There are different schools of thought about what you should get from a communication skills training course Some of you believe that communication skills are only about talking more effectively in almost every situation I say almost every situation because there are some encounters that you have in life where the smart thing to do is to run. Even the martial arts schools teach that…”
Fortunately for most of the challenges that you meet in your life there is no need to run for your life
What is it that you should learn on a communications skills training
One of the first things to address is what is it that you actually want to say ? What is your desired goal or outcome from this interaction? Once you have established this you will know the reason for making the effort to communicate
What is the best attitude and frame of mind to haveto engage the other person. You may be curious about what I mean by the word state.
State simply refers to your physical, mental and emotional condition. Some states are more appropriate to certain situations than others Being relaxed and prepared to listen about how you can work together to solve your issues would be a useful state.
You would also want to buildempathy and establish mutual goals with those you wish to relate to. You could do this by using an agreement frame. ie: if Xhappens then does that means that Ywill happen.
You would build the respect and common aims by using rapport skills such as matching and mirroring and this may also include physical , listening and visual rapport .
mutual respect is the fastest way to achieve trust and understanding with those you are communicatingwith.
It would also be useful to be in a relaxed stateas that will affect how you are perceived. This can be done by using an NLP technique known as anchoring, which is a variation on what pavlov did with his dogs ( Minus the bell though I guess you could use a bell too if you really wanted to. )
The next thing a good communication skills course will teach is which person really has the problem That is to say..”Who is not happy here now ?”
The reason to establish who owns the problemis because this knowledge will determine what method you will use to resolve any issue.
There are severalof these methods
They include I messagesand active listening These are the skills that you will use when YOU “own a problem.”
When the other person owns the problem then you would use rapport and attending skills and also use a problem solving strategy. Reflective listening is extremely good for this. And when it is used correctly the other party fixes their own issues which is really cool as that means you don’t have to do it for them.
When you both own a problem then you will need completely different ways to do things These include
win win conflict resolution; values influencing; modeling; and consulting.
lets look at these one at a time.
Values influencing.is where you will seek out common values that are important to both of you so that you then have some common ground to start. resolving your differences…You can also show the other person that these values are important to you
Which brings me to the next skill which is modeling..
Modeling in a communication skills context simply means walking your talk… You will show what things are important and how they work for you and hopefully the other person will be inspired enough to alter their behavior enough and you can both live with it.
There are two other things that you can do when you’re in dispute with someone else’s behavior..
The first of these is consulting which basically means 1/ being a knowledgeable expert and 2/getting hired. This is way too complex to go into here as this is the subject of a four day communication skills training. If you get these two things right you stand a chance of being a consultant….
The final thing you can do when all else fails is to change the relationship.
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