Effective Communication

Skills for FFC Limited

with Wali Zahid
CEO SkillCity UAE
FFC Goth Machhi: 4-5 November 2008
 Communicator hunt
• Stand up. Walk around. Talk to people
• Write down their name in spaces
• Move, talk to other people
• Speak to at least 5-7 people
 Our Introductions
• Introduce yourself using an adjective
and your first name (both starting
with the same letter) like Witty Wali
• Repeat names that come before you
• No writing – use only memory!
 Your Expectations
• What do you expect to achieve or
take away from these two days?
• Discuss in groups… every table raises
at least 3 expectations
• Report back in key words
 Our Norms
• How we will work, behave, agree,
disagree, challenge during this
learning phase called workshop to
make it useful and fun?
Housekeeping

Admin
 Workshop Schedule
Day 1
What’s communication? | The
complexity of process for general
work situations and plant site
Day 2
Giving and receiving feedback |
Giving praise | Offering constructive
criticism

Coffee break Coffee break

Communication pie | Saying no assertively | Managing
Communication methods: Their emotions | Avoiding red-flag words!
strengths and weaknesses
Lunch | prayers Lunch | prayers
Behavioural styles | First How communication works in various
impressions | Building rapport and situations
trust
Coffee break Coffee break
Listening skills | Asking questions Communicating in teams |
Developing a team spirit | Dos &
don’ts of effective communication
 Workshop objectives
By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

• Become aware of how you are communicating with

peers and members of your team
• Communicate more effectively in face-to-face
situations, in small groups, at meetings, through
emails and on phone
• Develop more positive work relationships using
positive body language and tone of voice and
appropriate words
 Objectives... cont’d
By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

• Build rapport by creating the right first

impressions and develop and maintain trust
• Give and receive feedback positively and
constructively
• Communicate with greater self-confidence
with peers and superiors
 What’s communication?
‘Communication’ is about...
1. Relating to people
2. Getting results
Results with other people
Good and bad communications
• Task A: Can you think of someone who
seemed to have a problem with
communications in some way?

• What was the type of problem?

Good and bad communications
• Task B: Now what about some good
communicators you’ve met personally?
• Who are they?
• Can you sum up what impressed you?
• Good things about them? Their ability
to…
 Communication process
• Sender-channel-receiver-
feedback
• Noise
Complexity at plant site
Communication is complex
Learning: Communication is also...
1. Very complex
2. No one can perfect it
Our aim thus can be: to be a
successful communicator in most
situations with most people
The Communication Pie

38%

55%

7%

Tone of Voice Words Body Language

 Body language role play
• Work in groups of 3
• ‘A’ shows negative body language
(indifference, intimidating, etc)
• ‘B’ shows positive aspect of body
language (warm, friendly, etc)
• ‘C’ observes and reports back to plenary
Facial expression simulation
• An engineer approaches a senior officer
with an unusual request
• Group A shows negative facial
expressions
• Group B shows positive facial expressions
 Choosing the right method
• Reflect: Can you think of a situation
when choosing an inappropriate
method resulted in poor
communication?
Pros and cons of methods
Face to face: one-to-one Intranet

Internal memo/circular Informal social gathering like dinners

Small-group meeting Staff picnic

Email Sports day events

Phone Staff awayday events

Group discussion Social networking sites like Facebook

Large- group meetings Business networking sites like Linkedin

Fax
 DIRE Behavioural styles
• Task: Rate each word in the list
below on a scale of 1-5, where 1
means the word does not
describe you at all and 5 means it
describes you accurately.
• Then find your score
 Your behavioural style
• The letter for which you have the
highest total indicates your
natural style preference.
• So, what are you on DIRE?
 Recap of Day 1
• What are the two or three
actionable learnings for me from
yesterday’s workshop?
 First impressions
• Learnings from pre-course task

• Participants’ presentations on
people’s impressions at GM Plant
 Building rapport & trust
• Exercise: Who do you trust?
• A: Think of a colleague you have
trusted. Why do or did you trust
them?
• B: Think of a colleague who has
trusted you. Why do or did they
trust you?
Listening assessment exercise
• What did you score in
pre-course exercise?
• What does it tell you?
• What are your three areas of
improvement?
 Listening / seeking suggestions

• 2 cases of a conversation
between a senior officer and his
subordinate
Task: what are learnings from:
• Scenario 1
• Scenario 2
Listening /empathising skills
• Can you list down some of the
behaviours of
Good Listener vs Poor Listener
• Who empathises? And how?
 Active listening role play
Being a Listener and Speaker
 Active listening quiz
How do you know if...
 Acknowledging feelings
• Studies in labour-management
negotiations demonstrate that the
time required to reach conflict
resolution is cut in half when each
negotiator agrees, before
responding, to repeat what the
previous speaker had said.
 Asking questions
It is part of a manager's job
to ask questions. With all
types of question it is really
important to know the
purpose of the question
 3 types of questions
1. Open
2. Closed
3. Probing
 Asking questions: exercise
• Identify a situation at plant and
ask 3 types of questions
• If necessary, you may use
Hypothetical and Leading
questions as well.
 Receiving feedback
• How do you view feedback? A
chance to improve yourself or
criticism?
• In what ways constructive
feedback could be beneficial
to you?
 Giving feedback
• How are you seen as a feedback
giver? What’s your reputation?
• In what ways can you become
more effective while giving
feedback, particularly to junior
officers and team members?
Giving effective feedback

Focus feedback on...???

 Giving praise
• Letting people know what you
value about them
• When to give praise?
• And how?
Praise role play
 Constructive criticism
• Valuing someone enough to
offer critical feedback
• When and how to offer
criticism?
Criticism role play
 Saying ‘No’ constructively
• How do we say ‘no’ assertively
and constructively?
 Managing our emotions
• Can you list some emotions
that are visible in your daily,
face-to-face communication at
the plant?
What about red-flag words?
Some words used can cause a
barrier between the listener and
the speaker. These are often
referred to as ‘Red Flag’ words
and they create an emotional
reaction when they are spoken.
How communication works
• Various communication situations at work
• How can we make each a meaningful interaction
and build our reputation as a smart communicator!
1. One-on-one
2. Small teams
3. Telephonic conversation
4. Customer interaction
5. Upward
6. Downward
Communicating at meetings
• Role Play: Show ineffective meetings in these
situations. One team member acts as an observer. The
top prize goes to a hilarious yet realistic meeting!
1. with your immediate superior
2. with opposite gender
3. Departmental meeting
4. with the GM Plant
5. with the MD FFC
6. with representatives of general public (community)
 Developing team spirit
• What are some of the
things you can do to help
build team spirit?
• How many of these things
relate to communication?
The dos and don’ts
of effective
communication
My Action Plan
 Thank You!
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