Communication and Collaboration Strategies
Communication and collaboration skills are imperative to his or her success when choose a career. Personal interaction is crucial in every day life situations from co-worker to business clients. At times, this may also include working in groups or teams, which adds a completely new dynamic to the communication and collaboration process. Understanding an individual’s strengths and weaknesses in these areas can provide keys to developing successful life and work relationships. Using Professor Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory as a guide, a person’s intelligence type can be determined. Gardner believes that eight intelligences are possessed by each person (Carter, Bishop, & Kravits, 2007). By answering a set of questions, a person can identify how developed each area is and how to utilize their most developed learning styles to benefit them. In order to be successful an individual must utilize effective communication and collaboration strategies when working with individuals who have different learning styles and personalities.
Three of these intelligence areas are verbal-linguistic, logical/mathematical, and interpersonal. An individual person who has a highly developed verbal-linguistic learning style is able to communicate effectively through language and understanding. They also excel at teaching others and learning new things. Effective methods for communication and collaboration for these learning styles include using written instructions and note-taking, group education and teaching sessions, and the use of memos and emails in the office. Another learning style, logical/mathematical, includes people with a strong understanding of patterns, computations, and scientific reasoning. This type of person also exhibits the ability to problem solve and organize information very well.