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 understanding To persuade To get and give Information

5 July 23, 2003 Communication is the process of sending and receiving information among people… SENDERRECEIVER 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? PARAPHRASING Restating what another has said in your own wordsPARAPHRASING SUMMARIZIN G Pulling together the main points of a speaker SUMMARIZIN G Pulling together the main points of a speaker QUESTIONING Challenging participants to tackle & solve problemsQUESTIONING Challenging participants to tackle & solve problems

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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…”

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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 eye contact Make encouraging statements Nod Your Head Keep an open body position Repeat a sentence or part of one Repeat the last word 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?