Original Post

Right now, I am imagining a section that precedes this that focuses on “Taking the Step up….” I expect this communication section to take about a month. I am still toying with what to follow this section with – right now, I am thinking of shifting to very pragmatic elements of supervision, delegation, for one example.

Third enduring understanding: Communication, communication, communication getting it all done depends upon excellence in communication in all forms.

Communication (core)

• Effective and extensive listening skills
• Emotional intelligence
• Crucial conversation (the ability to say the truth and maintain trust and respect)

Learning Outcomes

• explain the five listening skill sets (recall details, understanding the big picture, evaluate content, notice subtle cues, empathize) and name your strongest and weakest skill set.
• interpret the communication situation and demonstrate several techniques for clarifying your role in that situation.
• list the effective listening behaviors and interpret situations offer reasons for selecting a strategy apply it appropriately in the situation.
• explain what emotional intelligence is.       Explain why developing emotional intelligence at work is important. Discuss strategies for cultivating emotional intelligence in the workplace.
• demonstrate self-knowledge through the four steps detailed in the instructional video: self-knowledge, interpreting feelings, accurate self-perception, and cultivating self-esteem.
• extend that self-knowledge into skills focused on self-regulation. Interpret the self-regulation techniques: triggers, personal integrity, goal setting, and flexibility and agility, as they are directly relevant and important in your experience working the service desk.
• shift perspectives and empathize with others through the five skills for creating emotional awareness: building relations, empathy, anticipating needs, social awareness, and appreciating diversity.
• apply this knowledge to the workplace, and to your knew role as supervisor: training, facilitating teamwork, managing conflict, leading for and through change, becoming influential and being an inspirational leader.

Learning Resources (Attn: ED 635 students I have written this for my target audience. However, if you access Lynda.com through the UAF Library your student login will give you access to these trainings, assuming they spark your interest. I really recommend the Leading with Applied Improv.)

Go to this url http://web.colby.edu/acits/lyndacampus/, and follow the instructions on logging in. Once you have access view the video training listed below. It is fine to do this during your regular but quiet shift (please just remember to leave one earbud out so that you can still hear the phone, or face-to-face customer questions).

Effective Listening

Listening is a critical competency, whether you are interviewing for your first job or leading a Fortune 500 company. Surprisingly, relatively few of us have ever had any formal training in how to listen effectively. In this course, communications experts Tatiana Kolovou and Brenda Bailey-Hughes show how to assess your current listening skills, understand the challenges to effective listening (such as distractions!), and develop behaviors that will allow you to become a better listener—and a better colleague, mentor, and friend.

Leading with Emotional Intelligence

Emotions are all around us in the office, and it is important for leaders to understand how to harness them to cultivate productivity and positive relationships. In this course, lynda.com director of learning and development Britt Andreatta shows how to develop emotional intelligence to better lead teams, work with peers, and manage up. Learn what emotional intelligence is and how it factors in at work and discover concrete techniques for raising your own emotional quotient (EQ). This includes perceiving yourself accurately, exercising emotional self-control, practicing resilience, and developing empathy. Then turn those lessons around to build your awareness of others and learn to inspire helpful communication and manage conflict.

We will be viewing these two instructional sessions together. This is to create a foundation of thought and skills on the topic of communication. They allow us to compare and contrast the instruction by the various presenters as well – that is we interpret between the two and make our own sense of the topic.

1. View Emotional Intelligence, Introduction, and section one and two, Understanding Emotional Intelligence, Developing Self-Awareness, and View Effective Listening, welcome and section one, Assessing your Listening Skills
2. View Emotional Intelligence, section three, developing Self-Regulation, View Effective Listening, section two, Challenges to Listening
3. View Effective Listening, section three, Effective Listening Behaviors, and Conclusion, and View Emotional Intelligence, sections four and five, Building Awareness of Others, and Building Relationships

Let us think of the forums as our journals. Journal entries do three kinds of work: first they record what we have seen and heard in the training videos, (slides, bullet points, interesting turns of phrase, ideas we encounter for the first time), then we turn to reflecting we record our reactions, feelings, judgments, and learning, third we analyses:

• What was really going on?
• What sense can you make of the training video?
• Can you integrate theory into the work place experience/online training?
• Can you demonstrate an improved awareness and self-development because of the training and our work in the forums?

Unlike our private journals, this is a shared journal. As such, we have responsibility and accountability to each other. We need to be both courteous and hardheaded. If we simply pitch each other softballs, our learning will be limited. If we are rude to each other, no one will participate.

