A Course in Effective Communication Skills to Create Harmonious Relationships at The Workplace

What Are Communication Skills? How does it relate to Interpersonal Skills?

Interpersonal skills include the habits, attitudes, manners, appearance, and behaviors we use around other people which affect how we get along with other people. We sometimes do not understand how important interpersonal skills really are. It's easy to laugh and make jokes about people who obviously lack interpersonal skills, but sometimes we need to examine our own impressions on others to better prepare for success in life as well as for a productive career. In other words, these skills are

• A set of behaviours which allow you to communicate effectively and unambiguously in a face-to- face setting.
• They can also be thought of as behaviours which assist progress towards achieving an objective.

Therefore, effective communication is the bedrock of interpersonal skills and is the key factor in creating harmonious relationships at the workplace.

Fundamental Skills

There are just 4 fundamental communication skills which form a process that is applicable to all situations:

• Speaking
• Listening
• Seeing
• Thinking

These individual skills need to be applied appropriately. For example, if you:

• Are discussing how to solve a problem with a person who has more experience than you, then listening is important
• Know much more about what needs to be done to solve a problem than another person, then communicating clearly and testing the other person's understanding are higher priorities.

The process described above is applicable to all people-situations anywhere, in the following ways:

• Analyzing the situation helps us to set realistic objectives
• Establishing objectives, in turn, provides the context in which to make choices about how best to behave
• By being conscious of our own behaviour in working towards the achievement of objectives we are more likely to influence other people's behaviour
• Constant monitoring will provide the feedback we need to make situation- dependent adjustments

Benefits Of Improving Communication Skills

Some of the advantages of improved communication skills are that you will be better at:

• Quickly assessing and understanding face-to-face situations
• Setting specific and realistic objectives for face-to-face encounters with people - you will benefit from being clear in what you are aiming at
• Choosing and using behaviours that complement the circumstances and are appropriate to the objective - thus benefiting by having an easier, and pleasant, means to achieving your objective
• Being aware of other people's behaviour and influencing it - influencing others by your own behaviour

What Is The Course All About?

This course is a 2-3 day intensive course for organizations that need to develop critical communication skills for building harmonious working relationships. This course employs adult learning techniques with simple, effective and yet practical lessons. Participants will be encouraged to apply and practice the lessons through group activities and personal interaction. At the end of the course, participants will be able to connect with other people effortlessly, know the right things to say and make communication in general an easy process.

Course Objective

The main objectives of this course are to assist working adults to improve their interpersonal skills in order to

• Work harmoniously with others
• Identify methods you use to respond to conflict
• Work in teams more efficiently

Course Methodology

The course will apply adult learning principles to facilitate understanding, effectiveness and retention. 80% of the course will consist of group and personal activities, which allow the participant to learn, develop and practice vital communication skills.

Course Outline

The course will cover the following main topics:

Module 1 – Speaking Skills

• Setting out objectives
• Analyzing the audience
• Practice

Module 2 –Listening Skills

• Active listening vs hearing
• Practice paraphrasing, questioning and summarizing skills

Module 3 – Seeing Skills

• Active seeing
• What body language signals to look for
• Mirroring
• Practice

Module 4 – Thinking Skills

• Assessing the situation
• Changing communication strategies
• Practice

Module 5 - Decision Making Roles

• Explore decision making roles
• Types of decision making – dictatorial vs consensus
• Practice

Module 4 – Raising Difficult Issues

• Preparation
• Bringing order to a chaotic conversation
• Practice

Module 5 – Getting Along With A Difficult Boss

• An approach Strategy
• Checking Perceptions
• Improving Vital Working Relationships
• Practice

Module 6 – Working With Difficult Colleagues

• Evaluating active and passive options
• Communication strategies

Module 7 – Developing Trust With Colleagues

• Emotional support
• Say sorry when appropriate
• Offering praise where warranted
• Practice

Module 8 – Giving positive Feedback

• Communicating performance based feedback
• Providing corrective feedback
• Practice

Module 9 – Expressing Appreciation

• The power of a praise
• Attention to specifics
• Understand why conflict is taken personally
• Learn how to professionalize conflict by neutralizing emotions
• Practice

Download a copy of our
Company Profile & Course Outlines
~ DOC Version ~ PDF Version ~

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