Active Listening

Listening is essential

Attention can wander , mind leaps to the next question, making judgments before
others finish.

Workplace requires active listening

Like : giving or receiving instructions, disagreeing with a colleague,discussing a problem,

coaching or mentoring a new colleague, conducting an appraisal interview.

Guidelines for active listening

Give people your attention

Be ready to paraphrase

Use questions if you do not understand.

Acknowledge the other persons feelings.

Encourage if the other person appears uncertain.

Do not react or respond in other ways until it is clear that the other person has finished.

Reasons for using active listening

To avoid misunderstandings

Building relationships

Encourage people to say more and frank

Enable people to become clearer

Communicating assertively

Assertive behavior means standing up for yourself, but in ways which respect the rights
of others.

This distinguishes it from aggression (fight) which involves violating the rights of others ,
and from evasion (flight) which involves respecting the rights of others at the expense of
your own.

Aggressive, Passive, Assertive

 Contexts : stating your own views, disagreeing with other’s views, making a request,
refusing a request, offering criticism, responding to criticism, giving praise, responding
to praise.

Communicating assertively

Assertive behavior means standing up for yourself, but in ways which respect the rights
of others.

Scripting an assertive response

Prepare : Clarify your purpose and ensure that you approach the other person
and the situation in a positive frame of mind

Identify the problem and state how you feel and your wants

Respect the other person

Limits to assertiveness

They take no account of structural and political imbalances in organization or society at

large. (Manager and Clerk)

Dominant or powerful groups may interpret assertion from members of other groups as
aggressive even if no hostility or offence is intended (Gender, Ethnicity,…)

Individuals may be encouraged to take on responsibility for righting wrongs that are
outside their control.

Assertiveness can ignore collective virtues such as the solidarity of working for a cause.

Some cultures have more respect for tact than honesty and may expect deference on
both sides.

Assertiveness may not be universally appropriate

Negotiating

A successful negotiator tries to find a win-win solution in which both sides benefit.

4 things that assist negotiation

Separate the people from the problem : Tease out the relationship issues from
the substantive issue to be negotiated.
 Focus on interest not positions : Try to identify the more general interests and
concerns of the parties involved rather than specific positions.

Generate options for mutual gain : There is no one right solution. Search for
alternatives and mutually advantageous outcomes. Be prepared to develop and
explore innovative options and suspend judgment until late in the process.

Agree criteria for solutions : Try to establish a set of essential and desirable
criteria that the outcome of negotiation should meet.

Behavior that affect negotiations

Skilled negotiators avoid the following negative behavior:

Defense/attack spirals : Sequences of attacking statements and aggressive defenses are

unhelpful.

Irritators :Words and phrases which add nothing to the content and serve to irritate the
other parties should not be used.

Argument dilution: Don’t clutter your argument by including too many points or
digressions. Identify and adhere to the main ,strong points of your case.

Behavior chains : (Question and Summarizes): In behavior chains someone asks a

question, summarizes and puts some information into the proceedings, all in one
statement. Others do not know which bit of the input to respond to and get confused

Counter proposal : When one party immediately responds to a proposal from the other
side with a proposal of their own , little is achieved. The effect is to signal that ‘I haven't
listened to a word you have said’.

Behavior that affect negotiations

Skilled negotiators demonstrate the following positive behavior:

Test understanding and summarize : Check that everyone understands the things in the
same way and clarify the structure of any agreement. Helps build relationships.

Flag or signal : Tell people what sort of behavior . Example : Could I ask you, make a
suggestion,….

Ask lots of questions : deeper understanding of other party, arrive at win-win situation.

Explain how they feel : Openness helps in crating trust and enhances relationship.
 Review their performance : reflection helps in identifying strengths and weaknesses of
our approach.

Dealing with difficulties

If your negotiation seems to be failing because someone else is being difficult:

Do not react

Look at the situation from the other persons viewpoint.

Do not reject – reframe

Make it easy to say ‘yes’

Make it hard to say ‘no’

Do not react : Deal with your behavior, not oppenents.Keep focused on the desired
outcomes and concentrate on securing agreement.

Look at the situation from the other persons viewpoint : It is harder for a person to be
hostile if you are listening to them and acknowledging what they say and feel.

