Interpersonal Communication - lkdn lrng

Interpersonal Communication - lkdn lrng

  • Communicating with your colleagues
  • Communicating with your supervisor
    • How to manage expectations
      • Rank priorities yourself, and check with your manager if those matcher theirs
      • Come up with an ETA
      • Synce with your boss, about the priority and timeline. Keep those expectations in sync.
      • Know the deadlines, and explicitly ask if vague
    • Get the guidance you need
    • Ask your boss the right questions
      • What can I do that is most helpful to you right now?
      • how should I prioritize that?
      • do you see anything I’m missing?
    • Know when to listen and when to speak
      • Listen, when you don’t know the context
      • Listen, when you don’t have a strong opinion
      • Speak, if you have relevant experience
      • Speak, if you have useful resources
      • Speak, if you do have a strong opinion
      • Speak, if you have key questions
  • Communication in tricky situations
  • Conclusion
    • Next steps

      Communicating with your colleagues

      1 How to make requests effectively

  • Always be helpful to others First, where possible, it’s always a good idea to dig your well before you’re thirsty, as the business author Harvey Mackay put it. In other words, try to invest in a favor bank before you need to withdraw from it.
  • explain the context. Next, in the moment when you do have a request make sure you explain the context. Let’s say you’d like them to stay late at work to help you finish up a report. If they don’t know the full story, they may think you were just irresponsible
  • You also want to be sure to acknowledge that their assistance is a favor.e.g. *"Thank you for the favor. It means a lot to me."*
  • Indicate where your interests align. e.g. *Thanks for your help with this. This report will be critical for the meeting tomorrow and if we can get the new budget approved it will be terrific news for both our departments."*
  • Express genuine gratitude. It means more if you detail exactly what they did and why it mattered to you. You could say, e.g. *"Thanks so much for staying late last night. I know it was short notice and you're really busy. The edits you made to the report really tightened it up and made it more effective and _I couldn't have done_ the graphic work without you. _You made the report a lot stronger and I know the whole team appreciates it_."*

The days of ordering people around are gone. Instead, we have to persuade them to want to collaborate with us.

2 When to use the phone or send an email

  • Rule 1, is there a preference for the person you are talking to?
  • When to use email?
    • Information to convey is simple
    • When 24/7, problematic time zones
    • traveling
    • late at night
    • dealing with a talkative person
  • When to use a phone/video
    • Brainstorm, troubleshoot. Which needs realtime interactions, the conversation will have give and take.
    • Emotional conversation e.g. policy change people might strongly disagree.

3 How to interpret nonverbal cues

  • Open vs Closed. First, take a look at whether their body language is open versus closed. If they’re closed off, they may have their arms crossed, or they’re otherwise protecting their body. If they’re open, their arms are free, and their torso is exposed, which is a sign of comfort and trust.
    • Close postrue:
      • Number one, most innocuously, it could mean they’re cold.
      • it could also mean they’re feeling nervousness or hostility towards you in some way.
      • Again, you have to compare it with other data, but it’s worth noticing.
  • take a look at where your colleagues feet are pointed. This is a subtle tell, but really useful in situations like parties or networking events. People’s feet will point in the direction they wanna be headed,
  • Finally, watch out for mismatched expressions. e.g. If someone’s smiling, but the corners of their eyes aren’t crinkling, it maybe a pro forma smile. One they don’t really mean. Of course, it could also be Botox. So, pay attention to the full context. But it’s one clue to look at. Another thing to be mindful of is subtle expressions of contempt. We all know what this looks like. If you’ve ever been, or been in possession of a teenager. Rolled eyes, smirking, or the like. Adults, generally, aren’t so obvious about it, but if you see quick flashes of those behaviors, that’s what psychologists call leakage.

Communicating with your supervisor

1 How to manage expectations

As with many things in life, the majority of problems can be avoided with a detailed conversation upstream well before any actual deadlines.

