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I am on a 12 month internship. I am a bit introverted and English is my second language. My manager told my prof that I am doing fine but I am not good at communication.
I was wondering if you could tell me what does this exactly mean? How can I improve my communication skills? I would really like to turn this internship to my future job, but I know I am a student with no work experience. So this is my first job and I might be clumsy. Any advice that comes from you would be highly appreciated.
Unfortunately "lack of communication skills" is a broad term. Usually means that you cannot communicate with your peers to effectively perform your duties. Might be related to the fact that English is your second language or could be due to you being introvert or could be they are looking for an excuse to end your internship and are going to use such hardly verifiable reason (doubt that but who knows). Or some sort of combination of the things. The only person that could really tell you what that mean is your boss. Just ask him about that. However try to phrase a question in a way that would not sound like you are upset b/c of such feedback. Phrase it so it would sound like it is something you just learned and would like to overcome it.If your manager is OK person he/she might tell you what exactly this mean and might even suggest on how you can improve your skills.
One small suggestion though on how to overcome some issues with being introvert and get a practice in the language: you might want to put a candy jar on the edge of your desk. People would come around your desk, grab a candy and might talk to you. By engaging in such conversations you might get to know people you work with so you wouldn't be afraid to ask them if something would come up.
From my empirical experience, what manager-types mean with communication in an IT context:
Of course, depending on your field these might be slightly different, but these are quite general.
So what would be "bad communication skills" in relation to the above? I think managers would say:
A story my father told when he was taking an intensive foreign-language course for his job: When he was just starting out people said "you speak so well!" As his skills developed, people said "What? That's wrong!" So, it's good to be at the stage where people give you that sort of advice.
There's a reason lots of job descriptions call for "excellent communications skills." Your good technical work becomes much better when you can explain it to others.
Don't take this advice as a critique of your personality: it is not.
Obviously, ask your supervisor for more details about this. Does he think you need improvement in
You're not working in your mother tongue. Do you need improvement in
How can you learn better skills? Here are some ideas:
When you write something for your job (spec? design? defect report? whatever) ask somebody to check it over. Professional writers have editors to do that. You can do it informally, and you'll learn a lot.
Look for opportunities to present material to your co-workers. Ask your supervisor about this.
In the USA, there's a thing called the Toastmasters Club. Their mission is to help people develop public speaking skills and have fun doing it. Give it a try if you can.
All the best in your career!
Considering that this is your first job, I would embrace the feedback (as they say, feedback is a gift!) and use it as an opportunity to be more aware of your strengths and weaknesses at this very early stage in your career.
As the other answers state, the communication skills feedback could be due to a variety of reasons - 2nd language, manager expectations, written/presentation skills, interpersonal relationships at the workplace, keeping the team updated on progress, etc. I would recommend that you sit down with your manager and openly and genuinely let him/her know that you are seeking to understand in the spirit of being more effective as a growing professional.
You've got a long way to go and this is a great opportunity to hop onto the life long journey of self improvement! Good luck!
tl;dr Feedback isn't feedback unless it's Specific, Measurable, Realistic. These lead in to SMART (Specific Measurable Agreed-upon Realistic Time-based) goals that are actionable. Use this a prompt to talk to your boss, and find out what they want from you.
edit: What to do? Tell them this. You really appreciate feedback, and would like to have them put them in to SMART goals for you to address. Without them, you've got nothing to address. Depending on your relationship with the professor, you can also ask that they push back when given this style of feedback.
"You lack communication skills" is not feedback, it's slander. Just as we close questions for being too broad, or unclear as to what they are asking here, this person is having you chase a ghost. Worse yet, this "feedback" was given directly to your professor, instead of them working with you on this. It's not specific, measurable, or realistic. "Communication skills" are discipline unto its own.
Feedback surrounding such broad topics demand examples and clarity. In this case, if I was the boss's supervisor, I would say something like "Boss guy, I'd like to talk with you about some of the feedback you provided to Elena93. I heard that she was lacking in communication skills. This is concerning to me, and I'd like to know more details surrounding that." Then continue to ask questions and be curious as to why this low quality feedback was provided. Curiosity should be the approach you take with both your professor, and your boss.
It's a shame your professor didn't ask more questions when the boss approached them. They should be interested in protecting their students from this kind of near-useless commentary.
From my experience, it means you're just not communicating ahead of time about what's going on. You don't need to be the most outgoing person, just stick with the facts. Be like an almanac and spit out factual information before they know about it and come to you to ask about it.
For example, if you see a delay in your estimation, bring it up before the deadline. It's impossible to say what it is in your context. Do ask your boss for more clarity. This is a great example of what your boss meant. You didn't understand what the boss meant but instead of asking him directly you simply walked away.
"Poor communication skills" does not mean language difficulties. Poor communication skills means lack of an ability to make smalltalk, chat about non-work-related issues to other workers at work, and show concern for others' personal life.
These are issues that come up for those that do and have always spoken the same language as everyone else. The current trend is for managers to value these things more than actual work qualifications, like understanding how to use the equipment involved.
From my experience, it may mean you may not be "marketing" or selling your or your department's work enough for stakeholders to recognize the value. I am going to use my experience in cybersecurity to illustrate.
There are certain positions that are revenue generating and other positions that are often seen as cost silos, particularly to outsiders who may not understand how that department generates value for the company. The IT security function is a good example of a typical silo. I work in the financial industry (Healthcare insurer), and maintaining proper security is vital to business success as a breach can have significant consequences due to HIPPA and other laws. However unless the value of our work is communicated to "outsiders" in direct revenue generating functions, its merit may not be fully realized (if at all).
Working in the cyber profession, hard technical skills (vulnerability analysis, security risk assessment, pen - testing etc.) are a must, but one must be able to also explain why these activities are important or why investment of resources here is worthwhile. Related skills such as being seen as helpful and understanding of non - technical end users requirements are also extremely useful to have. As cybersecurity is often associated with the "department of no", being able to put on a human face while not compromising one's job duties is important.
I will take a different angle from the other answers here. By saying you are 'not good at communicating' without elaborating on that, your boss might as well have said 'I do not like her' or more politely 'she is not a good culture fit'.
Communication is a two-way concept. If your 'lack of communication skills' here means not regularly providing enough information for them to be in the loop with what you are doing, that is something they could have addressed.
If it means it takes longer than average for the manager to understand something you are trying to convey or vice versa, again, it is something they could have addressed.
If it means you are not verbally active or assertive, which I take to be the case given your 'introverted' self-assessment and how you are emphasizing your inexperience, it is a culture fit issue when it comes to your communication style. You can either try to fit a 'louder' culture more or find a different organization that tolerates a more passive communication style. Neither way is intrinsically superior to the other but the American business culture seems to favor more active communication styles so one with such a style might have an easier time finding organizations that tolerate them.
At the same time there is a decent cost associated with changing your communication style: researching what that entails for you, changing your habits, mental cost of adjusting your habits, time cost of all the feedback and trial and error etc.
So in short, you can either find another org or place to work that has a communication culture that fits you in or change yourself to fit the org culture.
Warning: You might not be happy with this answer, but there is no secret toolbox. Therefore...
Stop acting introvert
Last year I had a training with a very experienced psychologist. Someone from the group asked how he could improve his communication skills as an introvert. The answer was straight forward: You can't! You're introvert because of your behaviour, you have to change your behaviour and then you won't be an introvert anymore.
If you're already doing it, then continue. Maybe you just don't have enough experience to find the right words at the right time, but it will get better.
