By Vishal Patel, P.E., edited by Brian Heinzl, P.E.
More than 55 ASCE members and guests gathered at the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania on Thursday, March 23rd, 2017 for an ASCE Pittsburgh Section Geo-Institute and Deep Foundation Institute - Women in Deep Foundation (DFI – WiDF) Chapter meeting. Nancy Watt, a communications professional, writer, trainer, speaker and a graduate of Second City Comedy Improv Conservatory in Toronto, presented a lecture on how to enhance an employee’s communication skills for efficiency, integrity, and achievement at all levels of an origination.
Ms. Watt started the presentation discussing the value of noticing gender differences in communication being critically important to stemming the tide of women leaving the geotechnical and foundation industry. Long seen as soft skills, the cost of poor communication inevitably results in increased employee turnover, poor customer service, ineffective change of management, failed project delivery and high litigation costs.
The presentation was orientated around various improvisational activities and discussions between attendees to improve communication, expand women’s mobility in the workplace, and cultivate integrity and achievement in all facets of an organization. It was a very atypical civil engineering gathering. In fact, the speaker pointed out that it was very unusual for the men to be the minority of the group in technical meetings.
The meeting was very interactive with several one-on-one improvised conversation skits and other thought-provoking communication activities engaging all of the participants. Ms. Watt presented a brief discussion of the results to provide feedback regarding body language and other nonverbal communication observations. Congratulations to all of the participants and thank you for your enthusiastic support of the Women in Deep Foundations and the Geo Institute!
The Geo-Institute & DFI-WiDF were happy to provide 1.0 PDH for the presentation along with a great venue for social hour and dinner.