  • The first step is making a comprehensive list of the projects you’re working and rank ordering them based on your understanding of priorities. You then wanna set up a meeting with your boss where you can confer, and ask if you’re understanding of their relative importance matches her’s. The last thing you wanna do is waste time pushing hard on the 10th priority when number one is languishing. You have limited time and energy, and you wanna expend it on the right things.
  • Next, for each project, come up with a time estimate.
  • Then talk with your boss and match up those expectations. See if he thinks those are realistic estimates, and if you’re wildly off, that can surface misaligned expectations early on. Knowing that enables you to triage much more effectively, and also push back where necessary.
  • Finally, make sure you know what the deadline is for every project. We may think we know, or have an implicit understanding, but it pays to be explicit, and know exactly what others are envisioning. You can’t prioritize effectively if you don’t grasp the real urgency or lack thereof behind a given task. Understanding deadlines gives you the power to shift and adjust your schedule based on what’s actually most important.

Expectations are tricky and they’re often unstated, and often unrealistic. Having detailed conversations up front, can help spare you confusion and dissatisfaction down the road, because you know where you stand.

2 Get the guidance you need

  • Request a sit-down meeting with your boss
  • Address questions in weekly meetings, daily calls, or frequent emails
  • Develope an emergency plan, in case your boss is unreachable
  • Create a reference guide/operating manual for your job. Creating a manual shows your initiative and actually makes it easier for them to promote you accordingly, because they know that there will be less of an adjustment period for the new hire thanks to your onboarding guide.

3 Ask your boss the right questions

e.g.

What can I do that is most helpful to you right now knowing that your priority is taking things off their plate and helping them, gives them existential peace that will keep them loyal.

Another great question to ask is how should I prioritize that? be sure to ask up front and often to see what your boss cares about. Then do that.

Another killer question to ask is do you see anything I’m missing? Here’s why. Most bosses don’t want you bothering them all the time, asking them how to do something. They want you to figure it out. They want to give high level instructions and then you go develop a plan and execute it. However, it’s always a good idea to get your boss’s feedback and input before you’re too far down the road. A great compromise then is to come up with a written plan or a PowerPoint deck, if that’s a relevant option, explaining how you plan to approach a given problem or a project you’re working on. Then, you can run it by them early on and ask do you see anything I’m missing? You’re not making them do your job for you.

Often in the workplace, we think the key is having the right answers and looking smart. But the truth is we can often get further by asking the right questions in the first place.

4 Know when to listen and when to speak

No blow-hard, no wallflower. So how can you tell what’s the right move when? Here’s some ways to think about it.

When to listen

  • A great time to listen is when you don’t know the context of a situation. In that situation, sit back and listen so you can have the knowledge to speak authoritatively later on.
  • Another good time to listen is when you don’t have a strong opinion. If you happen to see holes or virtues in one of their arguments, by all means dive in. But if you could go either way, let the advocates debate and you can learn.

When to speak:

  • If you have relevant experience you should definitely speak up when you have germane experience to offer.
  • If you have useful resources
  • If you do have a strong opinion People may disagree or you may be overruled, but you’ll feel better about yourself and you’ll have done your duty to your company if you say your opinion peace openly and honestly.
  • If you have key questions Finally, another good time to speak up is if you can ask an incisive question. Speaking doesn’t always have to be about pontificating or sharing your view.

