Advanced Communication Skills: Building Bridges

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

• Search to understand other people’s stories and learn to change your perspective based on their view to improve your conversation
• Prevent misunderstandings by clarifying intentions and avoid common mistakes that escalate the situation rather than resolve it
• Avoid blaming others and take responsibility for your own contribution to any situation
• Understand and manage your feelings so they don’t clutter your understanding or affect your conversations with others
• Handle difficult conversations by monitoring implicit messages and use techniques to gain rapport
• Avoid destructive psychological games in conversations and use techniques to shift the conversation away as quickly as possible

 

COURSE OVERVIEW & CONTENT:

"Words have the power to create, to inspire, and to transform. Choose them wisely."

We interact with others on daily basis and our communications can influence different aspects of our lives. Knowing how to communicate well can have a significant impact on an individual’s success and so it pays to constantly train on it and aim to improve your performance.

This course follows on from Effective Communication Strategies and aims to expand deeper into many sources of miscommunication. It provides several easy-to-use soft skills techniques that can be employed in establishing rapport with others, strengthening relationships and avoiding common conversational traps. In particular, the course covers areas such as probing and understanding other people’s perceptions, understanding intentions and their impact, taking responsibility and avoiding blame.

During this course delegates learn to manage their emotions better so that these emotions don’t leak or burst into conversations at the wrong moment. Techniques are provided to manage difficult conversations and to avoid getting trapped in a psychological game going back and forth on certain points rather than moving forward to focus on underlying issues or concerns.

All of the techniques explored in the courses are thought using several examples. Many example conversations of poor communication are provided and delegates are encouraged to analyse them. This is then followed by in-depth training on why and how these conversations fail and what can be done to avoid them. This is subsequently followed by improved examples so delegates can see exactly how to use the techniques and what to expect of them. Delegates then participate in several exercises to master these skills. Exercises are carefully designed to help the delegates memorise these techniques during the course and learn to apply them in real-time in realistic situations encountered in the real world.

PRE-REQUISITES

Participants must complete Effective Communication Strategies course before taking this workshop.

Understanding Stories

• How Do You Perceive The World?
• Make Stories to Make Sense of What Goes Around
• Stories Can Define Your Behaviours
• Story Analysis to Improve Communication With Others

Intention Analysis

• Two Common Mistakes When Considering Intentions
• How to Avoid These Mistakes
• The Relationship Between Intentions and Their Impact
• How Should You Respond To Them?
• Handling Intentions to Get the Best Results
• Best Way to Share Intentions With Others

Avoiding Blame

• The Cycle Of Blame And Disengagement
• What is Bad About Blaming Others When Things Go Wrong?
• What Should You Do Instead When Things Go Wrong?
• How to Avoid Blaming Others

Feelings

• If You Feel Strongly About Something, How Should You Express Yourself?
• What Happens If You Don’t Share Your Feelings With Others?
• Should You Bury Your Feelings and Get Rid of them as Hard as You Can? Should You Vent Them or Should You Deal With Them?
• How Can You Use a Simple Formula in Conversations to Easily Share Your Feelings With Others?

Difficult Conversations

• The Best Way to Express Dissatisfaction With Someone
• Analyse Implicit Messages in What You Say or is Said to you
• The Impact of Implicit Messages on People and their Long Term Relationship
• The 4-Steps Conversation Technique To Significantly Improve The Quality of Your Conversations

Psychological Games

• Stuck in Circular Arguments and Feel They Should Not Give in to Others
• How Can You Break This Cycle and Improve your Communication Skills?
• Drama Triangle and How Can it be Used to Improve Communication With Others

 

 

COURSE DURATION: TWO DAYS