One of my most successful business communication experiences was during my time in the military. I was the only paralegal on the entire installation working full time and I had to deal with pretty much every legal issue that happened. Our First Sergeant, who was the same rank as me, Master Sergeant, was borrowing money from his subordinates, which is illegal in the Army. First the Soldiers brought it to me as a minor complaint, but I took it seriously as was supposed to. I went ahead and informed my boss, COL Khalil. He told me that I could handle it in whatever way that I saw fit. I gave the First Sergeant $150 personally and told him that he should no longer borrow money from his subordinates. About a month later, I asked his subordinates if he had borrowed any money, and he let me know that he continued to borrow money from them. I talked to my boss again and we had the guy fired immediately. The guy is still upset with me, but it was for the best.

One of my most unsuccessful business communication experiences was also during my time in the military. I was having a hard time handling my workload and there was no one really that I could put work on, nor was there a real solution without causing many cases to be delayed. So, I spent several nights in a row working on all of the cases myself causing me to reach a significant burnout period. One morning I woke up and could not move or make any phone calls. My supervisor ended up calling my sister and it turned into a nightmare where I could have gotten into real trouble. My boss let me take leave for the few days that I missed and I returned to work refreshed.

My communication regarding the First Sergeant went well, but my communication regarding my burn out went bad. The thing that went wrong in my failed communication is that I did not want to admit to myself or to my boss that I was hurting and needed rest. I put the workload above my own health and mental health at the time becasue that is how we sometimes in the Army mistreat ourselves. I agree wtih Kurtz's emphasis on the importance of communicating concisely to your target audience because they will understand and hopefully help out in the ways that they are supposed to help out. In that specific case, my supervisor would have sat down and done some of the work or lowered the expectation for that month's productivity. I guess the way that Kurtz's emphasis played a role is that my supervisor found out and recognized that I was burnt out, not trying to shirk work. Things worked out.

The thing that made the one communication successful is that I took the feelings and anxiety of my subordinates and communicated it clearly and concisely to my boss and he trusted my judgement to try to handle it witout getting the commanders involved. That felt good and the Soldiers that I helped definitely did appreciate it. The insights of Mellor's statement does align with my experience because I made sure to make my description of the problem short and sweet rather than drawn out like my conversations with the subordinates. I was able to tell my boss in a 5 minute blurb, which is contrasted with my hour long conversation with the guys who were being taken advantage of by the First Sergeant. I made sure that they felt heard, understood, and cared for. Also, when I addressed the First Sergeant, I did not attack him, I even gave him money. I found out that he had a gambling problem. I think that when someone first enters the workforce, they are not aware of the nuances of working at that particular workplace, so there should be many questions and observation from the individual. This will help him/her be successful.

Regarding the situation with the First Sergeant, I used active listening and conflict resolution. I guess Rosenquist's point about the importance of collaboration and soft skills did apply to those interactions because I did collaborate with the subordinates to come up with the action plan that they felt was best for me to do on their behalf. After all, they still have to work with him and he happened to still be their rater (writer of their annual evaluations), until he got fired. If he had straightened up his act, he would have never known that those guys told me. I told the First Sergeant that I overheard him asking them for money. I don't think that I could have improved on what I did in that situation, except that I always wanted to follow up with the First Sergeant so that we could reconcile. He never returned my calls.

This experience gave me high credibility with the command because they all knew that I will address corruption where it stands no matter who it is or why it is being done. The one takeaway that resonates with me the most is that effective communication is professional and enables everyone to know exactly what is being communicated.