Organizational Impact

All business is a conversation. Whatever the nature of your organization, business is conducted through communication and the better the communication, the more effective the business.   Participants on this programme will return with a broad new range of communication skills which will make them more effective in the communication and conversation that is the lifeblood of your business.                                      

Personal Impact

Participants will develop vastly more confidence in their ability to communicate, persuade and influence effectively in any situation.

By the end of the programme, participants will:

• Have a thorough understanding of what makes good communication
• Be able to create a great first impression – and communicate what they want others to see
• Create instant rapport – with anyone
• Be able to ‘read’ other people and change their communication style accordingly
• Use their voices more effectively
• Have a broad range of advanced verbal and non-verbal techniques to influence and persuade others
• Be able to communicate more effectively in meetings
• Have the tools to present themselves more effectively to any size of audience
• Be able to write more effectively
• Understand and be able to remedy some of the major problems in corporate communications
• Be able to apply a model of influence and persuasion in the workplace
• Be able to handle conflict effectively
• Have a better understanding of cross-cultural communications

Anyone who wishes to see a dramatic improvement in their professional (and personal) communication skills.  Level within the organisation is less important than keenness to learn and apply new skills of communication n the workplace.

We use accelerated learning techniques to embed learning and enhance recall, so that everything learned in the classroom can be applied easily and immediately in the workplace.  Any theories are grounded immediately in working practice.  Our methods include plenary and small group discussion, forum theatre, freeze frame role play, business games and activities, case studies and video.

Day1 - Foundations of good communication

• How we communicate
• Beliefs, values and communication
• Unconscious bias and communication
• The meaning of a communication

The art of creating a great first impression – what are you communicating about yourself?

• Meetings, greetings and first impressions
• Creating a great first impression
• Cultural differences in meeting and greeting
• Creating instant rapport, (even with people you don’t like)
• The gentle art of listening
  • Active listening
  • Listening without assumptions
• Haptics (touch)
• Being likeable
  • Albert Mehrabian’s research
  • Putting it into practice

The art of reading people (1)

• ‘Reading’ people – understanding others’ internal maps of the world
• Developing your sensory awareness
• Meta-programmes – how we make sense of the world and its effects on our communication

Day2 - The art of reading people (2)  

• Preferred communication styles (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic)
• Emblems, illustrators, regulators, adaptors and other communication mechanisms

The art of verbal communication

• Using your voice
  • Diction
  • Tonality
  • Paralanguage
• Active and passive vocabulary
• Language and influence
  • Embedding commands
  • Linking words
  • Positive vs negative language
    • The weakening effect of negative language
  • Power words
• Giving feedback
  • How to give feedback so that behaviour changes

Day3 - The art of non-verbal communications  

• Non-verbal communication
• Proxemics (distance)
  • Cultural differences in distance
• Oculesics (eye contact and gaze)
  • Eliciting information from people who don’t want to offer it
  • Cultural differences in use of eyes
• Anchoring
  • Anchoring and triggering someone’s emotional state
  • Creating a sliding anchor
• Gesture
  • Calming angry people face to face (without saying a word)
  • Calming angry people on the telephone (without saying a word)

The art of communication in meetings

• Communicating effectively in meetings
• Being seen and heard
• Quietening the dominant person
• Getting your point actross

The art of written communication

• Assessing your target audience
• Structuring your writing
• Avoiding some common pitfalls
• Getting your message across

Day4 - The art of presentation  

• Presenting to any size of audience
• Preparing to present
• Presenting yourself
• How to introduce a presentation so people listen
• How to make the middle of a presentation memorable
• How to finish the presentation so your audience wants more
• Using the available space
• Giving an impromptu talk
• Your best visual aid – you!
• Calming your nerves, using anchoring
• Making your points

Day5 - The art of persuasion and conflict management  

• A model for persuasion – head and heart, push and pull
• A model for conflict management – Thomas-Kilmann

The art of corporate communication

• Corporate communications – where they go wrong and how to fix them
• Getting messages to the organisation

The art of cross-cultural communications

• The work of Hofstede and Trompenaars
• Effective communication with different cultures

Action planning

• Individual action planning, paired discussion and challenge and public declaration

CDGA attendance certificate will be issued to all attendees completing minimum of 75% of the total course duration.