Do not reject – reframe : offering new ways of looking at problem.

Make it easy to say ‘yes’: Involving other party in crafting an agreement. Help them
save face and find ways of presenting the solution as a victory.

Make it hard to say ‘no’ : Educate the other party to the costs of saying ‘no’. Warn, do
not threaten. Exercise restraint.

Giving and receiving feedback

Feedback on other people's performance of various activities who work with you or for you.

Give praise where it is deserved : people are willing to hear justifiable negative
feedback, if they are confident that you will also praise them when they have done a
good job.

Be positive about yourself : Develop support mechanisms

Give compliments : Look for opportunities to praise a person’s work

Giving feedback
 Give positive feedback first

Say things in a supportive way . Soften the negatives

Criticise only behaviour that can be changed

Suggest ways in which performance might be improved

Place the feedback in the context of relationship

Make your feedback well-timed,clear and direct.

( Piccinin and Mason,1991)

Receiving feedback

Feedback is a rich source of learning

• Listen actively

• Ask for precision

• Agree/disagree with criticism : Acknowledge what is true. State your disagreement if

anything is not true.

• State what you have learned for future action and behavior from your feedback.

• Give information to correct misunderstandings

• Set limits : Tell the critic how you want to receive feedback if you have been criticized
inappropriately.

( Piccinin and Mason,1991)

Giving Presentations

To communicate, generate ideas, gather valuable feedback.

Persuade others to follow your leadership

Steps in preparing a presentation

Plan : identify the message, main points, how long,…

Audience : identify need , arousing interest

Teamwork : Agree on how to divide the topic

 Prepare : information, evidence, examples,..

The Presentation

Relax : comfortable in front of audience, consciously slow your pace, particularly if you
have a tendency to speak quickly when nervous.

Get attention and arouse interest : Wait until the audience is quiet, look directly and
make opening statement.

Tell listeners when they can ask questions : agreement with the audience.

Be easy to listen to : use conversational way of speaking. Referring notes, look at your audience
as often as possible

Monitor your audience : Watch for signs your audience is not fully engaged : check with
audience, change your tone and body language, coffee break, ….

Watch the time : Keep up the time spent on each parts as planned,…

Dealing with questions : anticipate some difficult questions and prepare some
responses, no need to answer every question,…rephrasing a question and answering it,
deal with them after the talk,…check on number of questions based on the available
time,…Q&A is very valuable.

Percentages:

“Per cent” simply means “out of 100” and the use of percentages is one of the most common
ways of enabling people to understand the relationships such as changes in amounts or
quantities, for example “costs increased by 13 per cent” this means that costs increased by
$13 for every $100 or by 13/100.
Line graphs

A line graph is a method of showing a relationship between two variables, such as the
output of an organization and the associated costs.
Pie chart

A pie chart is a way of presenting proportional data in the form of a circle- the pie. Each
slice shows its proportion to the whole. The whole itself must be finite and known, for
example the total number of staff in the organization.

Bar charts

A bar chart is another way of presenting data. It is designed to show frequency

distribution, for example, the number of staff in each of the categories in an
organization.
Force-field diagrams

A force-field diagram shows the opposing pressures (or forces) that are bearing on a
situation. Within the context of planning and managing change, the diagram shows the
forces which are supportive of change (the driving forces) and the forces which are likely
to be unhelpful or resistant (the restraining forces).

 Input-output diagrams

An input-output diagram shows the inputs to a system or to an operation and the

outputs from it.
 Systems thinking

‘The whole is more than the sum of its parts’ is a good place to start thinking about
systems. A car is more than its individual components. We can think of a football team
as being more than a collection of individual players or a family being more than a group
of people who share the same name.

Each of these examples – the car, the football team and the family – can be seen as
systems. Individual parts of a system are connected together in some way for a purpose.

 Five key ideas about systems

Everything in a system is connected 

A system does something

Systems have a boundary and an environment

The system is defined by your interest

Systems and subsystems

 A systems map
Important points about systems maps

A system map shows the boundary of the system and the different subsystems inside
the boundary. It may also show important influences outside the boundary, that is, in
the external environment.

A map is a map. It does not have arrows showing relationships or influences between
the subsystems.

The scale and the detail depend on the purpose of the system map. Keep the map as
simple as possible to aid clarity.

