Transcript Communication Skills - City Wide Maintenance

Communication Skills
Express Yourself
Communication Skills
• We can’t ‘not communicate’
– Even when we say nothing, we are communicating something.
– Learn to read others’ and your own non-verbal communication
• Reading your own body language may give you insight about how you really
feel
• Reading others’ body language will give you insight into how they really feel
• I’m sorry, I can’t hear the whispering of your words over the shouting
of your actions
5 Rules For Effective
Communication
1. To communicate there must be an exchange of information. Just because
you said it doesn’t mean they heard it.
2. All information exchanged should be as clear and complete as possible.
3. The information should be meaningful to the individual who is receiving it.
4. Always get confirmation that the message you are communicating has
been understood.
5. Information can be given in many ways. The more ways you use, the
clearer and more believable it will be. However, the message must be the
same in all ways. It is vital to be consistent. Remember, actions speak
louder than words.
Winnie-the-Pooh On Management, Roger E. Allen
3 Barriers To Communication
1.
Assumptions
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Preconceptions
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Assuming others have a level of understanding or skills they don’t really have leads
you to give less than adequate information or instructions
People tend to hear what they expect to hear. The message you receive is distorted
by information you already have.
New information that is different from what you expect may be rejected as being
incorrect.
Biases and Prejudices
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People tend to turn a deaf ear to opposing viewpoints on matters they have strong
feelings about
More Barriers to
Communication
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Physical - hearing loss / plant noise
Language – foreign or word choice
Disinterest – un-readiness or unwillingness
No perceived direct impact
Clarity / complexity
Timeliness
Layers of bureaucracy
Stubbornness
Communicate With All
Parties
• Set Up Lines Of Communication In All Directions
Your
Boss
Those With Whom
You Must
Coordinate
You
Your
Subordinates
Your
Customers
Listen To Communicate
• We have 2 ears & one mouth…
• Our mind processes information 10 times faster than we
talk, so our mind often wanders while listening
– We finish sentences for others
– We hear what we think they will say
– We read a memo while listening on the phone
Five Steps To Better
Listening
1.
Eliminate distractions
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2.
Get rid of excess paper
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3.
Set voice mail to answer immediately
Get someone else to answer
Move discussion to another room
Remove or cover what isn’t pertinent
Move to another room
Don’t get too comfortable
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Dozing off is rude
Lean forward to focus & show interest
Five Steps To Better
Listening
4.
Be an active listener
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5.
Ask questions or paraphrase for clarity
Take notes – don’t trust your memory
Jot down important ideas or data
Transcribe ASAP before memory fades
Be an empathetic listener
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Listen with your heart as well as your head
Put yourself in their shoes
Five Steps To Better
Speaking
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5.
Stand up to be heard
Don’t mumble – enunciate & project
Don’t get caught up in jargon
Plan your message & presentation
Reasonable repetition reaps rewards
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Tell them what you’re going to tell them
Tell them
Tell them what you told them
“Conversation As
Communication”
• Seek communication not chatter – plan the conversation
– You must make your message understood
• Avoid ambiguity - is “a couple” a few or exactly two?
• You must understand the intended message sent to you
– Play back for confirmation
• Paraphrase it back to them, “let me see if I have understood
correctly…”
• Evidence – people often fail to recall past errors
“Conversation As
Communication”
– Write back for confidence – as a double check, and for agreement
• Further clarification – is this what we agreed on?
• Consistency check – writing it down may expose defects /
omissions / inconsistencies
• A formal stage – a statement of the accepted position provides
clarity for proceeding
• Evidence – people often fail to recall past errors
“Conversation As
Communication”
– Give background for context
• Adding information can minimize misunderstanding
– Ask questions when others are speaking
– Provide a broader context for others
“Conversation As
Communication”
• Practical points
– Plan the conversation – determine the purpose and the desired outcome
(action)
– Be assertive def. – “To declare; state clearly”
• Don’t be diverted from your plan
– Gently steer the conversation back to your topics
• Don’t loose your temper
– Acknowledge what is being said by showing an understanding of
the position, or by simply replaying it
– State your own point of view clearly and concisely with supporting
evidence
– State what you want to happen next
“Conversation As
Communication”
• Confrontations
– Be professional – don’t loose your self-control
– Insults are ineffective
– Before you say anything, stop, establish what you want as the outcome,
plan how to achieve this, and then speak.