I want you to practice the skills your are learning about with customers as you help them transact business. I also want you to use them with co-workers and direct reports. Keep notes on these interactions and report in the forums on your experiences. Finally, as you interact with outside businesses (grocery store, clothing, liquor, and restaurants for examples) apply the communications skills again keep notes on these interactions and report to the forums on your observations.

Assignment three takes us in a slightly different direction. Accordingly, we will adjust the work a little to match the different content. This section is about attuning ourselves to others. Seeing how they struggle to communicate and seeing their emotional stumbles or equally possible we can observe their excellence and intelligence with communication. So, again list and record what you learn from the training, but now shift your attention to observing co-workers as they interact with customers and each other and reflect on how skillful or inept their communication is. The point here is not to judge but to observe and to begin to plan for helping them improve. This is the rudiments of job assessment and an important aspect of a supervisor’s role. Record both good and weak performance (out of courtesy do not report the person’s name) and report to the forums on performance and suggestions for improvement. Together we will analyze these examples you provide.

Learning Resources (Attn: ED 635 I am considering pairing the Emotional Intelligence and the Leading with Applied Improve and leaving the Effective Listening, first and Having Difficult Conversations, last as stand-alone bookends on the unit. Any thoughts on that alternate structure?)

We will be viewing these two instructional sessions together. Their content is less directly related to each other though there are points of overlap. However, both connect well to the previous two trainings we watched and so watch for that.

Having Difficult Conversations

Leadership coach and lynda.com director of learning and development Britt Andreatta shares her tips and strategies for having difficult conversations. In her four-phase model, you will discover the situations that lead up to difficult conversations, decide when the conversation is warranted, prepare for the interaction, and monitor outcomes to ensure success. Along the way, learn the secrets of turning difficult conversations into successful interactions that enhance communication and rapport. Improve both your professional and personal relationships, finding your way back from conflict through mutually successful outcomes.

Leading with Applied Improv

Improv theater was designed to help actors solve problems on stage. In this course, facilitator, coach, and former stand-up comedian Izzy Gesell demonstrates how to use the skills, practices, and mindset of improv to develop critical leadership qualities of presence, acceptance, and trust. Izzy shares some games you can play with your team members or coworkers to “practice spontaneity” and incorporate the improv mindset into your everyday life.

Learning Outcomes

• explain what constitutes a difficult conversation.
• interpret communication situations in terms of the matrix of difficulty. Diagnose and anticipate when conversations go badly. Explain the four phases of successful conversations.
• apply the instruction in the emotional intelligence training to understanding the “buildup phase” in a workplace situation leading to a difficult conversation. Compare and contrast what was said in these two trainings.
• explain the eight techniques listed in the section on reflection leading up to the difficult conversation. Based on the previous training you will recognize both knowledge and skills, and strengths and weakness you saw in yourself apply both the tools and the self-knowledge to these eight techniques
• strategize approaches to difficult conversations.
• apply the nine techniques for difficult conversations in practice scenarios.
• explain why the follow-through phase is as important as the conversation itself. You will describe developing an action plan and how and why acknowledging efforts to change has importance in this phase.
• recognize and explain what to do if the intervention is not working.
• explain the critical leadership qualities: presence, acceptance and trust.
• list and describe the games to practice improvisation
• apply the several reflections and principals of leadership in the video to your broader life experience, work, school, family, etc.
• reflect on yourself and what you need to do to become the leader you would follow

Assignments

1. View the welcome, section one and two, Understanding Difficult Conversations, The Buildup Phase of the Having Difficult Conversations training. View the Introduction, and sections one and two, How Applied Improve (AI) Works, and Applying AI to Leadership/
2. View section three, The Reflection Phase, in the Having Difficult Conversations training.
3. View section four, the Conversation Phase, in the Having Difficult Conversations training. View section three, Improve in Practice of the Leading with Applied Improv training video.
4. View section five and the Conclusion, of the Having Difficult Conversations training video. Finally view, sections 4 and the conclusion of Leading with Applied Improv training.

As in the previous set of assignments, some of the work here is to learn new material. Accordingly, we are looking for recording, a list, a set of bullet points, which identifies skills, tips, and techniques that you learned from the training videos. We are looking for you to explain insights and to ask questions as well. However, beyond that we are looking for you to make associations with the first two videos and to select, interpret and apply among the tools these four training videos offer. Thirdly, we are asking you to interrupt you existing patterns of communication, or to venture beyond what your existing comfort zone is and to do that you will have to practice these skills regularly. So, first try these skills out in your interactions with customers, dorm mates, professors in the classroom, parents. Obviously celebrate your successes, more difficult consider sharing your failures.   Through peer review and coaching on these forums and our face-to-face sessions, you have amazing resources available to improve your communication skills please take advantage of this opportunity.