{"id":453185969,"count":70,"description":"<h1><a name=\"_Toc58849741\"><\/a>Communication Skills for Speaking Clearly<\/h1>\r\nCommunication skills represents the extent to which a speaker's intent secures the understanding they seek. Unfortunately, numerous filters and obstacles stand between a speaker\u2019s intent and a listener\u2019s understanding, such as:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Biases and prejudices<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Perceptual challenges<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Speaking mannerisms<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Technology hiccups<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Vague word choice (ie, lack of rhetorical precision)<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nPower struggles between various departments or business units often result from language differences and word choice. For example, power struggles may not be intentional, but occur because of differing perspectives and definitions around terms and expressions.\r\n\r\nFacilitators do not facilitate 'words' in meetings, so much as the intent and meaning behind the words. Frequently, graphs, illustrations, and models are better universal sources of content than narrative descriptions.\r\n<h2>FACILITATE MEANING, NOT WORDS<\/h2>\r\nMeeting participants most frequently express and extract meaning from the world of words, which I refer to as \u2018narrative.\u2019 Along with narrative, however, there are five common techniques that also express intent and meaning, including:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Narrative<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Non-verbal<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Illustrative<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Iconic<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Numeric<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<h3>Narrative<\/h3>\r\nOral and written (narrative) rhetoric relies on words, the primary means of communicating in meetings. However, non-narrative methods may be equally effective and sometimes, preferred, especially when explaining complex topics and issues.\r\n<h3>Non-verbal<\/h3>\r\nSubstantial information during meetings transfers through body signals, openness (or closeness), shifting eyebrows, frowns of disapproval and grins of approval, etc. Hand gestures help explain the passion and intensity behind some meeting participants\u2019claims, along with cadence, tone, and other para verbal traits.\r\n<h3>Illustrative<\/h3>\r\nDrawings, illustrations, and pictures reflect intent and meaning, and are particularly effective explaining complex relationships. Pictures of birds provide much clearer understanding about birds than using words alone. Likewise, process flow and value stream diagrams may provide quick overviews more effectively and efficiently than verbal explanations.\r\n<h3>Iconic (or, Symbolic)<\/h3>\r\nIcons and symbols extend intent and meaning. Many icons are now universally acceptable and leapfrog the challenges associated with language challenges. Street signs, water closet (restroom) symbols, and public transportation indicators don\u2019t leave much room for confusion or misunderstanding (take the STOP sign for example).\r\n<h3>Numeric<\/h3>\r\nScorecard, spreadsheets, and other weighted rankings should be familiar. Additionally, I built my <em>Quantitative<\/em> <em>TO-WS <\/em>analysis to describe the <em>Current Situation <\/em>numerically, thus avoiding some of the emotion and passion that can bog people down searching for the right words. By using numbers, instead of words, participants strive to understand in addition to trying to be understood.\r\n<h3>Others<\/h3>\r\nDance, movies, music, storytelling, and other formats also communicate intent and meaning. Most of us, however, rarely engage other formats for expressing our intent when we are working with business groups.","link":"https:\/\/mgrush.com\/blog\/category\/facilitation-skills\/communication-skills\/","name":"Communication Skills","slug":"communication-skills","taxonomy":"category","parent":453185952,"meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.8 (Yoast SEO v27.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Communication Skills Archives &#187; MG RUSH Facilitation Best Practices Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Communication skills and the core skill of thinking clearly. 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