– Before criticizing someone, always assume that you have
misunderstood the situation and ask questions to check the facts.
– Also, ask yourself:
• Do they understand what is expected?
• Do they have what they need to perform?
• Have they received sufficient training?
– If the answer to any of the above is no, the problem lies with you, not
them
Write It Right
• Written communication has two purposes
– It clarifies – for both the reader and the writer
– It conveys information
Five Steps To Effective
Writing
1.
Establish the aim or goal / objective
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Every document you write must have a single aim – A specific, specified
reason for being written
If you cannot decide what the document should achieve, it will not achieve it
Once the aim is decided, decide what information is necessary to achieving
that aim
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Apply your expertise to the available information
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State the very-few facts that are relevant
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State them precisely and concisely
Five Steps To Effective
Writing
2.
Consider the reader
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Writing is about conveying information
Your writing must be right for the reader, or information will get lost on its
journey
You must focus upon enabling the reader’s access to information
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What they already know affects what you can leave out
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What they need to know determines what you include
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What they want to know suggests the order and emphasis of your writing
Five Steps To Effective
Writing
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Devise the structure
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Each paragraph must stand on its own and be used to convey A single idea
Each paragraph should state the key idea and at least some of the following
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A development of that idea
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An explanation or analogy
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An illustration
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Support with evidence
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Contextual links to reinforce the structure
– Make it relevant to the reader – give it a cost or a consequence
Five Steps To Effective
Writing
Draft the text – organize your thoughts
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Begin by outlining your key points
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Add supporting information / documentation
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Add contextual information (make it relevant)
– Give it a justification
– Give it a cost realization
– Give non-action a negative consequence
Summarize
Five Steps To Effective
Writing
5.
Edit and revise
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Be clear and concise
Be effective
Fix it before you send it
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Check spelling, punctuation, grammar
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Don’t get lost in jargon or acronyms
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Avoid repetition
Writing Resources
• Invest in a good dictionary and use it
• Invest in a thesaurus and use it
• Use spell check & grammar check
– Double check it yourself
– Have someone else double check it
Common Mistakes In Writing
• Punctuation
– In most business writing, there is no need for an exclamation point (or
underlining).
• If you feel that strongly about something, calm down, take a deep
breath, and continue without the dramatic hysterics!!!
Common Mistakes In Writing
• Punctuation
– The two most common uses of the colon are:
• To introduce a list which provides information promised in the previous
clause
– Products need four things to work: time, agitation, concentration,
and temperature.
• To separate main clauses where the second is:
– A step forward from the first
– A statement to explanation
– A cause to an effect
– An introduction to a main point
» Using an autoscrubber to clean the cafeteria after lunch will
result in cleaner floors, and require less labor: a double
benefit.
Common Mistakes In Writing
• Punctuation
– The two most common uses of the semicolon are:
• To unite sentences that are closely associated, complimentary,
or parallel
– Budgets are tight; we must get the most value for our
money.
• To act as a stronger comma either for emphasis or to establish
a hierarchy
– Our equipment needs are auto scrubbers, finish
applicators, and burnishers; mop buckets, doodle-bugs,
and quality cleaning cloths.
Common Mistakes In Writing
• Spelling & grammar
– Rightly or wrongly, we are judged by our ability to communicate
• If you have difficulty spelling, there are dictionaries that contain lists of
commonly misspelled / misused words
• If you have difficulty with grammar, there are dictionaries that contain the
rules of English grammar
• If English is not your “mother tongue”, there are ESL classes available – use
them
Common Mistakes In Writing
– Read! Read newspapers, books on management, and trade
publications.
• The more you read, the more you are exposed to correct spelling,
word usage, and grammatically correct sentences.
• Learn by example.
– Ask for help. If you work in a school, ask the librarian to recommend
resources, or an English teacher, or an ESL teacher… use available
resources.
Ten Tips for Effective e-Mail
1.
Think before you write.
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Just because you can send information faster than ever before, it doesn't mean
that you should send it.
Analyze your readers' needs to make certain that you are sending a message
that will be both clear and useful.
Remember: you can always deny that you said it, but if you write it,
you may be held accountable.
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You may be surprised to find where your message may end up.
