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 the martial arts schools teach that…”
Fortunately for most of the challenges that you meet in your life running is not a required part of the conversation.
So, what are the components of a good communication 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. This conversation ? 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 with 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. Obviously if you are going to discuss a debt problem with your bank manager then being in an angry state would not be useful…Being open and understanding about how you can work together to solve your financial issues would be a useful state.
You would also want to build trust and understanding with those you wish to relate to. You could do this by using an agreement frame. ie: if x happens then does that means that y will happen.
You would build the trust and understanding by using rapport skills such as matching and mirroring and this may also include kinaesthetic, auditory and visual rapport skills.
Rapport is the fastest way to achieve trust and understanding with those you are communicating with.
It would also be useful to be in a relaxed state 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. )
The next thing a good communication skills course will teach is who owns the problem. That is to say..”Who is not happy here now “
The reason to establish who owns the problem is because this knowledge will determine what strategy you will use to resolve any issue.
There are several of these strategies.
They include I messages and reflective 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 person solves their own problem 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 communication skills. 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 values that you share so that you then have some common ground to start resolving your differences. You may also steer the other person towards being aware of how important your values are to you and also demonstrating that they work for you…
Which brings me to the next skill which is modeling.
Modeling in a communication skills context simply means walking your talk. You will demonstrate the values and behaviors that work for you and hopefully the other person will be inspired enough to alter their behavior enough so that 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 being a knowledgeable expert and 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.
Michael Noone is a communication skills specialist and NLP trainer living in Thailand with his partner Evelyne Draper.
They have worked together for many years creating clear communication which leads to trust and understanding between people. The net result of that is cooperation…the place where conflict disappears and shared common values drive the efforts of all parties concerned.
http://commmunicationskillstraining.brighterplanet.org/
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