Professional Communication Reflection Paper

Introduction Throughout this project, I learned many professional communication skills, even though I thought my knowledge was already extensive enough. With these skills, I realized that nuances and contexts in professional communication are important. This reflection will recap the skills I developed through the simulation and course materials, the challenges I faced, and how I will carry forward what I learned into the future.
Skills Development
One skill I developed to support my project 1 tasks was to the analyzation of scope and purpose in communications. As described by one of the Ametros videos, scope is “the breadth and depth of a communication” (“Scope”, 2017), so I made sure that my emails to clients and vendors had the proper
From reading the company profiles of potential vendors, I thought that I found the ideal company for my client. However, after gathering information from them all, another company presented itself as a serious contender; it now seemed tricky to pick one clear firm that would serve my client the best. Although both vendors provided services that met my client’s needs, the information gathering video guided me to carefully look at how they offered these services; there was a difference if it was one of their core offerings or if they contracted it out. One company used 3rd party applications for their services and did not seem as experienced as the other company. Also, one company had members work in the film and media industry, so they knew how to utilize video to maximum effect, while the other company just stated that they were familiar with common video based social media. Even though both companies offered the same services, I compared the quality and expertise and was able to choose to better
It is always hard to deliver bad news, especially in a professional setting where relationships are expected to remain intact. I was worried that the unsuccessful vendors would respond with anger and possible working relationships in the future would be strained if I did not properly deliver the news. The negative news strategy video taught me that the message needed to be presented with clarity, so I abandoned my original strategy of trying to hide the negative news and softening it. If I had attempted to soften the bad news, it may have caused ambiguity and invited rebuttals (“Negative News Strategy”, 2017). Despite my new approach of being direct, I kept in mind that maintaining relationships is important, so as recommended by the course textbook, I wrote a buffer as an introductory paragraph to express my gratitude before delivering the bad news in the second paragraph’s first sentence (Meyer, 2013, p. 208). The structuring of my messages to unsuccessful vendors took both a direct and a considerate