Back to business

After one week off from school, I'm officialy back. Today was my first class of this subject after missing the last week's three class. I found out, that we had to do a presentation in groups, and everyone presented it today. This way I was left out of this activity of course, but I was paying attantion and there were some pretty good stuff. 

The only presentation, where I lost my attention, was the free mind map one, because I couldn't read the text from far behind. In my opinion the FMM is not a good tool to make a presentation, but I think it was a good choice, because this way we could talk about it, and we saw an example of using it. 

I agree, that powerpoint is a little bit out of fashion, actually I've used prezi for my lab presentation in Hungary, and I think if you have time, and you are creative, you can do a lot of intresting things in it. 

Good to be back in Spain :)

Nothing happens

Today we didn't do anything special. Once again we couldn't fill the test we have to do, which by the way is in spanish. Next time maybe. 

We were talking about the SWOT analysis, which I already know from a management subject from Hungary. In this analysis you have to search for the Strengthes, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of a company. In the class we apply it to analyze one of our classmates work. I don't really know what are the opportunities we should find in someones activities, and also how can I say that there are threats from the class, if I don't see everyone's work, just mine and my classmate's? Strength and weakness is ok, but the other two depends on your environment...I don't really understand what should we do with that, but I'm gonna ask the teacher what is in her mind about this...

Something is missing...

Actually more things are missing. First we couldnt do the test our teacher wanted to, because it wasn't available online. So we had to think about situations that happened to us in the past, and where we could solve the situation using an assertive technique. 

One of my situation was when my roommate never cleaned, so I had to talk some sence into him. First I was really aggressive, but during the conversation I realized, that he is a smart guy, and anyways I had no other problem with him, so maybe it would be better to try to explain him the situation, and find a solution together. I think that I was assertive, and it was effective, because after that, he did a really good job cleaning the room. 

There are lots of times when it depends on your mood how you react. I was assertive, because I was in a good mood. Maybe on a worst day, I wouldn't be able to turn my anger into calm argumentative conversation.

We also talked about our assesment in this class. As I have to leave Spain for a week, we talked with Maria José to do it this friday. So I was looking into my work, and I realized that I forgot to write a post about the meeting with Pedro Duque. Now I wont do it, because it was long ago, and I think now it doesn't matter anymore, and actually I can not write a lot about it, because it was too short, and in spanish, so I couldn't understand a lot. But I think, that with this long post, I made it up to the task :D

A youtube day

This time we had to search for videos that fits to assertive techniques. We were devided to groups. I worked with Béla, Carlos, Gergő and Javier. It was not an easy task, because the best way to find good examples if we search in films, series or something like that, but sometimes it's hard to find the exact scene on youtube for example. After all, I didn't really like this activity, although it was fun to work with the guys, but I would like to watch the videos of others, I thought we gonna debate about them as well. Obviously we had no time for that.

Saying No!

In a company a person is often asked to do several tasks parallel. Sometimes we have too much stuff to do and our boss is asking more. If you love to work a lot, it's not a problem, but a normal person gets angry with his/her boss. Usually if you have a good relationship with your boss, then you can easily tell him/her that you don't have time for the new task, or you need more time to do it properly. In some case of course it is not that easy, because in a given situation if you say no, then you can go. 

The main thing is to really know your boundaries, and if you are in the position to say no.

NO!

We were asked to write two blog post this time. One about the class, and a reflection to the activity. I don't really understand this, because in the beggining our teacher said, that she wants our posts to be reflective, and not discribing the class. So now what should I write about a class, where we did an activity, if I cannot talk about the activity? I say -> NOOOOOO!

Assertivity

When we communicate with each other in a workplace, it is really important to respect each other, and debate with arguments instead of attacking our partner with aggressive behaviour. On the other hand, if we are to easy on our employees, then our position as a leader is in danger in no time. Everyone would realize that we are not confident, and they gonna link it to our lack of professional experience. The employees gonna be unmotivated, and behave like they want to, they won't be cooperative with us etc. 

We have to find a way to communicate between being aggressive and being passive. That is being assertive. When you are confident, you can defend your opinion and you can deliver your job on a high level, everybody is gonna respect you, and look at you as a leader. 

What does it mean to be aggressive? Watch this video of an agent, who is highly emotional, and way too aggressive (but really successful as well, because he is good in his job, and that's the most important thing, to be an expert).