Discussion Question Week Four

Question: In organizations you have been part of, what communication have you experienced that was particularly effective – be specific. What was the communication and how did it persuade you?

Answer in Jack (John) Junker’s mind: I have been in numerous organizations throughout my life so I am going to pick three organizations in which I shall explain what sorts of communication that I have experienced along with the fact on how that communication has caused me to be persuaded in the past. These organizations would be my high school soccer team, Drum line, and a class in high school called Creative Publishing.

Communication within a team is a must in order for that group to win or just improve. Without communication you could never tell when someone was not covered. You could never call out to someone for a pass or a through ball. You could never ask for help when you need it. You could never give a thumbs up to a teammate that has accomplished a spectacular play or hug a teammate that scored the game winning goal. Needless to say that my soccer team in high school would have gone nowhere if there was no communication held between the players. Needless to say sometimes some communication within a team is unwanted. A prime example would be my former coach. Now I am going to say this plain and simple, he was the picture perfect definition of an asshole. He always criticized everything and never found the good things in a mistake. Everything was about him and not the players. So as a group we became closer because it gave us something to complain about. Those teammates became my brothers on the pitch due to a crazy little Italian man whose communication was both unintelligible and abusive.

Communication within a musical ensemble is more of a motion or physical sense of acknowledgement. You see, when a performance is going on you are unable to say “Up next is Funky Shoes” because it would just be jumbled in all the crashes and bangs from the drums and cymbals. So instead we used hand signals in which a fist would mean “Last time around”, and a certain motion would mean a certain cadence. I guess you can say that the little opening sequence between songs can also be explained as “Hurry up and get ready for the next one.”

Creative Publishing was the class in my high school that was in charge of the school newspaper along with the yearbook, so in general you need communication at it’s finest to make that class a well oiled machine. Such communication would include faceless letters like emails, comments on articles, texts, etc.. along with the occasional face to face conversation. When your putting a book together that the whole school is going to read and criticize you are going to want to make sure all the major errors are out of there along with all of the little mishaps that one could over look. But the main issue in that calss would be “Group Think” because when everyone was in a pickle or that they just did not want to share what they had the editors would persuade the class to go with their ideas and in turn make them the subject of opinion.

Discussion Question Week 4


By Austin Merritt

Types of communication within organizations vary significantly. One organization I was a part of was being a regular attendee of my church. In our church our pastor was our lead spokesman. He would portray a message to the congregation through different means of communication. He would use verbal and nonverbal communication to present his message to the congregation. For example, if something was being stressed the pastor would raise his voice and deliver his message with use of body language. To me this is effective. Everyone has a different learning style. People may be a confluent learner, technical reasoning learner, etc. For me to stay entertained and focused, my pastor was effective in his portrayal by using hand gestures and changing his tone of voice and grasping my attention. That is not to say that all pastors, priests, and teachers use the same delivery for communication. But by being active in portrayal, they can grasp my attention easier. Again, not to say I don’t get distracted throughout various messages.

On my high school football team I remember playing our biggest rivals. I went into play, as a backup, on the defensive side of the ball. As the play started, I went to a spot on the field that was not mine and left my assigned gap open. The running back ran to my assigned area and scored upon us. As I ran back to the sidelines, my coach was waiting for me. He pointed what I did wrong and showed me the importance of my mistake by raising his voice. At first I did not find it effective because I did not want to be in that situation, but looking back I see how it can be effective. By raising his voice and mixing emotions together, my coach was trying to stress the point and make a quick change about it. Not something where we can brush it under the rug and fix it next week. We need it changed and we need it now. My coach and I got along really well and we joke with each other during class all the time. I think the most effective communication depends on your learning style. For me, I prefer a nice easy-going talk but other people need verbal slaps in the face.

Discussion Question 4

By Jimmy Lavorato,


I started my own organization in high school and I found that one of the easiest ways to communicate with multiple people is by an e-mail chain. For specific things that I wanted people to remember, I found that when I talked face to face with them, they were more likely to remember that encounter as opposed to an e-mail. So for me verbal communication soon became the best way to effectively communicate with everyone. It was helpful that most of the people I needed to communicate with were students at the school and it wasn’t hard for me to find them. On the other hand when I needed to talk to people like the activities coordinator and people like that, communication via e-mail was the most effective. My people skills and verbal communication skills became very important especially when I needed to sell t-shirts and get members or else the group would have failed. Luckily for me there are many useful ways to communicate with people so the group was a success.

Discussion Question #4

By: Marina Eggen

In the organizations I have been apart of it has been most effective to use all four types of communication together (verbal, nonverbal, visual, written). I’ll use the example of a basketball team. Every member of the organization is not together all the time so written communication is essential for updates and meeting times.  When my coach had updates for us he would post them on the bulletin board in the locker room. Then when we are able to meet verbal and nonverbal communication work together to give the members a clear grasp of the information being relayed.  Nonverbal communication can help the leaders of the group understand what their members are saying if those members don’t always speak up.  In basketball our coach would tell us what to do in practice or in a game.  Then on the court my team would have to communicate to play effectively.  Visual communication can be helpful when explaining some ideas or points just because some people are visual learners.  Such as when we need to learn a play we would draw it out.  However, if I had to pick one type of communication to be most effective it would be verbal.  This communication is the easiest and fastest way to relay information.

Discussion Question 4

By: Shelby Schroeder

I have been involved in many organizations.  Mostly back in high school.  One organization that sticks out in my mind was the student council.   The great thing about this organization was that everyone had a job to do or task to complete.  There was the the leader of the organization who was a teacher, and then representatives from each of the classes.  We would first communicate by announcing a meeting over the loud speaker, so that every one was in the same area to discuss things.  We had to have good communication within the group in order to convey our ideas to the rest of the student body.  The teacher in charge of the student council got ideas from us, and together we all decided what the best plan of action was.  Then it was the teacher’s duty to talk to other teachers and administrators to try to persuade them to allow us to make changes to the school. It was also my duty as a representative of my class to convey our ideas back to the rest of the class.  If anyone failed at communicating internally in the group, it was hard to show our ideas to the rest of the school.  After talking with the rest of the school we would report back what our peers thought, and came up with the best plan for action!