Response to Felicia:

I worked on a cross functional team as part of a bigger team during the Covid-19 pandemic. I work as a Supervisor in the Child Nutrition Department and we faced so many challenges during these uncertain times as I am sure many of you faced too. Our main focus was to figure out how to feed the children while they were doing remote learning and while parents were working. We had to involve instructional, transportation, media, health dept. and CNP to formulate a plan that would provide two meals and a snack 5 days a week. We had to meet and revise the plan several times to work out the kinks and provide the best nutritional meals possible. Everyone had a significant apart to play because we knew how important this endeavor was.

The reason why we were successful, because of the open lines of communication that were constantly changing and no egos were involved. Being respectful and listening to the concerns of others were very important in forming a team that valued opinions and expertise. Our group was diverse and had years of experience that brought a wealth of knowledge. To become a effective communicator, you need to establish and utilize 7 rules: use simple words, use visuals, listen to your team members, use body language, communication via training, display confidence and seriousness and use translator for different languages (Munjal, 2017). With these baseline procedures in place, we were able to accomplish our goal of feeding all 29,000 students in the district and not interfere with instructional time. For those students, whom parents worked, we were all to send out buses to centralized locations to offer meal service to all that were interested. The plan was a success and our parents were thankful and appreciative.

If I had to change anything or improve on anything, it would have been the ability to provide the meals on the weekends. We didn’t have the staff to perform all of the necessary duties that would have been needed over the weekends and holiday.

Reference:

Munjal, D. (2017). Effective Business Communication: Key to Success. https://www.allreseachjournal.com/archives/2017/vol3issue7/Part/3-7-123-970.pdf