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2.10 Effective Communication
Communicating with others always occurs in the context of the organization
you work for. Learning to understand this culture is essential for proper
development of a team. Clarity and effective communication is most important
when forming and maintaining a team.
Listening Skills and Relationship Building
It is important to develop effective listening skills. Questioning and
observing a team member, utilizing coaching can facilitate a team member’s
sharing of important concerns. Simply helping the team member to talk
is not enough. The more active the listening and the responses, the more
likely the team member is to continue exploring issues in greater depth,
and the more effective the communication.
Improving communication skills requires the capacity to "listen"
to both verbal and non-verbal messages. To maximize your communication
skills, you will need to become as neutral as possible. Specifically,
it is helpful to refrain from making judgments, resist distractions, avoid
asking too many questions, avoid giving advice, and stay focused on the
team member.
Listening is a process of:
- Receiving a message
- Processing a message (includes thinking about the message and considering
its meaning; errors can arise from a coach’s bias or misinterpretation;
one may hear what he/she wants to hear)
- Sending a message (may be ineffective because of lack of skills; skills
can be mastered by the coach)
- Developing Listening Skills
(1) Clarification (asking open-ended questions
that help to clarify ambiguous words, phrases or statements, e.g.,
"What do you mean by (ambiguous word)?" "Can you explain
that a little more?"
(2) Paraphrase (deals with the content of the
communication; rephrasing content as closely as possible to highlight
message that was heard; describes a situation, event, person or idea)
(3) Reflection (deals with the feelings associated
with the content; serves to label feelings correctly and to encourage
further expression; refers to the affect part of the message)
(4) Summarization (ties the whole communication
together by restating both content [paraphrase] and feelings [reflection]
in an integrated manner; conveys the impression that team member has
been heard)
Active Listening Overview:
Table I. Definitions and Intended Purposes of Listening Responses
| Response |
Definition |
Intended Purpose |
CLARIFICATION |
A question beginning, e.g. "Do you mean that...", plus
a rephrasing of the speaker's message. |
1. To encourage more.
2. To check out the accuracy of what is being said.
3. To clear up vague, confusing messages.
|
PARAPHRASE |
A rephrasing of the content of the speaker's message. |
1. To help the speaker focus on the content of his/her message.
2. To highlight content when attention to feelings is premature
or self-defeating.
|
REFLECTION |
A rephrasing of the affective part of the speaker's message. |
1. To encourage speaker to express more of his/her feelings.
2. To have the speaker experience feelings more intensely.
3. To help speaker become more aware of feelings that dominate.
4. To help speaker acknowledge and manage feelings.
5. To help the speaker discriminate accurately among feelings.
|
SUMMARIZATION |
Two or more paraphrases or elements of the speaker's messages or
the session. |
1. To tie together the multiple elements of a speaker's messages.
2. To identify a common theme or pattern.
3. To interrupt excessive rambling.
4. To review progress.
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(adapted from material provided by Dr. Harold Langlois, 1997)
Exercise: Active Listening
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