Teams composed of three current IIE undergraduate student members from the same IIE Student Chapter or University can register for the competition. Click above for more information and to register online

Registration deadline is January 31.

IIE Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award

The faculty advisor award recognizes advisors that have demonstrated substantial contributions to the chapter, officers and students creative activities with excellence as a teacher, advisor and mentor. Send a email to boyeyemi@iienet.org for a nomination form, if you’d like to nominate a candidate for this award. One award is presented per region. More information on this award is available online at http://www.iienet.org/public/articles/index.cfm?Cat=1086

Chapter Profile

The IIE student chapter at Milwaukee School of Engineering, through the generous support of the MSOE community raised over $400 in support of the tsunami victims. The funds will be donated to a sister engineering school in Sri Lanka for local relief.

Congratulations to the chapter for their efforts!

If you would like to share what your chapter is doing or has done please forward the information to boyeyemi@iienet.org.

Professional Development

Leadership - Communication

Managers are people who do things right,

while leaders are people who do the right thing.

 - Warren Bennis, Ph.D.

Many of the problems that occur in an organization are the direct result of people failing to communicate. Faulty communication causes the most problems. It leads to confusion and can cause a good plan to fail.

Communication is the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another. It involves a sender transmitting an idea to a receiver. Effective communication occurs only if the receiver understands the exact information or idea that the sender intended to transmit.

It is important for a leader to study the communication process because he/she coaches, coordinates, counsels, evaluates, and supervises through this process. It is the chain of understanding that integrates the members of an organization from top to bottom, bottom to top, and side-to-side.

What is involved in the communication process?

Idea First, information exists in the mind of the sender. This can be a concept, idea, information, or feelings.

Encodes Next, a message is sent to a receiver in words or other symbols.

Decoding The receiver then translates the words or symbols into a concept or information.

During the transmitting of the message, two processes will be received by the receiver. Content and context. Content is the actual words or symbols of the message which is known as language - spoken and written words combined into phrases that make grammatical and semantic sense. We all use and interpret the meanings of words differently, so even simple messages can be misunderstood. And many words have different meanings to confuse the issue even more.

Context is the way the message is delivered and is known as Paralanguage - tone of voice, the look in the sender's eye's, body language, hand gestures, state of emotion (anger, fear, uncertainty, confidence, etc.). Paralanguage causes messages to be misunderstood as we believe what we see more than what we hear; we trust the accuracy of nonverbal behaviors more than verbal behaviors.

Many leaders think they have communicated once they told someone to do something, "I don't know why it did not get done...I told Joe to it." More than likely, Joe misunderstood the message. A message has NOT been communicated unless it is understood by the receiver. How do you know it has been properly received? By two-way communication or feedback. This feedback will tell the sender that the receiver understood the message, its level of importance, and what must be done with it.

Communication is an exchange, not just a give, as all parties must participate to complete the information exchange You’ve attained the degree and built the knowledge, so what more do you need to succeed in the career world?

Communication, interpersonal and networking skill development beyond the classroom is instrumental in the speed and level of achievement in your career.