Cody Carroll- MGMT 535 Blog

      Throughout this course, I have learned many new tactics and approaches of communication that I have never applied to my professional and personal lifestyle. The lessons I have learned in this course and from my classmates will help me perfect my ability as a leader, husband, and father. Some of the material learned, I use on a daily basis but didn't know I was actually applying the skill.      Over the past 9 weeks, we have watched videos and read chapters on understanding communication, communication challenges, using the right communication technologies, understanding your audience, managing data, providing feedback, communication across organizational boundaries, cultivating innovation, and have also wrote about actual life scenarios. Everything was informational and I have also learned from my classmates how they would handle specific situations, different from myself.      In my own framework of managerial communication, I will try...

      Innovation and creativity in the Army is an everyday occurrence. On the enlisted side of the Army, we always joke about it because the innovation and creativity usually comes from the officers. We call them "good idea fairies" because that's all most of them do. While the enlisted Soldiers are working hard to earn their paycheck, some officers don't have much to do besides side there and figure out ways to re-invent the wheel.       With that being said, the Army has been around for a very long time and the majority of our field training/practices have been the same. We keep them the same because they are effective and work. Most of the time, the new innovation and creativity ideas come along because people need something to claim for their yearly evaluation. In one of my last blogs, I spoke about how Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) get a yearly evaluation report card. Well, officers get them same thing. So, when they have not done anything all ...

 "Teamwork across organizational boundaries is unnatural"      The statement above, in my opinion, is only partially correct. I think, depending on the type of organization you are in, will determine if the across boundary teamwork is unnatural or not. In my current organization, the Army, it is very natural to have teamwork across boundaries. In the aviation field, us electricians have to work with mechanics in order to keep our aircraft flying. All of us mechanics have to work with the fuelers in order to fly. The aircraft have to communicate with the ground forces to seek out the enemy. This is a huge revolving teamwork ability for multiple jobs within the same organization.      On the other hand, you may have a more relaxed organization such as McDonalds, for example. At McDonalds, the employees don't work with anyone else outside of that location for most of the time. You may have to work as a team when more food is delivered on a truck to unload...

      In every organization, there are different levels of leadership. These levels of leadership all have their own tasks to accomplish that all tie into the same overall mission. In my organization, we have Company Commanders, Battalion Commanders, Brigade Commanders, Division Commanders, etc. These are different echelons with the same end goal. Within my organization, there are many achievements and many downfalls. Whenever downfalls occur, Commanders at the lowest echelon try to resolve the issue before it has to go to a higher level of leadership to resolve.     In situations that occur, leaders within my organization utilize the DIKA model without even knowing it is an actual Model to follow. In the Army, as unfortunate as it is, we have Soldiers that get DUIs more frequently than it should. When a situation like this occurs, that Soldier's Squad Leader, Section Sergeant, Platoon Sergeant, company First Sergeant, and Commander all hear about it first, from...