Page 46 - Effective Communication Skills by Dalton Kehoe

Challenges to Effective Communication
Lecture 12

Communication effectiveness means that we get what we want in the
situation, the other person also gets what he or she wants, and the
whole thing happens in a way where we can both feel positive about
the process. Calming our feelings and thinking more clearly about
ourselves can help us to manage more effectively, even in dif¿ cult
situations, but how does this manifest itself in our talk? In this lecture,
we complete our model of self-management by outlining several ideals
of thought and talk that will allow us to consciously and effectively
connect with others.

et’s build an ideal model of effective thought based on two
fundamentally new ways of thinking: mindfulness and appreciation.
LMindfulness means waking up to what’s going on within and without
us in the present. We have to come to accept that we spend much of our time
in a waking trance. Our cognitive unconscious, which always operates in the
Lecture 12: Challenges to Effective Communication
here and now, allows us to act without having to think about things too much
in typical situations.

To be mindful, we need to do three things: First, we need to re-create
categorical labels we have for the people in our memories. Second, we need
to be open to new information and points of view, particularly when they
challenge some of our dearly held stereotypes. Third, we need to awaken to
our reliance on ¿ rst impressions. When we pay attention for only a moment
to what’s in front of us, we leap up the inference ladder and create a “single
clue” judgment.

While mindfulness is about staying focused on the present and open to new
information, appreciation is about how to evaluate this new information. The
values represented in the appreciative mind-set are found in three essential
meanings of the word: to have a full understanding, to value and honor the
other, and to add value. Think for a moment how our talk would change if
we consciously committed to fully understanding a situation before we acted
or spoke and valuing and honoring individuals as we spoke.

38