Saturday 21 December 2019

Improving communication in the workplace-Summary

As we have been discussing for the last 20 weeks about improving communication in the workplace from an individual or personal effort perspective, now let us pause on this topic by summarising the key learnings.

Key learnings:
 

  • Effective communication is all about meeting the purpose of your intent with others. It is not about language proficiency.
  • As people are from different backgrounds in the workplace, each needs different levels of the communication process, and it is an individual 's responsibility to develop the skill rather than pointing others for poor communication results.
  • People will listen to you only when your communication contains ALL  the below elements.
  • Expertise in the subject or creditability proof 
  • Connecting emotionally with the person
  • Logically connecting with facts

  • You can connect emotionally with others by consistently displaying. 

Respect to others and feeling good with you
Listening  and undivided attention to others
Prompting others and fulfilling the need of “what is in it for me “
Your friendly  posture, tone, facial expression
Knowing the difference between criticism and feedback
Being approachable to others

 

  • In the workplace, we can not avoid conflict due to differences in the thought processes of each person. The only way to manage the conflict is through appropriate usage of assertiveness, proactive communication, and sometimes to ignore the battle for the interest of higher purpose.

  • Going forward, to manage the new generation, Influencing skill is mostly expected expertise in the workplace rather than the conventional way of commanding and directing. Influencing skills can be learned and developed with awareness and practice.

Developing communication skills is a lifetime learning process, and you need to invest in it to progress in the career path!
 

Friday 6 December 2019

Being approachable

Improving communication in the workplace

Being approachable
 
One of the factors to improve the effectiveness of communication is creating a favorable environment for conversation. The atmosphere is not the physical environment at an organizational level, but on the emotional aspects at a personal level. That psychological, environmental factor is “Being approachable.”
 

What is meant by being approachable?

Being approachable means how others are feeling when they want to reach out and communicate with you. The feeling could be memorable, friendly in nature, inspiring, relaxed, or fearful, disappointment, demotivated once they reach out to you.

Approachability is not confined only by physical proximity but at an emotional level. In most of the workplace, this is a concern, particularly in the relationship between superior and juniors and between colleagues.
 

It does not mean that you need to give less priority to your job and to offer yourself for others when others want to reach out to you. Even if you are busy with your work, you can demonstrate your approachability with a polite, assertive, and permissible way of communication.
 
For example, you might have observed and heard the following scenario in your workplace, especially with your senior members when you approach them, or you demonstrate to your colleagues or subordinates.
 
1. Not effectively listening with face to face, instead of doing something and listening to you
2. "Don’t tell me stories. Come to the point straight."
3. "Don’t tell me the problem, I want only solutions" (the person comes to you for solutions approach😪)
4. Not returning the phone calls and messages
5. Not responding to mail communication

 
Those are the behaviors that create a perception that the person is not easily approachable. All those behaviors distant you from others even though they are nearby physically.
 
When there is a barrier to “approachability,” eventually, the quality of communication suffers either by not sharing full information or not getting information on time.
 
Just be aware of behaviors that make you not being approachable .!

Thursday 28 November 2019

Book on "Developing an Influencing Skills."

Book on "Developing an Influencing Skills."


As we discussed last week on developing Influencing skills at the workplace , given below one of the best books on the same which i read some years back.

The Author gives the techniques of persuasion by explaining the science behind each technique.

I recommend reading the book if you would like to enhance your perspectives on managing the people with your influencing skills.

Link is given below

https://amzn.to/2pEF7RM

Developing Influencing skill

Improving communication in the workplace
Developing Influencing skill 
 
One of the effective way to improve overall communication and harmony in the workplace is by influencing others to get things done. 
 
What is influencing?
 
Influencing is the power to change or direct someone without directly forcing them to do. It is more of impacting others positively with your personality and communication process.

For example,

When you are proposing or initiating an improvement idea in your organization, and when you express it to others,  it is accepted and implemented by others. People may or may not be reporting to you, yet they are convinced to proceed based on your communication methods, respect, and trust. They make it happen as if they are not forced to do it, but it happens on their willingness. That is influencing.

The communication method could be explaining the purpose, listening , respecting the views and convincing.

Why do influencing skills need to be learned?

When you grow up on the career ladder, your success depends on how you are getting things done across functions apart from your domain or functions. Commanding will not help beyond some level and only influencing help.

Also, young generations come up smarter than you, and they like to work with influencing personality than the controller.
 
