Effective Communication & Relationships

Course Description

Are you a deliberate communicator – someone who knows what to say and understands the impact of a message? Establishing and maintaining good workplace relationships requires skill and affects efficiency, productivity, career progression and well-being. This course is recommended for managers seeking the skills, tools and strategies needed to enhance prominence, influence and respectability within their organizations.

This course, that is also part of the Business Communication – Certificate of Recognition, provides participants with the opportunity to apply conflict resolution, speaking and writing skills to demonstrate the actions and language used to create and promote effective work relationships. Building good relationships requires work and building effective relationships requires skill.

To ensure authenticity, case studies will be used extensively to focus on real-life scenarios.

Participant Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Demonstrate the fundamental competencies needed to achieve solid work relationships while building strong rapport and gaining trust amongst your colleagues
• Identify and accept personal and professional responsibilities in communicating effectively
• Recognize short- and long-term implications of communication on your workplace relationships
• Identify and use others’ communication and thinking style preferences to influence and motivate them to first-rate performance
• Understand values, beliefs, attitudes and perceptual processes and their impact on establishing workplace-specific trust and respect
• Investigate emotions and how they translate into workplace emotional intelligence
• Master the keys to excellent communication: observe, listen, analyze, plan and communicate

Course Content

1. Assessing a Culture of Collaboration (Case Study)

• Teams, Community, Networks
• Internal Customer Service

2. Behavioural Assessment: Will Others Want to Engage with You?

• Leading vs. Following
• Opportunity vs. Fear
• Trust vs. Control
• The Needs of Others vs. The Needs of Self
• Feelings vs. Facts
• Free Flowing vs. Organized
• Competing with Self vs. Competing with Others
• Seeing the Bigger Picture vs. Getting Lost in the Details

3. Dealing with Different Communication Styles (Case Study)

• Identify Communication Styles and corresponding:
  - Tendencies
  - Behaviours
  - Impact
• Strategies to Influence and Motivate Others with Different Communication Styles

4. Strategies for Thinking on Your Feet (Case Study)

• Identifying Triggers
• Understanding your Audience
• Bridging the Gap
• Structuring your Communication to Stay on Track
• Using Outcome Thinking rather than Reactive Thinking

5. Six Steps Leading to Effective Communications (Case Study)

• Centering / Grounding
• Opening the Conversation / Communication Channel
• Inquiry / Fact Finding
• Acknowledgment
• Providing Feedback / Support
• Problem Solving

6. Essential Keys to Building Trust, Reliability, Integrity and Respect (Case Study)

7. Assessing Emotional Intelligence, Civility in the Workplace and the Art of Diplomacy (Case Study)

8. Composing Written Messages (Case Study and Analysis)

9. Delivering Messages Orally (Case Study and Presentation)