Picture credit - PointPark
Day 45 - Communication Skill
24 May 2020
sirurp@gmail.com
My learning for the day
Today I want to summarise two books on communication skills. Thanks Yodiz (Top 10 Books On How to improve Effective Communication Skills) and Laura Marchoff (Top 5 Business Storytelling Books) for recommending the books.
Book 1 - Skill with people
Author - Les Giblin
Les Giblin is one of the pioneers of the personal development industry. Giblin became an ardent observer of human nature thanks to his job as a door-to-door salesman of Sheaffer pens.
He translated the insight he got from his on-the-job study into seminars to teach people how life takes a new meaning by implementing people skills.
Skill with people determines the quality of your social life, your business life and your family life.
The book provides you with actionable advice to help you in your interactions with others.
I am planning to create my own strategy based on the following questions that I created after learning the strategy. Hope this helps you too.
How many times do you talk to people about the most important subject - themselves? Or how many times are you able to generate curiosity and interest within you when people are talking about themselves? (Do you have a record of this?)
What is your style of making people feel important?
Can you give examples of how you are naturally agreeable? (no one likes to be disagreed with)
Have you observed where you look when someone is speaking? (A person worth listening to is a person worth looking at)
How many times have you allowed someone to complete the topic of his/her conversation? (and asked questions to know more)
Do you have examples of helping someone reach their goal or target?
What is your personal strategy of getting a ‘yes’ from others?
What exactly do you do to create a positive environment around you? (Is just your smile infectious enough?)
Do people take your praise as a genuine praise? What’s your magic?
What stories do you have to show that your criticism created a positive impact?
What is your unique style of thanking people?
Book 2 - Made to Stick
Author - Chip Heath
Which ideas stick? - Ideas that are (1) understandable, (2) memorable, and (3) effective in changing thought or behaviour
The Velcro Theory of Memory
Memory is more like velcro. The more hooks an idea has, the better it will cling to memory.
The SUCCES template (Six Principles of Stickiness) - Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories
Simple - Simple = Core + Compact like a proverb. Example - A commander’s instruction - The single, most important thing that we must do tomorrow is ______
Unexpected - Surprise gets our attention and interest keeps it. Engage people’s curiosity over a long period of time by systematically ‘opening gaps’ in their knowledge — and then filling those gaps. A good process for doing this is - a. Find the core of your message, b. Ask why something isn’t it already happening naturally? And what are the unexpected implications, c. Communicate a. and b. in a compact manner
Concrete - Abstraction makes it harder to understand an idea and remember it. If you can examine something with your senses, it’s concrete. A V8 engine is concrete. “High performance” is abstract.
Credible - Compelling details and statistics give credibility to when communicating our ideas. Bring statistics to life, make statistics more human e.g. “For the price of a cup of coffee a month, you can buy a dozen mosquito nets and save lives in Africa”.
A great credibility example is The Sinatra Test (“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”) e.g. if you've got the security contract for Fort Knox, you can get any security contract (even if you have no other clients). If you catered a White House function, you can compete for any catering contract.
Emotional - We make people care by appealing to the things that matter to them. WIIFY — “what’s in it for you?” — should be a central aspect of every speech or sales pitch. For example - Don’t say, “People will enjoy a sense of security when they use Goodyear Tires.” Say “You will enjoy a sense of security when you use Goodyear Tires.”
Stories - Stories illustrate causal relationships that people hadn’t recognized before and highlight unexpected, resourceful ways in which people have solved problems. Most stories can be classified in these three plots - The Challenge Plot or a David and Goliath plot (Protagonist overcoming a formidable challenge and succeeding), The connection plot (People who develop a relationship that bridges a gap — racial, class, ethnic, religious, demographic, etc), The Creativity Plot or MacGuyver Plot (someone making a mental breakthrough, solving a long-standing puzzle, or attacking a problem in an innovative way)
What is Communication Skill?
Communication Skill is the ability to effectively give and receive information.
Different types of communication - Verbal (oral/ written)/ Non-verbal/ Visual, Formal/ Informal, One-to-one/ One-to many...
The purpose of communication - to inform, to express feelings, to imagine, to influence, and to meet social expectations
My learning so far on this topic
Day 5 post - 5 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand Every Time You Speak
Day 15 post - 3 Simple Frameworks to Give Effective Feedback
Day 25 post - Pixar’s top 6 Rules of Great Storytelling
Day 35 post - Two TED talks - How miscommunication happens (and how to avoid it) & The importance of emotional tone in the digital age
How to improve this skill?
Set a goal to become a go-to person by mastering the art and science of communication.
Follow the LAST model to build your personal brand as a Guru of communication.
Learn - Invest time in learning different frameworks/ models/ techniques of communication
Apply -
Identify a model suitable to you
Create a template to document the flow of the process
Find opportunities to use the selected method/ template
Maintain record/ process flow of every important activities you did with respect to communication
Maintain notes of your thoughts/ insights/ failures/ challenges…. to be used for sharing/ training others
Share - Share the insights captured in step 2 above in a planned manner (social media posts, blogs, videos, study notes…)
Train - Generate opportunities to train your peers and team members so that, over time, your organization benefits from your efforts
Purpose of this document
I took a 66 day challenge to study Life Skills last year (10 April 2019). To my astonishment, I succeeded in studying for 66 days one skill a day.
My objectives of learning these skills were - To strengthen my mind to face life’s challenges with ease, To use these skills in my worklife for a better performance, To use these skills in my personal life for enriching my relationships, To open new possibilities to surprise myself.
This is my next 66 day challenge (from 10 April 2020) - To share my Life Skills learning with my social media friends.
I pray that my toil helps you in your success journey.
What are Life Skills?
UNICEF defines Life skills as - psychosocial abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. They are loosely grouped into three broad categories of skills
- cognitive skills for analyzing and using information,
- personal skills for developing personal agency and managing oneself,
- inter-personal skills for communicating and interacting effectively with others.
Which LifeSkills are covered?
The World Health Organisation identified these basic areas of life skills that are relevant across cultures:
1. Decision-making
2. Problem-solving
3. Creative thinking
4. Critical thinking
5. Communication
6. Interpersonal skills
7. Self-awareness
8. Empathy
9. Coping with emotions
10. Coping with stress.
Some trivia
‘Life skills’ was never part of the school curriculum. WHO/ UNESCO mandated academia to teach these skills in all schools across the globe in 1993.
Different countries educate their children in these skills with different objectives
- Zimbabwe and Thailand - prevention of HIV/AIDS
- Mexico - prevention of adolescent pregnancy
- United Kingdom - child abuse prevention
- USA - prevention of substance abuse and violence
- South Africa and Colombia - positive socialization of children.
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