Communications Development Plan -- CDP
Executive summary
The CDP is designed to provide students an opportunity to focus on their specific areas of needed communication improvement and to allow them to create a clear roadmap for reaching defined personal communication improvement goals. It is the key to students attaining measurable improvement in their leadership communication ability.
Objectives
Plan objectives:
• Identify targeted improvement areas in oral or written communication
• Establish specific approaches to achieving goals in each
• Document a specific improvement approach
• Demonstrate a commitment to spending time on specific communication skill needs.
CDP Contents
1. Current assessment – Strengths and weaknesses in leadership communication
a. Go back to the self-assessment forms provided in LC.
According to LC table, Areas and Skills need to improve include:
- organizing your written communication
- using language correctly
- writing concisely
- using an appropriate tone
b. Include improvement needs in written, oral, interpersonal,
and/or team communications (if very strong in areas, students may elect to focus only on those needing work, although most students usually choose to work on oral and written at a minimum).
1）． Speed reading- outline the main points in a timely manner. It is really a practical practice to have a general idea what an article/paper is about in a time. During daily work, you may encounter a lot of work related report papers/articles, e-mails, and other forms of written materials. To improve the reading speed is crucial to maintain effective an efficient work pace.
2）. Talk without loosing the main points. It is very important in our daily communication with people that we don’t loose what we should focus without loosing them. It quite often that people tend to loose what they are supposed to say when they talk for some time with another party, or once he/she being interrupted.
3）. Express yourself clear orally/ on paper by using least words. The use of concise expression when talk in a meeting or write notice to colleagues is one of the needful skills a manger requires. How to make work done by using the least time/words is the major contribution to time consumption.
4）. Grasp what the speaker is saying and memorize them. Listening skills is so crucial that it is the foundations of communications. Most of the failed/unsuccessful communications are caused by not knowing or not remembering what the speaker is saying. This will lead to late responses or, sometime, misinterpreting. It is really not appropriate in business communications to ask the speakers to keep repeat himself/herself.
c. Use the feedback obtained in CDP meetings on usage assessment, letter writing, and oral presentations.
2. Communication improvement goals – What students would like to achieve
- Be very specific and make the goals measurable. For instance, just saying, “improve in oral presentations” is too broad. Instead, students should say, “Remove 95% of the ‘uhs’ from my presentation,” “always include sub-topics in introduction and conclusion,” “open up my gestures more so that I look natural and comfortable,” etc.
1). Reduce 15% reading time on any kinds of articles, e-mails, and work-related writings. Current reading speed can be measured and be used as the base to compare with improved speed. The comparison is made on the condition that no differences in regards to understanding the contents. In another word, if the testee understands 90% of the content of an article with 100 minutes, she/he needs try to obtain the same amount of information within 85 minutes.
Step 1. Read the same article multiple times to increase reading speed. Because we are getting familiar with the context, it will be easier to reduce the reading speed by 15%.
Step 2. Read articles on similar topics. Since there is some similarity between the readings, readers can easily digest and absorb the contents, thus reducing reading time.
Step 3. Read different articles on various topics. To get a relative measurement, readings compared should be similar in length and difficulty.
2). Whenever talk to someone, keep in mind what is the main topic the conversation is about. Make sure that the conversation begins with the topic and ends with the same topic. If multiple subjects need to be discussed, make sure every subject has a closure before move to the next subject.
Step 1. Record conversations randomly, and find out if, under any circumstances, the conversation can not end with the initial topic.
Step 2. Control the topic of a conversation by setting up the topic at the very beginning of a conversation. If necessary, let the people you are about to talk with know the topic/subject of the conversation.
3). Try to use as many accurate words as possible, avoid repeating " I mean" because of inaccurate/unclear words used the first time. Reduce the number of repeating sentences in a conversation by 80%.
Step 1. Memorize 5 words everyday that will be generally used in business conversations. Recite key phrases such as “Dead on arrival”, “Return on Investment”, “ETA” and etc; leave no room for mistakes whenever use these phrases.
Step 2. Think twice before saying anything. Try to find out the appropriate word/phrases to use.
4). Memorize up to 90% of what the speaker says during a two way conversation. Get familiar with different accents and try to distinguish some of the key words and different usages of some phrases. Avoid asking speaker to repeat himself/herself by 40%.
Step 1. Write down as much as possible what was heard on various media. For example, memorize what the news is all about for any radio station and try to write it.
Step 2. Take notes on meetings, lectures or any other occasions. Recall as much as possible the context of the meeting by going through the notes.
- Establish levels from easier to reach to stretch goals.
3. Actions to achieve goals – Clear and specific activities to reach each goal
- Check Merriam-Webster website everyday to get familiar with “word of the day”.
- Read Highline News on major websites, such as CNN, CBC every day.
- Watch News on TV regularly as well as listen to news on radio. Try to cover as many topics as possible.
- Grasp every opportunity to practice spoken English. Practice is the best way to improve spoken English skills.
- Imitate others is also very helpful for improving spoken English. Imitating native speaker can somehow correct accents as well as make correct pronunciations on English words.
- Write letters to friends, family, and colleagues using proper English. This will help build confidence when write formal business letters.
4. Timetable – Deadlines for reaching goals
1). To achieve the first steps of listed objectives in 1 month. The deadline is set up on the condition that constant and systematic actions are taken towards the objectives.
2). Use another 2 months to achieve the second steps of above goals. The overall improvement objectives should be achieved by the end of the semester.
3). Take another 3-4 moths to achieve the 3rd steps, if there are any, of the listed objectives. No specific deadline is set up for this step, because it will go beyond the time coverage of a semester.
a. Set deadlines reasonably spread throughout the semester that will ensure reaching overall improvement objectives by the end of the semester.
b. Be realistic in what can be accomplished by each deadline.
5. Measurement – Methods to determine progress, even on less tangible objectives, such as improving confidence in presenting.
1)． Speed reading:
1.1) Measure the time used to read the same article and compare the improvements.
1.2) Measure the time used to read different articles on similar subjects.
1.3) Measure the time used to ready different articles on different topics with the same length.
2). Talk without loosing the main points:
2.1) Record conversations from beginning to end. Replay conversation and check for topic change.
2.2) Take notes whenever topic was lost during a conversation/presentation. Find out the causes of losing topics.
3). Express you clear orally/ on paper by using least words.
3.1) Find out essays written before and see if there are any corrections can be made to make it shorter without loosing concepts.
3.2) Show your essays to someone who you believe are better than you. Let him/her show you how it can be improve in terms of wording.
4). Grasp what the speaker is saying and memorize them.
4.1) Record any conversation/presentation. Replay it and compare to what you’ve written on paper.
4.2) Repeat what you heard and record it. Compare it with the original presentation and find out what was lost, what needs to improve.
6. CDP Partner’s Name and Role
Participant: Emily (Ji Shi)— person on whom the plan is applying on; person who makes plan as well as actively measure the progress.
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