Factors that help to become an influencer in the workplace
 
Expertise in your chosen  domain
Respect and listening
Being assertive than aggressive or passive
Gaining trust and respect through your character and competency
Provoke others with questions and change the perception
Purposeful communication
Focusing more on the solution than problem or  arguments


 The point is when you learn to influence others to get things done, you also enjoy the work and the people are also enjoying to work with you. Hence, worth to invest in developing the influencing skill!
 

Monday 11 November 2019

Managing conflict with assertive communication

Improving communication in the workplace
Managing conflict with assertive communication
 
When conflict occurs in the workplace, you have a choice to manage thorough either passive or aggressive, and both have pros and cons. The third choice to manage conflict is assertive communication, which has only advantages.

This communication quality helps to improve the harmony and growth of the individual. However, it calls for managing your emotions during the conflict and a high level of patience and maturity. If one puts effort into learning this skill in life, I can say that it is the most precious asset one can have.
 
Assertive communication:

Assertive communication is all about how you are expressing your views by maintaining respect, showing empathy, or understanding other’s opinions from their perspective and also be firm in your views. In the end, both have to feel good and sense of achieving the purpose.

One instance I had witnessed some time back in one of the product development organization. The team put a lot of effort into developing a product and ready for launch in a few months down the line. The product manager was showing the proto to the managing director of the organization and explaining the features. The managing director suggested some modifications to improve the aesthetic.The team knew that the suggestion was good, but making any modification at the moment would delay the product launch. Since the advice came from the head of the organization, they could not resist.

The product manager had two choices in front of him; either he could passively accept the suggestion as direction, change the product, and delay the timeline. Another option he had was to refuse and argue aggressively. But he responded well by using assertive communication as follows

“I agree with your suggestion as this may improve product value further, and  I suggest to take it as a future product line extension and the implications to be worked out. Any change at this moment will delay the product launch timeline, cost. I think we should move forward now.”
 
The above assertive expression consists of respecting other’s opinions and acknowledging, not rubbing the ego with an argument, indicating the consequences and at the same time being firm on the stand considering the big picture of the organizational growth. That results in closure of the conflict and never resurfaced after that.
 
The point is most of the conflict happens either due to ignorance of information, a perspective difference of individual and the one who manages the conversation with an assertive way emerges as a leader. This calls for conscious development on self on assertive communication!

Aggressively expressing to manage conflict.

Improving communication in the workplace


 

Aggressively expressing to manage conflict.
 
Last week, I mentioned about 3 types of expressing or communicating when conflict arises in workplaces and discussed the pros and cons of “passive expression.” Let us understand the second type of expression, “Aggressively communicating.”
 
Aggressively expressing or communicating:

When the difference of opinion or conflict arises between two people or team, one person takes the upper hand and forces others to accept his/ her views and move on. That is aggressive communication.

Whether aggressive communication is right or wrong?

Only the context defines it.

Generally, it is being told aggressiveness is not the right way of communication. But in the workplace perspective, some point of time, the decision has to be taken at the right time, and timing is critical. The person who is in an authority position in the conversation or in context has to settle down others through his forcing communication only. When the person takes an aggressive approach for a higher purpose, then it is right than beating the bush without making any decision.

In some organizations I have witnessed, people are kind to each other in all matters, and no decision or conclusion being taken by anyone as they perceive aggressiveness is against harmony.
 
When is aggressiveness perceived as rude or bad?

Naturally, when you want to force others to accept your views, your body language posture changes from compassion to commanding position, and your tone rises to a high pitch, and you lose your emotional balance. When you lose your emotions, you use to divert into other dimensions like getting into personal, taking past references, talking irrelevant things. During that moment, you are seen as an “angry, low temperament person", and the intention of your expression is lost.
 
There is a thin line between aggressive and assertively expressing your views and can be learned through awareness and let us discuss expression assertively in next week!

Thursday 31 October 2019

Managing conflict with the communication process

Improving communication in the workplace

Managing conflict with the communication process
 
As discussed, the conflict can never be avoided in the workplace due to different viewpoints, only it can be managed to get the things done and to maintain a cordial relationship.

Whatever may be the conflict, how we approach with right communication process makes a difference, and this is more of a state of mind and also be a skill that needs to be learned.
 
Before getting into the different communication processes, we need to have clarity about which conflict we would like to face. Some of the conflicts are not worth to deal with, and it is better to let it go.

