Reflection 6: Communication Inefficiencies

The largest ineffectiveness that I found during my internship largely occurred in the online portions of the summer. While I was remote, the entire team would have a Zoom meeting on Tuesdays and the intern team would have an additional meeting on Fridays to go over what we did that week. Throughout the week we would then largely communicate via text and email as needed. This style of communication highlights my supervisor’s laissez-faire style of leadership. This style of leadership worked relatively well for our situation, because we were remote and a relatively capable, high-achieving group of interns. However, it also led to some errors in communication that could have been alleviated at a different leadership style been utilized.

One of the errors in communications came about with the deadline for a project. When I was in person and given a project, the staffer giving me the project would often tell me the day they would like it by and priority level of project while they were explaining it. However, given the differences in communication, when remote this information was not always portrayed. Often assignments came through forwarded emails when remote instead of the staffer calling you to explain it. As such, there was a miscommunication with the deadline for a project and another intern. While this is a two-way communication error, one portion of the error, I believe, came from the hands-off approach to leadership from the intern supervisor.

As such, I think one way of addressing the communication mishap and instituting a slightly more hands on approach would be to have a shared document with intern assignments. As interns get assignments, they would be able to put them into the document and the supervisor would be able to check that everyone has a deadline. This should allow for the communication that works best for the remote setting to not have to change (i.e. having to set up calls or meetings to discuss projects) while creating a bit more hands-on leadership that will benefit interns, especially in the early days of their internship. Additionally, it would allow for possible collaboration between interns because if someone was working on a project that you thought was interesting you could ask if they need any additional support. The team work possibilities that this would provide were there when in person but slightly missing when remote.