Åsa Lindau is an Educationalist and was one of my facilitators during studies. Today’s sharing is from her notes. I hope these basics will help you remember the key concepts and increase your productivity. Today my focus is on graduates. In my opinion these are the people who need more guidance and support so that when they go into the world as employees, entrepreneur they can stay there and be productive. Communication is a key to any problem and that is why once again I am coming back to this topic to prepare you guys. So lets see what we have to discuss today.
You are now graduating from the university, high school etc. and you have got knowledge and now you want to be a success. How are you going to do that? Well there are number of things you need to worry about and communication is one part that you can feel to worry about and grasp the basics here with me today. I have discussed in my early posts about the very basic techniques and today is a bit more addition to those. In order to achieve competence you need to do conscious efforts. For example when you start in a real world, you are unaware of the future and you are in unconscious and incompetence state. You are looking for ways to figure out your next steps/step. And when you find your next step you are then aware of your future and you are making efforts consciously and you are starting to improve your competence. The next stage is where you have achieved your goal and now you are doing well with fully developed conscious and competence. The final stage is you are so good at what you do, that you are doing it all unconsciously with full competence. Here I want to suggest to you to go back and read about IMGD model and also read my previous posts on Leadership/Group development etc.
Go Back to read some of the posts related to the above. 1 2 3
Oh you are back so quickly. There were like 4 posts on IMGD Model. 🙂 Good work guys. Only with little effort and communication you can be at a place where you want to be. Also remember that trust is a key component in communication.
Now, The Levels Of Communication
I am sure you know plenty of ways to be better at communication. I give you a summary of those right here. The first is Behavior, behavior is what we do, see and hear. In a process Facilitation when you set your goals you also set rules and at this stage you let your clients discuss about behaviors and how to overcome the bad behaviors. It is all so simple now, isn’t it?
If you guys remember about the Content and Process method then it will be so easy for you to understand the next level. The level is called Intentions. Why are we doing it? What is the meaning? This is the whole content and Process method once again. Go back and take a look at it once again here. The final level is my favorite and it runs through out. The level is called Belief/Conviction. It is all about groups, values, cultures, rules, atmosphere. Belief is a core value and it should be observed by Leaders and rest of the followers at all times.
Keeping in mind these basic levels of communication you can achieve amazing results. Imagine a company who follows these levels and Leaders there communicate well with others and there is a trust in an atmosphere. Don’t you think that the employees will be more willing to participate in that culture? And if your answer is yes than this is my point.
Communication is about observing, speaking and feelings. Now I have some questions for you to answer.
- In which way do you communicate?
- Which one is your best channel?
- In which way do other communicate?
Think about these questions. I know these are very basic questions and if you still remember I am only writing about basics. Stop judging peeps. 🙂 See it is so fun spending time with me.
Let us now see what Intentions are and mean.
Intention means two things. It deals with the 1. present to make 2. future. Åsa shared with us the following image and I feel instead of words the image will explain this concept in much more effective way.
Process Facilitation: Intentions by Åsa Lindau
The image explains different intentions and if you find your intention here or not reflect on it and see where are you going?
Another important concept in communication is Conviction or Selected Truth.
It is all about Expectations, Theory, Belief, Hypothesis, Appreciation, Attitude, Generalize, Decision, Culture, Supposition, Myth, Prejudice and Assessment. Oh my god so many terms. Be assured that I am not defining them so relax, also these are all self explanatory plus you have got Google. Just remember these concepts and you are good to go. One thing that I do want you to take a look at is about hidden truth or selected truth. The more open you will be in your communication the more achievements you are going to get.
One of the fundamentals is your Core Values. What are your core values? You are a student, jobless, owner of small business, working who ever you are? Only thing that matters in here is that you should have your core values written and displayed at a proper place. I did ask you few months back to write rules whenever you start your project, so go back and take a look at them to refresh your memory or simply take out those rules and look at them.
Communication in an organization leads to discussions and different perspectives. Therefore, always consider different approaches. One good question in a discussion is to use this: How do you see on this?
I-You in communication
During my feedback series I shared something about I-message. Have a look at it one more time to refresh your memory (Visit I-message). it was interesting reading, wasn’t it? okay so add these two lines to your knowledge and that is it. 🙂
- I am responsible, experiences intends and thinks for me. I take responsibilities for me
- You are responsible for you and what you experience, intends and thinks. I respect you for the one you are.
All this is a positive feedback (I hope you have seen the feedback series) so keep them in mind while communicating.
Now, I have some reflection questions for my fellow facilitators and of course rest of you can reflect on these. These are about communication.
- What do you do when someone stride over your boundary?
- What do you do to show people around you what you want?
- Do I give energy to others, or do I take energy from them?
Finally,
Last thing is atmosphere/mood. If your day is starting with this in your mind “This day has not begun particularly good, and it will probably become even worse” then you need to think about it. You need to remember that Mood and state spread like a fire – is your mood worth to be spread out?
Good Mood brings Good Results.
This is it folks. I hope going back and forth today helps you a lot and you have had a fun time today. See you in the next sharing.
//Imran