Communication
Communication is key to the success of any organization or relationship. Technology today has made the dissemination of information to the masses a valuable effective tool. I use the following media outlets to communicate with parents, colleagues, and the community:
In regards to personal and face-to-face communication, I have been a life-long student of effective communication. I believe that my people skills have been a huge factor in my success as a communicator and teacher. One of the most influential and helpful books on the subject is People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts, by Robert Bolton, Ph.D.
Below is the information found in a PowerPoint that I presented to colleagues:
Skills for Bridging the Interpersonal Gap
The average person does not communicate well
Low-level communication leads to loneliness and ineffectiveness
People of all ages can learn communication skills
Good communication skills lead to:
Common Roadblocks/Barriers
Sending Solutions
Listening Skills
Listening Defined
Listening Skill Clusters
Following Skills – One of the primary tasks of a listener is to stay out of the other’s way so the listener can discover how the speaker views his situation.
Reflecting Skills
Four Skills of Reflective Listening - Listener restates the feeling and/or content of what the speaker has communicated and does so in a way that demonstrates understanding and acceptance.
Guidelines for Improved Reflective Listening Skills
Reading Body Language – most important skill of effective listening
Focus attention on:
Read nonverbal in context – does the body language and words match, what is the intended meaning
Note discrepancies – I AM NOT MAD!!
Be aware of your own feelings and bodily reactions – How do you feel in the conversation? Assuming the same position (discretely) helps in understanding the speaker
Three Approaches To Relationships
Submissive Behavior – I don’t matter. Pardon me for living. We are a nation of willing victims.
Aggressive Behaviors – move with intent to hurt. Abusive, sarcastic, rude, dominate subordinates, carries a chip on their shoulder.
Assertive Behaviors
Three Part Assertion Methods – You want someone’s behavior to change.
Part 1 - Behavior Descriptions
1st – describe the behavior in specific rather than fuzz terms.
2nd – Limit yourself to behavior descriptions. Do not draw inferences
3rd – Make your behavior description an objective statement rather than a judgment.
Part 2 – Disclosure of Feelings – communicates how the asserter feels about the effect the others behavior has on him.
Part 3 – Clarification of the Tangible Effect on the Asserter – It works because it describes how the other person’s behavior affects the sender of the message.
Administrator Example:
When you don’t take accurate telephone messages (behavior description) I feel upset (disclosure of feeling) because I lack the information and can’t return calls that may be very important.
Six Step Assertion Process
1. Preparation
Is it a persistent concern?
Have you built a base of trust?
2. Sending the Message
3. Being Silent
4. Reflective Listening to the Defensive Response
5. Recycling the Process – You may need to do it again and again.
6. Focusing on the Solution
- Power Teacher - Use for parents to access their child's progress on a daily basis.
- Department Website: http://waterfordhighmusic.weebly.com/
- Google Docs for sharing with colleagues
- YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TFioravanti
- SchoolTube: http://www.schooltube.com/channel/tfioravanti/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/timfioravanti
- Facebook: Closed groups for students and parents
- Facebook: Music Alumni Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/356324671047315/
- Blog in the Waterford Patch Online News: http://waterford.patch.com/blogs/waterford-high-music?content_subdomain=waterford
- Email: Used to quickly return inquiries and information
In regards to personal and face-to-face communication, I have been a life-long student of effective communication. I believe that my people skills have been a huge factor in my success as a communicator and teacher. One of the most influential and helpful books on the subject is People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts, by Robert Bolton, Ph.D.
Below is the information found in a PowerPoint that I presented to colleagues:
Skills for Bridging the Interpersonal Gap
The average person does not communicate well
Low-level communication leads to loneliness and ineffectiveness
People of all ages can learn communication skills
Good communication skills lead to:
- Improved relationships
- Increased vocational competence
Common Roadblocks/Barriers
- Judging – we have a natural tendency to judge
- Criticizing – people feel the need to be critical – or other people will never improve
- Name-calling – and labeling usually have a negative overtones to the receiver and the sender: brat, jerk, intellectual, bright, dedicated, good
- Diagnosing – instead of listening to the substance of what a person is saying, people play emotional detective, probing for hidden motives
- Praising Evaluatively – praise is often used as a gimmick to try to get people to change their behavior. There is resentment in an effort to control.
Sending Solutions
- Ordering – a solution sent coercively and backed by force
- Threatening – a solution that is sent with an emphasis on the punishment that will be forthcoming.
- Moralizing – an attempt to back their ideas with the force of social, moral, or theological authority. “It’s the right thing to do.”
- Excessive/Inappropriate Questioning – are they conversation stoppers?
- Advising – implies a lack of confidence in the capacity of the person with the problem to understand and cope with his or her own difficulties.
- Avoiding the other’s concerns
- Diverting – switching the conversation from the other person’s concerns to your own topic. Using the phrase, “Speaking of….”
- Logical Argument – has a high risk of alienating the other person.
- Reassuring – is often used by people who like the idea of being helpful but who do not want to experience the emotional demand that goes with it.
Listening Skills
Listening Defined
- Hearing: auditory sensations are received by the ears
- Listening: involves interpreting and understanding the significance of the auditory sensations
Listening Skill Clusters
- Attending Skills – giving your physical attention to another person
- A Posture of Involvement – communication tends to be fostered when the listener demonstrates a relaxed alertness with the body leaning slightly forward, facing the other squarely, maintaining an open position and situating himself at an appropriate distance from the speaker.
- Appropriate Body Motion – a listener that is active-but not in a fitful or nervous way-is experienced as friendly, warm, casual, and as not acting in a role. A listener who remains still is seen as controlled, cold, aloof, and reserved.
- Eye Contact – focus eyes softly on speaker, occasionally shifting to other parts of body like a gesturing hand. It enables the speaker to appraise your receptiveness to him and his message.
