8-Part Mini-Masterclass Series
Advanced Communication
TOOLKIT
PART 1
Emotional Intelligence
Team Discussion
Welcome to the first part in CareerBloom’s 8-part mini-masterclass series for Advanced Communication.
We’ll help you level-up your people skills one at a time by delivering engaging, insightful nuggets you can put into practice right away. This advanced communication course will cover:
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Understanding People: Emotional Intelligence
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The Art of Listening
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Your Communication Style: Zappers vs Sappers
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Building Trust
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Confidence Building Blueprint
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Conflict Management
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The Importance of Clarity in your Communication
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Closing the Feedback Loop
Self Reflection Exercise
We discussed 4 steps that can help demonstrate a person’s emotional intelligence. Which of the steps we discussed in today’s execution plan, do you feel you have to work on to cultivate better emotional intelligence?
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Do you need help with self awareness?
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Do you understand people’s motivations and drivers?
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Can you follow non-verbal communication?
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Do you understand personality types?
Make a note of areas you would like to improve upon and refer back to this execution plan for initial ways to get you started.
TOOLKIT
Want to learn more and test your skills?
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Quiz: What’s your emotional intelligence score? Provided by Global Leadership Foundation
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Quiz: How well do you read other people? Provided by PsychTests
PART 2
The Art of Listening
Team Discussion
In the previous execution plan, you learned about various personality types (thinker, doer, feeler). With your greater awareness of personality types, talk about the dynamics of your organization:
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Is there a predominant "type" within your company? Does this create unintended pressure to conform to a certain way of communicating or working together?
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Do certain teams/departments have clusters of people with the same type? Could this be creating friction between the two departments, teams or individuals or a silo-effect?
TOOLKIT
Listen to Understand:
20 Follow-up Questions to Boost Your Listening IQ
Need some prompts to be a better listener? Download our handy list of follow-up questions. They’ll help you shift your focus toward listening to understand.
Need some prompts to be a better listener? Download our handy list of follow-up questions. They’ll help you shift your focus toward listening to understand.
PART 3
Communication Styles
Team Discussion
EXERCISE: Do you know which of these sappers and zappers you use in your daily interactions? The best way to find out is to ask your managers and peers. Here is a printable checklist you can ask your manager and/or select group of colleagues to help you identify your ZAPPERS and SAPPERS. You’ll be amazed at how this simple exercise can lead to better communication, collaboration, and an overall happy environment.
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Instructions
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Print and distribute to a select group of people.
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Ask them to check off boxes under Zappers and Sappers that they think you should work on to improve your impact on others.
PLEASE NOTE: These are just conversation starters - ask people to write down other zappers and sappers they observe about you that may not be on this list.
TOOLKIT
“Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.” -Paul J. Meyer
PART 4
Building Trust
Team Discussion
Consider your team as a whole. How do you think they’d rate the trust on your team, using this scale:
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Negotiated Trust - I don’t trust my team members. I don’t share more than I have to.
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Conditional Trust - I give my team members the benefit of the doubt, but they have to prove it.
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Cooperative Trust - I assume my team members are as committed to the team as I am.
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Unconditional Trust - I trust my team members without question.
If they’re in the negotiated or conditional level of trust, try asking these questions at your next meeting:
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What’s one thing we could do better as a team to communicate urgent needs?
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How often do you worry our team won’t accomplish its goals?
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How often do you share or delegate work to each other? If not, why?
PART 5
Confidence Building Blueprint
Team Discussion
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Your education
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Your life experience
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Your wisdom
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Your work ethic
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Your family and friends
When you’re tackling self-doubts, perspective is everything.
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Here’s a powerful self-reflection exercise that reminds us that confidence is a state of mind.
Imagine yourself taking the ultimate risk. You’ve put everything on the line - and it doesn’t work out.
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What wouldn’t you lose?
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Here are some ideas to get you started:
What else? Systematically going through this list helps you remember what can never be taken away from you. These are the intrinsic parts of you that can form the basis of your confidence.
PART 6
Conflict Management
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SELF ASSESSMENT
Quiz: What’s Your Conflict Resolution Strategy?
Assessment: Conflict Styles Assessment
PART 7
Closing the Feedback Loop
Team Discussion
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In which situations do you feel you as a team can do a better job of closing the feedback loop?
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Identify processes in your current daily work that need a better feedback loop.
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List them in order of importance.
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Assign specific changes you as a team would like to see take place
PART 8
Clarity in Communication
Team Discussion
Discuss with your supervisor, peers and/or department the following questions:
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In your opinion, what type of small improvements can you implement as a team to improve communication flow within your organization to make it more effective?
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What type of changes can you personally commit to to make sure your messages are clear and well-received? (refer to steps in the execution plan to see which areas you personally can improve on).