Communication Excellence - how to be heard/how to listen

Presenter - Debra Hamilton, Hamilton Associates

The last program of the day was also the longest, but worth the extra time. Debra is a polished, excellent communicator and modeled everything she talked about.

She started by saying that the responsibility for successful communication lies 50/50 on both listener and speaker. And that both must work equally hard to engage in effective communication.

She covered the following aspects of communication:

Communication Situations - regardless of the situation you find yourself communicating in, your thoughts and feeling affect your actions during conversations and thus your ability to communicate effectively. While communicating, your actions reveal your feelings and thoughts. For example, some people might communicate with silence behaviors like avoiding a topic, withdrawing, and others might behave "violently" with controlling, attacking behaviors during conversations. The ideal is somewhere in between silence and violence, where we act assertively which results in powerful, confidence, effective communication.

Communication barriers - Perceptual barriers (talking to people with different learning or thinking styles-left brain/right brain); physical barriers (distance, temperature, noise, etc.); emotional barriers (fear, presumptions); cultural/language barriers; gender differences; and lack of interpersonal skills all lead to failed communication. Here she also talked a whole lot about multiple intelligences and the fact that good leaders have good intrapersonal skills (they know about themselves and can manage their own emotions), which allows them to then have good interpersonal skills (they can help take care of and communicate well with others). That's just one example of overcoming communication barriers.

How to be heard -

Ask open-ended questions - yay! we know what these are.
Manage resistance - deal with those who may oppose you through methods like acknowledging their resistance; (Q-TIP) quit taking it personally; asking questions for clarity; reframing the situation; asking how they can help with the solution
Use words that influence - don't say I hope, say I'm confident we can... Don't say I think, say I believe we can...
Project confidence
Build trust

How to listen (she got short on time here)
Be attentive, understanding, and encouraging to your speaker. Do not give advice.

There was lots more to this workshop. Please let me know if you're interested in the topic. I can offer suggested readings, worksheets, and exercises all from Debra Hamilton.