Ten Tips for Effective e-Mail
3. Keep your message concise.
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Remember that the screen only shows approximately one half of a
hard-copy page.
Save longer messages and formal reports for regular (‘snail’ mail) or
overnight mail.
On the other hand, do not keep your message so short that the reader
has no idea what you're talking about.
Ten Tips for Effective e-Mail
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Remember that e-mail is not necessarily confidential. Some companies will
retain the right to monitor employees messages.
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Don't send anything you wouldn't be comfortable seeing published in your company's
newsletter (or your community's newspaper).
Don't ‘flame’ your readers. It's unprofessional to lose control in person; to do
so in writing usually just makes the situation worse.
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FLAMING IS WRITING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS BECAUSE YOU’RE UPSET. IT IS
COMMONLY REGARDED AS SHOUTING AND, IS AT THE LEAST, VERY DIFFICULT TO
READ.
Ten Tips for Effective e-Mail
Don't ‘spam’ your readers.
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Don't send them unnecessary or frivolous messages. Soon, they'll quit
opening any message from you.
Don't type in all lower case. If you violate the rules of English
grammar and usage, you make it difficult for the reader to
read.
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Don’t use all uppercase either as emphasis, it looks like flaming.
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If you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing.
Ten Tips for Effective e-Mail
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Use the subject line to get the reader's attention.
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Replace vague lines (information on XYZ project, or status report Q1) with better hooks:
“Exciting Career Opportunity”, Serious Problems With The New Widget”, or “Free Money”.
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Avoid sounding like a spamming sales pitch
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Avoid clichés: SEX… now that I have your attention….
Take the time to poofread your document before you sent it. Rub the
document thru the spell checker and/or the grammer checker. Even simpl
tipos will make you look sloppie and damage your proffessional
credubility.
10. Include a summary paragraph (action or information) in every e-mail
message.
Summation
• You must manage yourself before you can manage others.
• Learn to communicate correctly, clearly, and concisely - both
verbally, and in writing.
• Gather and use communication resources
• No matter how earth-shaking your idea, if you cannot
communicate it to others, it’s as if you never thought it.
• Plan your communication and target your desired results:
verbal, non-verbal, and written.
Communication Skills
Are there any
Questions?
Quiz
1. (T / F) The most effective supervisors are the ones that listen
to, and act on all input from their team.
2. Praise in
; correct in
.
3. One way to clarify communication is to
.
4. Two purposes for written communication are to
and to
information.
5. (T/F) Non-verbal cues are sometimes more important than the
words being said.
Quiz
6.
(T/F) Busy supervisors must learn to multi-task. Reading your mail while
talking on the telephone is a good use of time.
7.
(T / F) Three barriers to communication are assumptions, preconceptions,
and prejudices.
8.
One way to improve your written communication skills is to
.
9.
(T/F) What you say is more important than how you say it.
10. (T/F) Taking notes during a conversation is rude.
Answers
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
(F) The most effective supervisors are the ones that listen to, and act on
all input from their team.
Praise in
public; correct in private.
One way to clarify communication is to ask questions.
Two purposes for written communication are to clarify and to convey
information.
(T) Non-verbal cues are sometimes more important than the words being
said.
Answers
6.
(F) Busy supervisors must learn to multi-task. Reading your mail
while talking on the telephone is a good use of time.
7.
(T) Three barriers to communication are assumptions,
preconceptions, and prejudices.
8.
One way to improve your written communication skills is to read .
9.
(T) It is possible to say one thing aloud, and communicate something
quite different non-verbally at the same time.
10. (F) Taking notes during a conversation is rude.
Communication Skills
Thank you for your participation
© Hillyard, Inc.
A Short Reading List
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They Shoot Managers Don’t They? Terry L. Paulson, Ph.D.
Winnie-the-Pooh on Management Roger E. Allen
The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Managing People Arthur R. Pell, Ph.D.
Maslow On Management Abraham H. Maslow
Moses On Management David Baron
Old Dogs, New Tricks Warren Bennis
Managing People Is Like Herding Cats Warren Bennis
On Becoming A Leader Warren Bennis
The First-Time Supervisor’s Survival Guide George Fuller
Successfully Managing Change George Hardy
Conversation As Communication & How To Write Right
www.ee.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/index.html