The practical approaches in dealing with conflict as follows and each one has their merit depends on the conflict nature/person involved and the situation

1. Passively expressing
2. Aggressively expressing
3. Assertively expressing


Let us understand the insights in each of the communication process

Passively  expressing:
 
When conflict happens between two people, one person takes a passive approach by allowing another person to satisfy their concerns while neglecting themselves. In this process, internally, the person is suffering.
Sometimes this approach is beneficial when the other person is being “power centered” and not in a position to listen to your views.
And also, this approach is useful when you do not want to pay attention to the conflict or if the conflict is not worth to take forward.

For example, if the conflict is to have scheduled review meetings in the morning or afternoon between you and your boss. There is no point in having a debate or justifying your views to keep either morning or evening. In either case, you are going to be the “essential person”😢 in the review meeting. Also, by arguing for this case, you are wasting your energy, and it is better to be passive.
 
Depending on the importance of the issue, you need to weigh relationships vs tasks and then decide to ignore or live with the flow. But you need to be conscious about your inner peace when the conflict happens and the way you deal with it through passive expression.
 
Let us discuss other communication processes next week!

Thursday 24 October 2019

Managing conflict with elevated thinking


Improving communication in the workplace

Managing conflicts with elevated thinking


When conflict happens between two people in the workplace, most of us use  the following methods to resolve the conflict 
  1. Forcing others to accept your views with your positional power
  2. Passively accepting other views without expressing your standpoint
  3. Ignoring and moving on
  4. Compromising -settling down in between which way both are not happy
  5. Collaborating to find the intention behind others view and finding the solution which is mutually agreeing on happily.
Each method has its implication on the relationship and the quality of work.

One of the ways effective leaders adopt to deal with conflict is “working on elevation.”

For example, when the conflict happens, between the function, say from finance and marketing on delivering the goods against payment only. The conflict resolution could be going along with the opinion of finance or marketing. The effective leader solves the conflict by bringing the customer or organizational wellness into the perspective to resolve the conflict among the functions.

Similarly, in most of the workplace, the conflict between two people would be “who supposed to do what“and the conflict gets into personal friction among the individual. Even though this can be claimed as an organizational development issue, the conflict can be avoided if either one of them thinks from the third angle of the customer or organization’s perspective.

When you think or look at higher needs, the low-level conflict can be resolved. This is one of the leadership qualities in dealing with conflicts.

Let us discuss the communication process in dealing with conflicts by next week!  

Managing Conflict

Improving communication in the workplace


Managing Conflict

As we have discussed improving communication in the workplace in a normal circumstance, another testing point for improving communication effectiveness is during the conflictManaging conflict by balancing relationships, and the result is art, and some people are good at it.

What is meant by conflict in the workplace?

Conflict is a difference in thought process, interest, opinions about something among the individuals or team

For example,
In one of the client organizations, the senior member wants to increase top-line growth, whereas the new generation executive intends to focus on maximizing profitability than sales growth. That is a conflict of interest among individuals.

Maintenance functional team members asking for releasing machines for maintenance purposes, and the production team refuses to release to meet the delivery targets. That is a conflict of interest among the group.

If you really observe the day to day interactions of every individual and team, there could be a series of differences in interest, values, thoughts, and opinions.

Why does conflict happen in the workplace?

When different people come together for a common goal, the visible difference in thought process arises due to the difference in background, exposure, functional priorities or agendas, or lack of awareness about the task or outcome.

Whatever the intentions of your thought process, there are some people out there to come out with alternative thought processes and opinions. Conflict cannot be avoided, and we need to learn different strategies to manage the conflict.

Sometimes disagreement arises due to positional status or desire to fulfill the ego of an individual.

What will happen when conflict is not managed well?

When we are not managing the conflict, there could be a possibility of
  1. Damaging the relationship
  2. Developing stress internally
  3. Prolonging the decision and affecting the task or goal
  4. Creating an environment not conducive of harmony
Let us discuss the methods of managing conflicts, communication methods in next week!

Book review: The Art of Effective communication


Recently I came across this book, and I thought this book is relevant for the discussion on effective communication in the workplace.

Even the author is not familiarly known, the contents are depth, and the relevant topics are covered for making the communication effective.

If you are interested in getting more perspective on improving your communication and influencing skill, recommend it to read, and the kindle version link is given below

https://amzn.to/2o9xjqI