Improving Communication Skills : My key takeaways

As a living being, you know how communication is important in our life and when I say communication it is not just when you open your mouth. It is every aspect of your interaction with the surrounding world. And that is what I learned from Coursera course “Improving Communication Skills” in last 3 weeks. Here I am giving my key takeaways from the course. The original course contains many interesting examples and lot more detailed information than this article, of course, so I suggest you visit and take the course.

Improving Communication Skills

Cooperation vs Competition

There is always a thin line between cooperation and competition. And they coexist within two entities at the same time. For example, they exist between two siblings, couples, colleagues. So, what drives people to shift from cooperation to competition? Reason can be scarcity of resources. It means when there are plenty of resources available, we tend to cooperate, but when chips go down, things may take ugly turn. Another reason is situations are unstable. When things change or tend to change, people become conscious and that results in shifting from cooperation to competition.

Comparisons

As a human being we all like to compare ourselves with other people. We not only just compare ourselves but also, we compare other people who may not have any relation with us. If we are twin, we get constantly compared since from our birth. Two siblings in same field get constant attention. When we compare ourselves, we do that with people who are close to us, similar to us or in the same domain as us.

Upward and Downward comparisons

When we compare with persons who are at better position than us, then we say it is upward comparison. When we compare with the ones who we think have accomplished lesser things than us, we do downward comparisons. Upward comparisons may make us miserable but also, they motivate us at the same time. Downward comparisons make us happy but they do not motivate us.

There is a term “Silver Medal Face”. Silver medalists are never happy, because they constantly compare themselves with gold medalists. On the contrary bronze medalists are happier than silver medalists, because they don’t do upward comparisons.

The key is to find out right balance between upward and downward comparisons. When you are doing certain action, you want motivation, so you must do upward comparison. When you are finished with that action, and there is nothing you can do about it now, you should do downward comparison, so that it will make us happy and satisfied with our work done. With this you get the best of both the world.

Cooperation

We sometimes want another person to be cooperative with us. How do we do that?

1. Build relationship with that person. It means starting with questions about their family, work etc.
2. Shared Identity. Make that person believe that in this group they have value.
3. Make them believe future Interactions are going to happen
4. Make effective and clear communication. Face to face is best
5. Accountability- When person knows they are going to be evaluated, they cooperate easily
6. Build Trust

Trust

Building a trust is most important aspect of any relationship. How do we make another person trust ourselves?

1. Showing vulnerability helps in building more trust. To show vulnerability, make small mistakes, self-disclosure or admitting failures. Showing vulnerability makes ourselves more human and gets us closer to another human being.
2. Build Rapport — Instead of talking about business, talk more about general things, make a friendship
3. Showing Warmth — showing warmth and love makes people see that you are you are just like common person that they can be friend with
4. Equality — Dressing equally, being punctual creates sense of equality
5. Interdependence — Knowing other person that you need their help make them trust you more
6. Common goals and common enemies unite people and build more trust

Signaling and Trust

While communicating we tend to give signals, directly or indirectly, through our actions. For example, buying expensive gifts or just buying flowers gives different signals. Being punctual or being late showcases different things.

1. Clarity of Signals — Key is to give signals that are clear to understand
2. Power of signals — Power of signals is equally important as in how money you are investing it etc.

Deception and Lying

We all lie all the time. From 3 years old kid who just learned how to speak to fully grown adult, all the people deceive each other in some way. It may not be always bad or cause any trouble to others, but it is always important to know while communicating person in front of you is liar.

How to Detect a Lie?

