Communication Skills

2 July 23, 2003

What are the most common ways we communicate?

Spoken Word

Written Word

Visual Images

Body Language

70 % of our communication efforts are:misunderstood, misinterpreted, rejected, disliked, distorted, or not heard (in the same language, same culture)!

4 July 23, 2003

Goals of Communication:

To change behavior

To get action

To ensure understandingTo persuade

To get and giveInformation

5 July 23, 2003

Communication is the process of sending and receiving information among people…

SENDER RECEIVER

Feedback

receiver sender

6 July 23, 2003

What causes distortion or the barriers to understanding/listening?

Attitude Language Semantics Personal Interests Emotions

Environment – noise Preconceived

notions/expectations Wordiness Attention span Physical hearing

problem

7 July 23, 2003

How can we improve our listening skills?

Eliminate distractions

Concentrate

Focus on the speaker

Maintain an open mind

Look for nonverbal cues

Do not react to emotive words

Ask questions

Sit so you can see & hear

Avoid prejudices

Take notes

Ask for clarification

8 July 23, 2003

Listening…the other side of communication

Messages must be received as well as sent.

A good question to ask yourself is, are you really listening or simply waiting for your turn to talk?

If you are thinking about your reply before the other person has finished, then you are not listening!

Too many people see communication as merely speaking.

9 July 23, 2003

How can we improve our listening & facilitation skills as trainers?How can we improve our listening & facilitation skills as trainers?

PARAPHRASINGPARAPHRASING

Restating what another has said

in your own words

PARAPHRASINGPARAPHRASING

Restating what another has said

in your own words

SUMMARIZINGSUMMARIZING

Pulling together the main points

of a speaker

SUMMARIZINGSUMMARIZING

Pulling together the main points

of a speaker

QUESTIONINGQUESTIONING

Challenging participants to tackle & solve

problems

QUESTIONINGQUESTIONING

Challenging participants to tackle & solve

problems

10 July 23, 2003

11 July 23, 2003

Summarizing…try it out!

Summarizing pulls important ideas, facts or data together to establish a basis for further discussion and/or review progress.

The person summarizing must listen carefully in order to organize the information systematically.

It is useful for emphasizing key points.

Try out these summarizing phrases:

“If I understand you correctly,your main concerns are…”

“These seem to be the key ideas you have expressed…”

12 July 23, 2003

13 July 23, 2003

Practice your questioning skills…

Rephrase the following closed questions to make them open-ended:

1. Are you feeling tired now?2. Isn’t today a nice day?3. Was the last activity useful?4. Is there anything bothering you?5. So everything is fine, then?

(Compare your answers with those in the notes below)

14 July 23, 2003

Other questioning techniques include:

Direct questions: asked of a particular individual – allows you to initiate control – good for re-directing discussion from excessive talkers.

Return questions: puts the question back to the questioner or group – “What do you think about that?”

General overview questions: used to initiate a discussion or set up a thoughtful exercise – “How would you respond to the situation?”

Hypothetical questions: tests the responder’s problem-solving ability by posing a hypothetical situation – “If you had an unlimited budget, what would you fund?”

15 July 23, 2003

Other helpful techniques to foster communication (both verbal and non-verbal)…

Maintain eyecontact

Make encouragingstatements

Nod Your Head

Keep an openbody position

Repeat a sentenceor part of one

Repeat the lastword or two of the

prior speaker

16 July 23, 2003

Write down three things you want to do to improve your communication skills…

and practice them prior to your next training event

Ask yourself…

Which of the skills covered in this module was most useful as you think about conducting a training event?

Which was the easiest to employ?

Which was the most difficult for you?