practiced needed. I still believe it is possible but it will
simple have to be continued and worked on more.

Results:

Overall the project was a success. I am better able to read voice cues and some body language
and have begun to notice it more in my family and friends. It has been an interesting change
actually noticing the signs of comfort my girlfriend does display around me. The extra high
ratings at my work has also helped immensely to solidify my position as one of the better
agents. This I hope will help in getting raises and more bonuses to increase my pay.
However, the other part of this project I do not consider a success. Body language in the chosen
venue has proved more difficult than previously anticipated. The situation is not helped by either
the inherent difficulty I have attempting this nor the fact I am trying to dodge and block incoming
attacks at the same time. Over time as hits to the head, exhaustion, and pure frustration kicks in
the situation gets worse. All is not lost as I am still confident that this can work, it just needs
more time to improve these skills to a useable level. Therefore I will continue and expand these
efforts into other ventures as well.

Recommendations:
I shall continue to use both theories and attempt to broaden the usages of both. If I was able to
improve customer satisfaction at work what other good can I do by applying this to personal
relationships as well? I foresee a continued positive change that should only improve with
greater time and effort. I could also use more time to further develop recognition of clues from
body language and other factors to improve sparring abilities.

Works Cited:
Interpersonal Communications Relating to Others 7th edition, S. Beebee, S. Beebee, M.
Redmond, Pearson 2014.