Communication in tricky situations

Communication and cultural differences

How to sharpen your cross cultural communication skills

  • First, it’s useful to consider whether the culture your colleague is from emphasizes relationship building in business or straight-up transactions. You can find out specifics about various countries by reading a book or searching for some articles about business communication in that country.
    • us canada
    • asian
  • Another key difference, which I alluded to early, is how direct someone’s communication style is
    • European: direct
    • Americans: middle
    • Asian: indirect
  • Another area to keep in mind is the culture’s level of formality versus informality.
    • US, australia: informal
    • China: formal, use chairman so-and-so

      How to handle an interruption

  • step back and ask yourself, why are you being interrupted?
    • rude, and not even listening
    • sign of interest and engagement
  • are you being interrupted by just one person or by lots of people.
    • a lots of people? might be company culture, go to your boss
    • If one person discuss the issue one-on-one

Addressing Interruptions:

  • discuss the issue one-on-one. e.g. *Bob, I know we both want our meetings to be as effective as possible. I've noticed though, that it seems like when I speak in the meetings, you're interrupting me pretty frequently. Last Tuesday, it actually happened three different times. That made it hard for me to get my points across. I'm sure that's not intentional, and I wonder if there's a way we could strategize about that.* If he gets defensive,’I didn’t interrupt you’, then you can say, *well, it was my perception that you did, but maybe I'm wrong.*
  • disrupt the culture in your office
  • Appoint an “interruption monitor”
  • Brainstorm before meetings
  • Ask meeting facilitator to ensure people are heard

How to respond to critical feedback

How to receive feedback, calmly and professionally

  • First, one important thing up front is knowing who to take feedback from
    • your boss
    • ppl whose feedback you ask for
  • Next, repeat this mantra. Don’t respond immediately. People often go into fight or flight mode when they feel threatened. Just say, "Thank you for the feedback. "I'd love to respond to this, but to do it justice, "I want to think about it for a while." Then stop.
  • If you know the feedback is coming and you can prepare in advance, it’s often a good idea to try to map out the worst-case scenario. Write down all the things you’re worried she might say. Now, write out draft responses when you’re calm so that in the heat of the moment, and you’re feeling flustered, you can fall back on that for what to say. Showing that you’ve thought about these points and are taking action makes a difficult conversation go way better.

It’s never easy sitting there and getting criticized to your face. But as long as the person is someone who ought to be giving you feedback, meaning your supervisor or someone you respect enough to ask for it, then it’s for your own good, and it will help you get better. As long as you can reframe it that way and try to calm your body down enough to listen, the process can help you become the kind of leader you want to be.

How to communicate as an introvert

After all, in most work environments the people that get rewarded are the ones who constantly speak up in meetings, who network all the time, and go to the office happy hour, and can’t seem to get enough of socializing

Communication advice for introverts:

  • First, play to your strengths. Understand that being an introvert isn’t a pass to avoid speaking up. “Oh, I can’t do that, I’m an introvert.” That’s just an excuse. But what you can do, is start making a conscious effort to play to your strengths. A major area where this comes up at work is in meetings where you often have to jostle to make a comment, and fend off other people. Instead of doing that, here are a few ways you can make sure your voice gets heard.
    • One possibility is, once you get your hands on an agenda for the meeting, to share your thoughts in written format before the meeting. that’s not always relevant or appropriate, but if you have special expertise, or wanna go more in-depth, you could circulate a short memo beforehand that gives people context, and which allows you to make an impact in your own way
    • Another possibility, is to enlist a trusted friend to help you out. And if they’re also an introvert, you could offer to do the same for them. So, your friend could jump in and say, “Sara looks like she’s been trying say something. “Sara what’s your perspective?” Then, you have the floor, and if feels a lot more comfortable to speak.
    • You can also create talking points for yourself beforehand, so you know what you wanna say. When you’re on the spot, it’s common to freeze up, but if you’ve already created notes for yourself, you can glance at them as a fall back, and be a lot more confident in speaking up.
    • If you wanna push your boundaries, which isn’t a bad thing to do periodically, you could also, potentially, challenge yourself. In this meeting, I’m going to be the first one to speak up.
    • Set up (one on one) meetups before the official meeting If you’re advocating for a certain course of action, a short pre-meeting allows you to set the context, see if your colleague is supportive, and make your case away from the fray <!– ## Conclusion

      Next steps

      If you can invest just a bit of time, improving your knowledge and honing your abilities, it gives you a critical edge. –>