The Art And Science Of Communicating Effectively

Posted on 2009 under Uncategorized | No Comment

1 Apr

Communication skills training should serve several purposes. It should teach the necessary skills for 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 theKung Fu masters 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 can then move to the next phase…

What is the best “state” that you can be in to 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 working out common aims and values ie: if Xhappens then does that means that Ywill happen.
You would build the respect and understanding by using rapport skills such as matching and mirroring and this may also include kinaesthetic , listening and watching the other person as a way to build rapport .

Rapportis the fastest way to achieve trust and understanding with those you are communicatingwith.

Being relaxed and confident is important as that will affect how you are perceived. This can be done by using a relaxation anchor, 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. )

One of the most important things that a communications skill training teaches you is which person really has the problem That is to say.. “Which one of us is unhappy with this situation?”

The reason to establish who owns the problemis because this knowledge will determine what strategy you will use to resolve any issue.

There are severalof these strategies.

They include assertive non agressive messages and reflective listening.These are the skills that you will use when YOU are the one who is unhappy

When the other person is unhappy then you would use rapport and attending skills and also use a problem solving strategy. active listening skills is extremely good for this. And when it is applied properly 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 are unhappy then you will need completely different ways to do things These include
win win resolving conflict skills and ways to influence their values through modeling; and consulting.

lets look at these one at a time.

Values influencing.is where you will seek out values that you share .so that you then have a place that is safe for you 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 the transforming communication training seminar. 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.

Some Topics Of Interest

Cooking-is it Art or Science?
Cooking Cooking is not magic. It is possibly art or science depending on your viewpoint. For the creative or artistic, then cookery is...