Honest Communications
Interpersonal Skills for NGO Personnel in Speaking Clearly and Convincingly to Others

This is a course on influencing skills. It is aimed at managers and professionals who lack the positional power either to directly command what they are after or to have their expertise used by those who could benefit from it.

It is especially useful for those who feel they are at the beck and call of others or are overwhelmed by the conflicting demands made on them. These people may find that they have difficulty getting a hearing for their best ideas or find it hard to speak up for their projects, their people, or themselves. Participants learn by actively engaging in cases and simulations.


What's Covered

1. Participants begin by distinguishing between the use of power as a tool for getting things done and the more subtle use of Influence. They learn what kinds of influencing skills to use, when they are effective and in what combination. We help them determine those that are already in their behavioral repertory and those they should focus on in this course.
   
   
2. We introduce the first of the influencing skills. Participants learn what creates direct, clear, authentic speech.
   
   
3. We examine a host of situations in life and in work, in which people are less than direct and authentic in their speech. Situations in which they are fearful of speaking honestly and directly, especially to authority figures, resulting in obfuscation, negative diplomacy and other forms of game-playing. We demonstrate how to confront these fears and adopt a more direct, honest and self-confident communications style.
   
   
4. We teach participants an eight-point model for speaking up for their own ideas and needs, while at the same time being respectful of the ideas and needs of others.
   
   
5. We identify a wide variety of ways to connect clear speech with supporting body language in order to produce high levels of self-esteem and self-empowerment.
   
   
6. Most of all, we show participants how to distinguish authentic forms of influence from those that are manipulative, politicized and destructive.
   
   
7. We then introduce a discussion of the Social Styles first described by Carl Jung. Social Styles is a model that suggests that there are four very different ways people prefer to hear information so they can grasp and then process it. By the time they are adults, people select one of those styles as the one they are most comfortable with and use that style when they provide information to others.
   
   
8. The problem with this common life approach is that people do well when they communicate with people who possess the same style and poorly when they communicate with everyone else. On the other hand, people who accommodate their style to that of others tend to come across to them as very much more clear and convincing.
   
   
9. We teach participants a way in which they can quickly identify the social style of another person they are working with, so they can position their ideas and arguments in a way that makes them much more appealing, accessible and understandable. A significant portion of the workshop is dedicated to providing practice at this kind of style recognition and accommodation.
   
   
10. Each participant learns what his/her style is through a diagnostic instrument. They also learn the virtues and pitfalls of each style, as well as the ways people in each style category tend to function in their work and relationships.
    
    
11. This culminates in a rich variety of tools and techniques for recognizing the styles of others and coping with them successfully.
    
    
12. The course concludes with several classic work situations where participants are called upon to select one or another of the skills learned in the workshop in order to deal with the situation effectively.

1. After the workshop, participants can discern, in real life situations, whether to use power or influence in dealing with a situation, depending on which one is likely to be more effective.
   
   
2. Since most of our lives are influence-driven rather than power-driven, participants have a heightened sense of how useful influencing skills are. As a result, they tend to use influencing skills in places where less practiced managers use power when they have it and feel helpless when they don’t.
   
   
3. Because influencing skills are effective in so many situations, people have a tendency to use them more and more, and after a time and with practice, they come across as more accomplished and more self-confident in a management role.
   
   
4. Almost immediately afterwards, participants become more assertive, more willing to express ideas, more likely to contribute to discussions, more direct in speaking up, and more likely to be honest and authentic in their talk. In organizations that value openness and transparency, these are important behaviors and characteristics to have.
   
   
5. Participants from every culture instantly recognize Jung’s four Social Styles, enjoy working with them and use them almost immediately. They are a comfortable way for people to describe to one another the operating styles of other people. Because no style is perfect—all styles have strengths and liabilities—it is an interesting way to convey the sense of a person without resorting to stereotypes.

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