Powerful, Purposeful Communication Judith Hurlburt Hurlburt Educational and Family Support Serices

Purpose The purpose of today is to “tune up” our communication strategies. Outcomes are to: Introduce or review at least 3 communication strategies that lead to powerful, purposeful communication. Have fun practiciting the three strategies and debrief.

Strategy #1 Clarify the PURPOSE of the communication you are about to deliver by asking…. For what purpose…this communication, this visit, this meeting, this appointment etc. If we don’t know where we’re going we’ll end up somewhere else.

Strategy #2 Listen!!

Listening Exercise Instructions There are three cycles to this exercise. A cycle consists of each person getting to answer the question for the allotted time. After each cycle, we will do a group debrief and gather data on speaking and listening. Choose an A and B role. A speaks first while B simply listens with no comment, unless there is a pause, then, “Tell me more,” or “Anything else?” Switch roles. Cycle 1-each person speaks for 90 seconds. Prompt: Describe something you are interested in or passionate about. In Cycle 2, each person speaks for 2 minutes. Prompt: Tell about what motivates you to come to work every day, and to do your best work. In Cycle 3, each person speaks for 4 minutes. Prompt: Tell about a situation in which you took the initiative and made the situation better. Also tell about how you felt after doing so.

Listening Exercise Outcome goal: To experience what it is like to be listened to without interruption. To experience what happens physiologically when one listens to another. To reflect on, and analyze what characteristics in the listener, indicate, “listening.”   Purpose: To set the foundation for learning rapport, pacing and leading. To establish the value of listening as a foundation of rapport, pacing and leading

Listening Exercise Part 1 With a partner: Choose an A and a B role A begins and B listens-ONLY listens or says, “Tell me more.”….or “what else?” TOPIC: For 90 seconds tell about what you are looking forward to this summer. Switch roles. Debrief: What did you notice? Physiologically as well

Listening Exercise Part 2 Choose a new partner: Choose an A and a B role A begins and B listens-ONLY listens or says, “Tell me more.”….or “what else?” TOPIC: For 2 minutes tell about the most favorite part of your work. Switch roles. Debrief: What did you notice? Physiologically as well

Listening Exercise Part 3 Choose a new partner: Choose an A and a B role A begins and B listens-ONLY listens or says, “Tell me more.”….or “what else?” TOPIC: For 4 minutes tell about what a time at work when you couldn’t seem to get through to someone and help them understand you. Switch roles. Debrief: What did you notice? Physiologically as well

Debrief In what ways are you now and in the future a different listener than you were before we completed the exercise? Listening is one of the cornerstones of responsible and effective communication. We’ve just explored some aspects of listening that we may have already been knowing, and now will carry forward with us into our next conversations.   Now that you are more “tuned into” listening, Michael is going to work with you on becoming even more fine-tuned in your listening and thinking skills.

Learn and practice rapport building Strategy #3 Learn and practice rapport building

Rapport The process of rapport building is the cornerstone of responsible, effective and persuasive communication. Rapport is a Pacing and Leading Strategy based on the natural expressions and descriptions someone is offering verbally and non-verbally. Rapport is part of a strategy that unfolds from a cooperation between two people. You do what they do, how they do it, and as they do it. In essence, you are creating a unified interpersonal context that emphasizes commonalities, cooperation, respect, and an overall mindset of agreement at both the conscious and unconscious levels. All together this builds a readiness to take action now and in the future. In general, pacing simply means “aligning” yourself with the other person; reducing the differences between yourself and the other person. The result is that people become very receptive, responsive and flexible. In order to share the differences, there needs to be something in common and that can be accomplished through pacing. In other words, pacing establishes a subjective sense of shared reality.

Pacing Pacing is an experiential feedback loop in which people are aligned and shifting with each other. An effective communicator is one who uses his/her non-verbal and verbal communication as a tool to make contact with the other person. Pacing involves acknowledging and appreciating all your verbal and non-verbal communication as an exquisite instrument, allowing you maintain your own wholeness and comfort. You can maintain your sense of balance while acknowledging the other person’s ongoing experience. Pacing is a process of reflecting back, which has a tendency to create a “logic” that is acceptable to the conscious mind, and makes it easier to process information.

Pacing Pacing allows you to secure and focus attention. And once attention is focused, the quality of experience changes. Basically, you are “demonstrating” to the other person what they already know and do. Pacing accomplishes the following essential characteristics of effective communication: Securing increased attention Increased receptivity Building response potential’ Building expectancies Building credibility and trust Reducing differences Establishes a commonality Making agreements with the conscious and unconscious minds; Aligning yourself with both the conscious and unconscious minds.  

Pacing sets the foundation for effective leading Pacing sets the foundation for effective leading. Pacing acknowledges the person’s experience and makes leading statements more credible and persuasive, because you are structuring your communication to be consistent with the way someone has structured their experience Pacing makes it possible to get your message across so that it is understood according to the other person’s understanding.

Leading Leading directs attention, refocuses attention and makes it possible to introduce new information/ new ideas which lead to more flexible perspectives providing people with opportunities to reorganize information. Leading also increases the possibilities in the ways that information and learnings can be expanded.

Pacing and Leading Pacing and leading provides a way to build a reliable method of detection and feedback system. Once you have learned what to notice and trained your eyes and ears to see and hear in a variety of different ways, you have a direction and a feedback mechanism to know where you are going and when you have accomplished what you set out to accomplish.

2 Rapport Building Strategies Match or mirror posture or movements of the other. Match or mirror voice qualities such as pitch, volume, tempo, or tone.

Rapport Building Exercise Match Mismatch Part 2 With the same partner choose a topic upon which you agree. Discuss the topic for the allotted time, while deliberately use mismatching body posture, and voice quality.

Rapport Building Exercise Match Mismatch Part 1 Find a partner and choose A and B. Choose a topic upon which you disagree. Discuss the topic for the allotted time, while deliberately use matching body posture, and voice quality. How is your thinking different about how you will purposefully communicate from the time you leave here into the coming days, weeks and months?

One more rapport suggestion Use sensory data for building rapport