- The author has enjoyed training and empowering employees at their job, seeing them grow from needing direct guidance to being excited and confident in their work. - Courses on communication and problem solving have taught the importance of small group work. The author's team of seven people must cooperate and work cohesively for tasks to be completed successfully. - The employees at the author's workplace currently come from similar backgrounds, but the author notes companies are striving for more diversity in beliefs and experiences. - Classes on business communication and public speaking have helped the author communicate professionally with clients by preparing well and presenting with confidence.

1. Communication in the Workplace:
Over the past few months I have to train, manage, and empower employees. It has been
amazing to see the transformation of these employees to go from the selling stage to the telling
stage of Situational Leadership. Their transition from the telling stage; not performing yet,
being unsure, lacking confidence in their ability, being low in readiness and needing direct
authority from me and Steve (the leaders of the business) to them currently being excited
about the job, and needing little structure and relational behavior as well as guidance has been
a 180 degree and wonderful transformation. Knowing that I empowered them by teaching
them all these skills in the workplace has been a great joy!
Communication in Problem Solving course has taught me the importance of small group
interaction. A team is a specific type of group that consists of members who are
interdependent and share the same performance objectives and overall goals. Working as a
team is crucial in a setting such as Molloys. We have a team consisting of seven persons. If we
do not cooperate and are not cohesive then tasks will get done poorly or will not get done at
all. Differentiation occurs daily at Molloys, everyone has their specific roles that they are in
charge of in order for an event to go smoothly and in order for it to be an a success. (Which is
the same as a sports team). It is crucial to be able to work in small groups, our textbook states
that “the effective use of small groups has been found to be essential to career success….and is
one of the most important skills required for career success”. Also mentioned in Professor
Luccioni’s class is that “Fortune magazine calls effective work groups the productivity
breakthrough of the 1990’s.”
Something I noticed about our employees. We all come from similar backgrounds; we all are
white-upper class young college students. I did not take this into account until taking
Organization diversity when we learned about the hemophily theory which is the “degree to
which pairs of individuals who interact are similar in certain attributes such as beliefs, values,
education and social status”. We work well together. I wonder if this will change in the near

2. future since companies are currently striving for diversity in the workplace in order to receive
ideas from a majority of persons from different beliefs and statuses.
I also have learned how to communicate professionally with clients. I can successfully speak
with clients because of courses I have taken such as Business Communication and Professional
Speaking. In Business Communication class we learned how to negotiate in business settings.
In order to be respected in the business world one must dress professionally, speak with poise
and confidence, look individuals in the eye and be well prepared. These skills were taught
when we had to do presentations based on a problem occurring in the workplace. I also
learned valuable information from Profession Speaking class when we learned how to give
powerpoint presentations without reading from the screen or fidgeting. The key to success is
organization and being prepared. One will not sound professional if they are not well informed
on a topic in which they are discussing. In this class we were also taught how to speak with
poise and confidence.
Working at Molloys made me truly understand the significance of nonverbal skills. It is critical
to be able to determine a situation based on the environment and one’s expressions and
attitude. Nonverbal communication plays a large role in our job. It is crucial to read a person
based on their nonverbal cues. If we realize a person is upset or looks dissatisfied we go and
talk to them and make sure everything or find out what the problem is. Many times clients are
please d that we notice their emotions. Not only do we as employees read these nonverbal
cues other workers such as our deejays notice them too. If the deejay is playing music and
nobody is dancing they try changing the music to more upbeat music to get them moving onto
the dance floor. If that does not work, they tend to play songs which are group dances such as
the Electric or ChaCha slide, sometimes even the Chicken Dance to get groups of people more
in tuned and having fun.
Being a Communication major at the University of Cincinnati has taught me numerous essential
skills that guide me through my everyday tasks at work. The knowledge I have in various fields

3. of Communication has increase my salary, responsibilities, and my position at Molloys on the
Green.