MSLD 632_January 2019_2474

Growing up I learned that family problems were just that, family problems ; we didn’t share family issues with outsiders as to “air dirty laundry”. Keeping family issues inside of the family was not a spoken rule, it was the understood culture of my family. I had a desire to defend my family, no matter the cost. Also, I easily justified our issues because things weren’t that bad. Ultimately, I didn’t want others to identify my good family as a dysfunctional family. Unfortunately, I took this same attitude into the workforce; I had an abusive boss, but I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t want others to think I was disrespecting my superior; I did not want the company negatively impacted, and I didn’t want to appear as a complaining employee. Because he worked in a separate shop and I didn’t have to see him every day, I pushed through bad times and kept moving forward. When two co-workers came to me with their issues (they worked at the same shop as my boss), I knew I needed to open ...

Communication is one of favorite topics. I value communication because I value listening to others; I value learning about others; I value sharing my story, and I value being heard. I believe that communication is a cathartic expression of story-telling through writing, words, silence, music, and so much more. I can think of instances when I’ve truly listened to someone, but I want to focus on a more recent interaction because I had this RB activity in mind. I had coffee with a friend this week; we hadn’t seen each other in about a month and we wanted to catch up. As my friend began sharing about her work and personal experiences, I paid attention to my behavior. I sat quietly and attentively as she told her story. Instead of thinking about my responses, I just listened. In actively listening (Improve Your Listening Skills with Active Listening, 2015), I noticed that there were moments of silence. Instead of being awkward, the moments of silence were purposeful. The silence gave my...

Values that are considered absolute and inviolable are called protected values (PVs) (Hoch, et al., 2001, p.251). Protected values should be protected from trade-offs, as they are unbending beliefs (Hoch, et al., 2001, p.251). I am certain that I have several PVs, but for the purpose of this assignment, I will focus on three of my PVs and the beliefs that accompany them. First, I am an advocate for children, no matter the cost or sacrifice. This means that I will speak on their behalf; I will fight against child abuse, and I am a Pro-Life supporter. Most would support the first two beliefs within my PVs; however, as a Pro-Life advocate, I experience pushback. While I am not the person picketing in front of abortion clinics, I make political decisions in defense of children, first. Admittedly, this not an easy decision for me. I value many of the beliefs within the Democratic party and as black woman in America, the expectation is that my vote should be Democratic. However, when I ...

Negotiating can be challenging because everyone wants to win, and some will decisive others so that they may win. Thus, deception in negotiating is quite common. According to Hoch, et al., (2001), people lie in negations and are usually more comfortable telling lies of omission; lies of omissions are told when information is not revealed (p.189).  For example, my friend told me about a car-buying experience in which information about the condition of the car, was omitted. As a result, my friend paid for a car that was in bad condition; he bought a lemon. So, how do we avoid this kind of deception in negotiation? Hoch, et al., noted several ways for us to reduce vulnerability during negotiation; I will share four of those ways. First, we should ask direct questions (Hoch, et al., 2001, p.197). When we ask direct questions, we will most likely receive honest responses. I used to have a hard time asking direct questions as I didn’t want my directness to come off as accusatory; ho...