Communication Skills Seminar

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Communication SkillsSeminar

• Bogaziçi University
• April 22, 2004
• Tom Atkinson

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Seminar Agenda

• Thursday, April 22 Listening Skills
• Thursday, May 6 Writing Skills
• Thursday, May 13 Presentation Skills
  Preparation
• Thursday, May 27? Presentation Skills Presenting

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Communication Skills Overview
Effective communication skills are a critical
element in your career and personal lives.
We all must use a variety of communication
techniques to both understand and be understood.
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Most common ways to communicate
Visual Images
Speaking
Writing
Body Language
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Communication Goals
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Critical success factor for life

• The majority of your perceived ability comes
  from how you communicate

30 What you know
70 How you communicate it
Source CGAP Direct
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Listening Skills

• Bogaziçi University
• April 22, 2004
• Tom Atkinson

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Agenda

• Motivation
• How to Listen
• Paraphrasing, Summarizing and Questioning

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Part 1Motivation
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Session Objectives

• Be able to
• Describe reasons that communication fails
• List strategies to improve communication
• Paraphrase and summarize conversations
• Use appropriate questioning techniques

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Listening and Speaking are used a lot
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But not taught enough
Amount taught
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Listening is needed everywhere

• Listening skills form the basis of
• Continued learning
• Teamwork skills
• Management skills
• Negotiation skills
• Emotional intelligence

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But not practiced effectively

• 70 of all communication is
• Misunderstood
• Misinterpreted
• Rejected
• Distorted
• Not heard

Source CGAP Direct
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Part 2How to Listen
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Harry always was a poor listener.
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What if communication were not possible?
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Frustration and Chaos!
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Both children want the orange
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But without good listening, neither gets what
they want
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Communication
Communication is the process of sending and
receiving information among people
Feedback
SENDER
RECEIVER
sender
receiver
Source CGAP Direct
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Messages not delivered due to distortion
Feedback
Sender
Receiver
Distortion
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What causes distortion?

• Speaker
• Language
• Wordiness
• Semantics
• Emotions
• Inflections

• Listener
• Perceptions
• Preconceived notions/expectations
• Physical hearing problem
• Speed of thought
• Personal interests
• Emotions
• Attention span
• No active listening!

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What do you think about?
I have something really important to tell you
Maybe I should get a haircut
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• 30 of you arent paying attention right now!

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Clues that you are not listening

• Are you simply waiting for your turn to talk?
• Are you thinking about your reply before the
  other person has finished talking?

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Listening and speaking require energy

• Listening takes. . .
• concentration and energy
• curiosity and open-mindedness
• analysis and understanding
• Speaking requires. . .
• sharp focus
• logical thinking
• clear phrasing
• crisp delivery

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How to be an active listener

• Set the stage
• Choose an appropriate physical environment
• Remove distractions
• Be open and accessible
• Maintain relaxed, open posture that shows
  concentration
• Ensure mutual understanding
• Reflect feelings
• Offer acknowledgements (say uh-huh)
• Paraphrase main ideas
• Interrupt to clarify
• Confirm next steps

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How to be an active listener

• Understand body language
• Observe position and posturing
• Make eye contact
• Consider expression and gestures
• Suspend judgment
• Concentrate
• Keep an open mind
• Hear the person out
• Do not react to emotive words

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Active Listening (not!)

• Behaviors that hinder effective listening
• Act distracted (look at your watch!)
• Tell your own story without acknowledging theirs
• Give no response
• Invalidate response, be negative
• Interrupt
• Criticize
• Diagnose what was said
• Give advice/solutions quickly
• Change the subject
• Reassure without acknowledgment

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Lets practice

• Tell the person next to you about your Research
  Project

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Tell me your stories

• Do you feel your partner understood you?
• What made your partner easy/hard to listen to?

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Part 3Paraphrasing, Summarizing and Questioning
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Techniques to improve listening skills
SUMMARIZE Pull together the main points of a
speaker
PARAPHRASE Restate what was said in your own
words
QUESTION Challenge speaker to think further,
clarifying both your and their understanding
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Practice Paraphrasing

• Paraphrasing is simply restating what another
  person has said in your own words.

• Use phrases such as
• In other words
• I gather that
• If I understand what you are saying
• What I hear you saying is
• Pardon my interruption, but let me see if I
  understand you correctly

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Practice Summarizing

• Summarizing pulls important ideas, facts or data
  together.
• Useful for emphasizing key points and setting the
  stage for further discussion.
• The person summarizing must listen carefully in
  order to organize the information systematically.
  

• Try out these summarizing phrases
• If I understand you correctly, your main
  concerns are
• These seem to be the key ideas you have
  expressed

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Two basic types of questions

• Closed questions
• Get a one-word response and inhibit thought.
• Questions begin with who, when and which
• Open-ended questions
• Invite unique thought, reflection or an
  explanation.
• Questions begin with how, what and how come (not
  why!).

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Practice Questioning

• Rephrase the following closed questions to make
  them open-ended
• Are you feeling tired?
• Isnt it a nice day?
• Was the last activity useful?
• Is there anything bothering you?
• So everything is fine, then?

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Lets practice

• Tell the person next to you what you did last
  weekend

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Questions?
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Feedback

• Give an assessment of todays session
• What did you like most and least?
• Assess the verbal presentation?
• Assess the slides?
• How useful do you think this topic will be for
  future classes on communications?
• tom.atkinson_at_alum.mit.edu