Page 28 - Communication in Organizations Basic Skills and Conversation Models

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Sender skills

Introduction

In the previous two chapters we have discussed two groups of skills: regulating skills,
whose purpose is to guard the useful progress of the conversation, and listening skills,
whose purpose is to let the other person know as clearly as possible that you are listening.
In many situations you will not only want to listen, but you will also have to say what
you think. In this chapter we focus our attention on a number of so-called ‘sender skills’.
We make a distinction between skills where you take the initiative and skills with which
you react to someone. An example of the first is giving information; an example of the
second is reacting to criticism. Table 3.1 gives an overview of the different skills that will
be elaborated upon in the following sections.

Table 3.1 Overview of the sender skills
Sender skills—initiative Sender skills—reactive

• Giving information
• Making requests and giving instructions • Refusing
• Giving criticism • Reacting to criticism
• Situation clarification

Sender skills—initiative

Giving information
As an employee in an organization you often have to give information to other people.
During a meeting you may have to present a plan, you may have to explain something to
an employee about the progress of a project, you may have to give a client information
about a product, or you may have to inform an applicant about a function. The question in
this section is how to present information. We discuss four factors, that are of importance
to answer this question: structure, simplicity of style, conciseness and attractiveness.