- Nondistracting Environment – undivided attention is virtually impossible with a high level of distraction.
Following Skills – One of the primary tasks of a listener is to stay out of the other’s way so the listener can discover how the speaker views his situation.
- Door Openers – non-coercive invitation to talk. Don’t use roadblocks.
- Minimal Encourages – simple responses that encourage the speaker (Tell me more, oh?, Really?, And?)
- Infrequent Questions – Use open questioning (What’s on your mind?) Don’t use closed questions (yes/no answers)
- Attentive Silence – Most listeners talk too much! Hebrew sage: “The beginning of wisdom is silence. The second stage is listening.”
Reflecting Skills
- Paraphrasing
- Reflecting Feelings
- Reflecting Meanings (Tie to content)
- Summative Reflection
Four Skills of Reflective Listening - Listener restates the feeling and/or content of what the speaker has communicated and does so in a way that demonstrates understanding and acceptance.
- Paraphrasing – response to speaker which states the essence of the other’s content in the listener’s own words.
- Reflective Feelings – involves mirroring back to the speaker, in succinct statements, the emotions which she is communicating.
- Reflective Meanings – when feelings and facts are joined in one succinct response
- Summative Reflections – brief restatement of the main themes and feelings expressed over a longer period not covered by any other reflective skills.
Guidelines for Improved Reflective Listening Skills
- Don’t fake understanding
- Don’t tell the speaker you know how he feels
- Vary your responses
- Focus on the feelings
- Choose the most accurate feeling word (angry, annoyed, ignored, nervous, fearful, defeated, eager, cheerful)
- Develop vocal empathy – is there warmth in your voice?
- Strive for concreteness and relevance –facilitate the speaker’s efforts to arrive at his own best solution
- Provide nondogmatic but firm responses – Listen well, don’t be arrogant
- Reflect the speaker’s resources – it is essential that he discover the resources available to handle the problem
- Reflect the feelings that are implicit in questions – when the listener accurately reflects the feeling that lies beyond the question, the speaker often forgets that he asked a question.
- Reflect during brief interaction – take the time to reflect, it pays off on the other end
Reading Body Language – most important skill of effective listening
Focus attention on:
- facial expression – read them
- vocal expression – pitch, rate, timbre
- posture, gestures – straighten papers on the desk
- actions – erect/alert, slumping
Read nonverbal in context – does the body language and words match, what is the intended meaning
Note discrepancies – I AM NOT MAD!!
Be aware of your own feelings and bodily reactions – How do you feel in the conversation? Assuming the same position (discretely) helps in understanding the speaker
Three Approaches To Relationships
Submissive Behavior – I don’t matter. Pardon me for living. We are a nation of willing victims.
- Lack respect for own needs and rights
- Do not express honest feelings, needs values, concerns
- Allow others to violate space, deny rights and ignore needs
- Express needs apologetically
Aggressive Behaviors – move with intent to hurt. Abusive, sarcastic, rude, dominate subordinates, carries a chip on their shoulder.
- Express feelings, needs and ideas at the expense of others
- May speak loudly and be abusive, rude and sarcastic
- Dominate subordinates and family members
- Insist on having the final word
Assertive Behaviors
- Utilize methods of communication which:
- Enable her to maintain self-respect
- Enable her to pursue happiness
- Pursue satisfaction of her needs
- Stand up for her own rights and express her personal needs, values, concerns, and ideas in direct and appropriate ways
- Does not violate the needs of others or trespass on personal space
- Considers the rights of others
Three Part Assertion Methods – You want someone’s behavior to change.
- Behavior - Description of offending behavior (When you don’t clean the counter after making snacks…)
- Feelings - Describe how you feel (I feel very annoyed…)
- Effects - Description of the consequences on your life (because it makes more work for me.)
Part 1 - Behavior Descriptions
1st – describe the behavior in specific rather than fuzz terms.
- Specific – When you don’t shovel the snow…
- Fuzzy – When you don’t do your part around the house…
2nd – Limit yourself to behavior descriptions. Do not draw inferences
- Specific – When you left the meeting 20 minutes before your report was to be given…
- Inference – When you left the meeting early just because Frank criticized you…
3rd – Make your behavior description an objective statement rather than a judgment.
- Specific – When you say women are incapable of being effective managers…
- Judgment – When you behave like a male chauvinist pig…
Part 2 – Disclosure of Feelings – communicates how the asserter feels about the effect the others behavior has on him.
- I feel angry, sad, vulnerable, annoyed, irritated, nervous, worried, afraid…
Part 3 – Clarification of the Tangible Effect on the Asserter – It works because it describes how the other person’s behavior affects the sender of the message.
- Because I don’t get all my work done
- Because it makes extra work for me
- Because I have to pay more money
Administrator Example:
When you don’t take accurate telephone messages (behavior description) I feel upset (disclosure of feeling) because I lack the information and can’t return calls that may be very important.
Six Step Assertion Process
1. Preparation
- Write the message. It’s less effective if you ad lib.
- Test the appropriateness of the message
Is it a persistent concern?
Have you built a base of trust?
2. Sending the Message
- What does your body language say?
- What is the tone, pitch and volume of your voice?
- Don’t be submissive or aggressive
3. Being Silent
- After sending the message – stop!
- Let the other think about what you said
4. Reflective Listening to the Defensive Response
- Helps diminish defensiveness
- You may discover a strong need of the other person
5. Recycling the Process – You may need to do it again and again.
- Send identical message
- Follow with silence
- Reflect the expected defensive response
- Be persistent
6. Focusing on the Solution
- When the other comes up with a solution, make sure it meets your needs.
- Be flexible to possible options that could meet your needs
- Don’t insist that the other be cheerful about meeting your needs