These tend to be fairly high level presentations, except for the nitty-gritty accounting stuff, but there is a lot of ‘soft skill’ development material in here as well.ย A lot of useful ideas and perspective.ย The vast majority are free to view with email registration.ย Ones in particular I have enjoyed and found worth recommending:
‘Are Your Conversations Building Trust?’ – Eileen Chadnick
Understanding how our communication styles can trigger different neural responses in our audience – engaging a trust vs a distrust response (pre-frontal cortex vs amygdala dominated, injection of cortisol)
Listening and engaging – ‘I vs We’ย important to not just come to a conversation prepared to explore the ‘I’ angle – need to be inclusive of others in our perspective and approach.ย Using empathy.
Approaching conversations with set intentions, particularly around listening and engaging with the other.
The TRUST acronym
T – Transparency – sharing relevant, timely information, being authentic, acknowledging and discussing concerns / potential discomforts
R – Relate – take time to build and develop relationships with the people you are dealing with, not just straight to business all the time.
U – Understanding – listen with the intent to understand, as opposed to with the intent to reply.ย Let go of already knowing the answers during the conversation; assume less, wonder more – allows the other to fill in spaces with their own understanding/assumptions.ย Ask more open-ended and clarifying questions.
S – Shared Success / Sharing the Space – Making sure you WAIT! and allow for two way communication.ย Sharing the goals and outcomes – seeking win-win outcomes and acknowledging common interests, not just divergent positions.ย Building common ground.
T – Testing Assumptions & Blind Spots / Closing Gaps – using things like self-checks and the paraphrasing strategy to ensure common ground of understanding and perspective.
The paraphrasing Strategy – check in and challenge your own assumptions, ask others about their assumptions (from inquiry, not judgment), and confirm understanding in conversations.
WAIT! – Why Am I Talking ? – allowing others the space to voice their own thoughts – avoid interrupting and finishing sentences, even if it’s well-intentioned.
Acknowledging common ground vs focusing only the differences between positions.
Know when it’s time to talk in person – understanding how tone can be received / projected upon in email.
(generally speaking, the more negative, or likely to be interpreted as negative, the communication, the higher touch the form of communication you want – in person > on the phone > email/text)
Silence isn’t always golden – active listening requires you to acknowledge others, demonstrated that you heard / care / get it, and disclose important information to the other party as you go.