Ensure the map is clearly labelled. All boundaries and subsystems need to be clearly
identified.

In changing a system, we have to draw the existing real-life system and the new system
we would wish it to be. To transform the existing system into the new one requires
systems interventions.

Multiple-cause diagrams
As a general rule, an event or outcome will have more than one cause. A multiple-cause
diagram will enable you to show the causes and the ways in which they are connected.
Suppose, for example, that you were asked to explain why a work group was under-
performing. You could use a multiple-cause diagram both to help you to construct the
explanation and to present it.

The three most common measures of location are:

Mean

Mode

Median
If there is an odd number of data values.
If there is an even number of data values.

Mode of a dataset
Quantitative data & Qualitative data

Quantitative data: It describes measurable or countable features of whatever has been

investigated

Qualitative data:

Refers to intangible qualities or features.

Using both kinds

Selecting your sample: Sampling is helpful to us because we can investigate a sample of a larger
population in order to learn not just about the sample but about the population from which it
was drawn.

Random sampling: random selection

Quota sampling: specific quota.

Sample Size

The degree of precision in any set of results is a function of not only how representative
a sample is but the size of the sample. In general, the larger the sample, the greater the
likelihood of obtaining results that can be generalized to the population.

Minimum 30

Representative

Surveys & questionnaires: It is a technique in which a sample of the population is asked

questions about the issues the investigator is interested in.

Uses & advantages

Surveys are more likely to give results that are representative of population as whole
than other interview or observation.

Data can be compared against expectations and targets.

When professionally administered – using short, clear questions – surveys can add
credibility to your research.

Postal surveys have low cost per person.

Telephone surveys usually get a good response rate and are quicker that postal surveys.

Problems & limitations

Response rates to postal questionnaires are nearly always low and therefore probably
unrepresentative.

You get answers only to the questions you have asked.

Surveys results often lack the richness and subtlety it is possible to uncover other
methods.

Statistical knowledge are often needed to analyse the data.

Interviews: They are generally face-to-face encounters between two or more people for the
purpose of asking questions about satisfaction with products or services, establishing views, or
suitability for employment.

Formal interview

Informal interview

Uses & advantages

There is a good response rate

They are good for handling complex issues.

They can provide a cross-section of relevant stakeholder perspectives.

They can be informative, yielding much more qualitative data.

Problems & limitations

The average cost of interview is high.

They are time consuming and costly to analyse.

They are difficult to analyse without some bias.

It can be hard to get honest answers.

Observing: It is a way of collecting information without any form of intervention or

manipulation.

Uses & advantages

It can be the only way to see things as they are.

It can reveal realities and ways forward that are not evident to those intimately involved
on a day-today basis.

Problems & limitations

It is time consuming

It can be potentially intrusive and ethically problematic.

It can be stressful
 It can be subjective.

The observer can influence events.

Your personal marketing plan

One way of considering career development is to think of it in terms of a personal

marketing plan.

It means adopting a realistic view of yourself as the supplier of a service for which you
need to find customers. These customers may be internal – within your own
organisation, or external – in other organisations.

Evaluating your abilities

The first step in creating your personal marketing plan is to conduct a career audit.

This will allow you to evaluate your own abilities, identify any gaps in your education
and experience that need to be addressed, and help you to make decisions about your
future aspirations.

The first step in creating your personal marketing plan is to conduct a career audit.

This will allow you to evaluate your own abilities, identify any gaps in your education
and experience that need to be addressed, and help you to make decisions about your
future aspirations.

Gathering information

Your last report

Recent performance appraisal

Academic or professional qualifications

360 degree feedback

Project or assignment feedback

Personality tests

Non-work experiences

Social life : sports,clubs,societies,hobbies,…

 What skills, knowledge or attributes you use,…

Identify your strengths and weaknesses

Make a list of strengths and weaknesses based on the above sources of information.

Turn this into a short questionnaire and ask your family, friends and colleagues to rate
them.

Talents Knowledge and skills

After completing the above research you should be able to identify:

Talents : Natural abilities you are good at

Knowledge : book-keeping,computing, languages,…

Skills : abilities or expertise that you have acquired by training or experience like
managing money,motivate people, teach,….

Putting it in context: Where are you now and where you want to be