Project Management

[ Project Management Topics ]

Communication Management

"Speak less.. No one ever put their foot in their mouth when they were not speaking. Worse, if you are speaking, you can't be listening, and we always learn much more from listening." - Mark H. McCormack

"Just as a wise man can say a foolish thing, a fool can say something wise once in a while." - John Capozzi

General Model for Communications

Thinking > Encoding > Symbols > Transmitting > Perceiving > Decoding > Understanding

Methods:

• writing
• speaking
• teamwork
• interpersonal communication

Context:

• Purpose
• Audience
• Communicator

Some Managerial Styles of Communication

• Tell (low audience control, high speaker control)
• Sell
• Consult
• Join (high audience control, low speaker control)

Approaches to Structure

"Everyone does what they believe to be right, that is important to remember" - Drewry

"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it" - Voltaire

Barriers to communications

• Distorted perceptions
• Distrusted sources
• Transmission errors
• Noise
• Hostile environment

Reflective response

Reflection, or reflective response technique, borrowed from certain types of counseling techniques, is designed to elicit as full a sense as possible of the speaker's thoughts and especially feelings. It is a way of helping someone explore her own personal meanings. This technique involves reflecting back to the speaker what you believe she has said in order to verify (or clarify) your understanding and to encourage the speaker to continue elaborating on her point of view.

Six Ways to an Effective Presentation

• Create a strategy and use it to inform your structure
• Respect the medium
• Focus on the introduction & conclusion
• Polish delivery
• Use visual aids effectively
• Prepare for questions

Deliberate Feedback

• Giver and receiver must have – consensus on the receiver’s goals – constructive motives
• Emphasize description and appreciation
• Be concrete and specific
• Discuss something the person can act on
• Don’t withhold negative feedback if relevant
• The giver should add his/her own observations and feelings
• Be descriptive, not judgmental
• Restrict feedback to things you know for certain
• “I feel angry” vs. “That was inappropriate”
• Timing is important

Improving communications

• Make the message relevant for the receiver
• Reduce the message to its simplest terms
• Organize the message into a series of stages
• Repeat the key points
• Think about your purpose: tell, sell, consult, or join
• People have greatest recall of beginning and end of conversations

"A truth that disheatens is because it is true is of far more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods" - Maeterlink

'Never does a man portry his own characte rmore vividly, than in his manner of portraying another" - Richter.