Page 10 - Effective Communication Skills by Dalton Kehoe

essential exchanges we make every day to create and sustain relationships;
control talk, which is our automatic response to dealing with differences,
disagreements, or disorder in our relationships; and dialogue talk, which is
the talk of conscious choice and self-management. You will learn exactly
when, where, and how to use the elements of dialogue talk so that you and
the other person can create a workable connection even in complicated and
emotionally fraught situations.

Later lectures analyze three vital contexts where positive, clear, and enabling
communication is critical—the continuing conversation between the genders,
and between people trying to build and sustain positive relationships in
their personal lives and in the workplace. We end our course with a lecture
intended to remind us that everyday talk is an arena of constant struggle
between quick, automatic, judgmental reactions that distance us from the
reality of the moment and slower responses based on conscious awareness
and acceptance of what’s facing us here and now. Every time we are in a
dif¿cult conversation with someone and we make a conscious choice to slow

our emotional reactions and speak in ways that enable both of us to move
toward mutual understanding, we add goodness to life. Effective talk is more
than simply practical; it is fundamentally ethical. Ŷ

Scope

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