1. Emotions change — people engaging in deception changes their emotions because of fear or guilt
2. Cognitive Load — since they have to monitor and control their behavior, their actions and also, they have to think more to keep their stories straight, their cognitive load increases
3. Anxiety — Their anxiety increases as they lie, they rub their forehead, neck, squeeze their face, bite lips. Or sometimes they just freeze.
4. Disrespect — They engage in sarcastic responses, taking down to the target, showing contempt, rolling eyes
5. Higher pitch voice
6. Asynchrony in details
7. Discomfort in talking
8. Appearance change
9. Increase in fillers while talking

Confronting Liar

1. Increase cognitive load — Ask to perform second task, remember the information like phone numbers, distract with music or TV, ask questions about several different topics, make eye contact, ask follow up questions
2. Meeting in person — Meeting in person allows to observe non-verbal signals, allows to control the environment
3. Search broadly — Be sensitive in behavior of the person in other domains, collect information from other sources
4. Add stress — Mostly in interrogation techniques, police use this step to confront a liar, by saying “I know you are lying to me”

Violations and Apologies

Violations hurt people and businesses and it may lead to lose reputation in a single unfortunate incident. But if the violation is in non-core field, then it may not hurt much to the person who is violating it. But if you are violating the code which is heart of your organization will definitely loose trust between its stakeholders.

Apologizing plays important role in any relationship. When some business does some mistake, then who is apologizing matters. Also speed in which the reaction came becomes crucial in future trust binding. Generally, people want to see that you really feel that remorse and ready to pay for it.

Goals of Communications

Convey Our Ideas

1. Grab attention — When we want to convey our idea to public which is listening, first thing we need to do is grab their attention. When ideas are simple and surprising people become more attentive. Or start with puzzle or make it emotional. Story about individual is more appealing than story of many people.
2. Credible — Sayings are more powerful when they come from authority, and adding those creates more credibility
3. Simplicity — Focus on simple message
4. Make messages memorable — You can make it memorable by adding a story, using figures of speech, offering concrete ideas and avoiding vague directions, focusing on one idea.

Gather Information -

1. Asking Information — Asking questions is important in gathering information. Questions helps us structure our entire conversation. They move narrative forward. They also guide the answer.
2. Leading Questions — The way we ask questions guides people to a desired answer, it plants idea into people’s mind. For example, asking “It doesn’t have any problems, does it?” makes people answer assuming on there was no problem. If we ask “What problems does it have?”, makes people focus on problems

Active Listening

By actively listening to others, we learn new information and it builds relationships.

To actively listen or at least to show that you are actively listening -

1. Ask broader questions or try to make them expand the answer
2. Demonstrate the interest both verbally and non-verbally
3. Probe further by asking follow up questions
4. Summarize what they wanted to convey
5. Leave pauses with awkward silences, so people fill it in with extra information

Non-Verbal Communication

Non-verbal communication is important one as most of the communication happens non-verbally. It communicates more efficiently than verbal communication

Types of non-verbal communication

1. Kinesics — Hand and legs movement
2. Paralanguage — By giving emphasis on certain words
3. Haptics — Touching gently on back
4. Proxemics — sitting distance or use of available space
5. Chronemics — Reaching destination on time

Communication Media

Media influences on interpretation of our message. It also effects on consequences of those messages.

1. Face to face is preferable than any other communication media
2. Video conference is next to F2F
3. Telephone
4. Voicemail, email, IMs

Threats

Sometimes, very rarely, we receive threats or we give threats. For example, union of factory workers demands for something and they threaten the owner their demands are not fulfilled. A not very common situation that we will ever come across in our life, but let’s get through with it.

Threats are used to get attention, or to send a message. They set precedent and set the credibility of the person if that person follows through what he has threatened to do.

If you want to give a threat, be wise while threatening. Ask yourself that are you willing to follow through with the threat. Be exact with your threat.

While dealing with the threat, don’t be too weak or too tough. Diagnose the motivation behind the threat. Is that person a victim, is he pragmatic, or is he a bluffer. Express the understanding, ask questions.

Goal Settings

Setting a goal for any task that you want to accomplish has many benefits. It boosts your performance and lead you to success in your domain.

Setting a goal

1. While setting a goal, make sure goal is specific.
2. Commit to your goal
3. And feedback is important.

Pitfalls

1. Goals may have negative effects
2. Narrow goals may lead to problems, when not focusing on broader aspects
3. They can promote unethical behavior to meet the goal

Endings

And the last thing in any communication is Ending. How things end are responsible for future meetings. So be aware of you end the things.

As I said at the beginning, this is just my learning from the course “Improving Communication Skills” taught by Maurice Schweitzer, award winning Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions, at Wharton University and best-selling author.