Communication Assessments

This week as we were asked to have two other people who know me, assess my communication characteristics did not surprise me in how close the scores were because I asked my spouse of 33 years and my best friend and training partner to assess my communication skills each has seen me in different settings, but both know me very well.  I think the results might have been different had I chosen someone else.  What did surprise me is that we were within 1 point of each other on the verbal aggressiveness scale and it was the scale I had the hardest time deciding how to answer.  I do not consider myself aggressive in nature and do not like the trait in others, so when I scored midway on the scale I wasn’t happy, but in reading the description I felt a little better about it. 

I wasn’t sure how to use my score on the last assessment so I just read the descriptions and decided I am probably either in the people oriented or action oriented grouping.  I think probably the action oriented is the right category, because when I train I want participants to want to make changes and improve practices, it frustrates me when I do not see the same longing in them.

My mom is someone who is very intolerant of other ways of doing things.  She is committed to the idea that her version of right and wrong is the way all people should live and behave.  She believes that being equal with her grandchildren is fair when in fact each person in our family has very different needs or wants.  I try to select the topics carefully so that we can stay on areas of common interests.  I can relate to Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote, “We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to live together, and if we are going to live together, we have to talk. (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2010, p. 104”   It is critical to maintain the lines of communication.

            I try to match my verbal language to the context.  I know this is extremely important as I have seen my son’s inability to do this and fully understand how important it is to be able to do so.  Being able to be flexible and be adaptable is critical to being a good communicator. 

            I have also learned how the timing can impact your effectiveness.  Watching for the right verbal and non verbal cues given by others can help you decide where and when to jump in.

Silent Movies....

·       What do you think the characters' relationships are based on the ways in which they are communicating?

The characters are trying to make a good first impression and are initially friendly with each other.  This is indicated by them smiling at each other and putting their hand out to shake. 

·       What are they feeling and expressing based on the nonverbal behavior you are observing?

I watched the first show of the first season of Quantico, this made my task a little easier to decipher.   It was quite apparent that the characters were not familiar with each other as it showed each of them leaving their life before beginning their FBI training.  The lead person (female) and lead instructor  (males) were obvious due to the way they held themselves in a very powerful stance in front of the recruits as they were talking.  I could tell that the lead person was giving them lecture of some sort. 

Two of the recruits appeared to have some tension between them, I believe it was due to one feeling threatened due to a lack of skills.  He felt like the other guy could shoot, fight, and physically out do him so he decided to get the secret the other recruit was hiding.  Some signs of this were his arm placed so no one could pass, getting very close with his face before saying words that appeared to be a threat of some sort.  The person being threatened was showing signs of fear like he had something to hide. Placing an arm in someone’s path of escape is an example of kinsesics-“gestures and body movements that send nonverbal messages. (O’Hair, 2015, p. 101)

The lead person was very expressive in her facial movements while talking to the lead instructor, her body also switched from strolling along in a very relaxed pose to tensing up and being more defensive it appeared.  The lead instructor evidently gave a last parting word to the lead person and started to walk away, he stops, however, when the lead person has a final word and then she walks away from him. “However, when you are not motivated to listen, you are prone to “tune out” or only listen half heartedly. (O’Hair, et.al, 2015, p. 153)  The person who walked away was not caring much about what the lead person had to say until, as I found out later, she threatened his job.

            In the show I watched each recruit had to research information on another recruit to find a piece of information that was missing.  Once they had gathered this information, they were required to interview the person they researched to try and get the missing information from them.  For each interview they hooked the person being researched up to a lie detector machine and also had a eye camera that showed how the person’s eyes reacted to the questions posed by the recruit who researched their background.   This was an example of ambushing, listening to find a weakness in others, w—things they are sensitive about—and pulls those weaknesses out at strategic or embarrassing times. (O’Hair, et.al, 2015, p. 170)”  This was rather ironic that they were using equipment to detect non verbal cues from the person being interviewed. “On one hand if the lie is unimportant, liars may instead be relaxed and controlled.  On the other hands someone accused of lying may show nonverbal or physiological signs of  anxiety even if not guilty.  This is one reason so-called  detectors (and the newer brain scans) are not reliable measures of deception. (Kirchner, 2013). (O’Hair, 2015, p. 101.)

·       What assumptions did you make about the characters and plot based on the ways in which you interpreted the communication you observed?

I assumed none of them had ever met before the show started, which was true for some, but not for the FBI Director (lead person) and the Assistant Director (lead instructor).  I did not pick up on them having had a previous romantic relationship or that the woman FBI director had saved his career by vouching for him.  I will say I called it right when I noticed her switch from a relaxed conversational walk to a more tense posture, when she was lecturing him about not showing up after a night of boozing it up.  She tried to get him to understand the precarious position he was in, but he did not appear to listen, so she gave one last threat that if he did not stop, she could end his career.  Based on his head tilt and facial expressions, I think he finally listened.

            Watching the show without sound allowed me to pay more attention to the facial nuances of each character.  The women seemed to use this type of non verbal cues more effectively than the men.

·       Would your assumptions have been more correct if you had been watching a show you know well?

I do not know for sure, I may have gone in with prior assumptions and missed the various body clues because I had already watched them earlier.  When we get overloaded with sensory input, it could diminish our ability to see the details.

References:

O'Hair, D., Wiemann, M., Mullin, D. I., & Teven, J.  (2015). Real communication (3rd. ed). New York: Bedford/St. Martin's., pp 101-170

Successful communication strategies or characteristics

I have a friend who is an independent contracted trainer who travels worldwide facilitating professional development classes and engages in reflective practice with her clients. She has lived in a variety of cultural areas of the world. I believe her multi-faceted life has given her many high level communication skills.

I admire her skill in reading her audience; she can tailor her presentations to the specific needs of her audience.  This is a skill that I am still developing.  I have started going to trainings not just with the intention of gaining content but also to see how different presenters, facilitators, or instructors manage their audience, either keeping or losing their participants’ active engagement.  My friend has a way of posing a provocation at just the right time to regain their engagement.  Part of the skill building here is to also know your content extremely well so you can help other make sense of it all.

I also admire her ability to listen completely to a participant’s observation, but steer them in a more accurate direction without making them feel defensive.  She acknowledges their effort in participating but keeps them focused on accurate pertinent information.  She looks for parts of the observation that are accurate to find a common ground of agreement, but builds on it in such a way that the participants still are open to learning new information.

My friend has many communication strategies in her repertoire, I think the key is to always be learning about people in general and the ways they communicate, this allows us to become more proficient communicators in a variety of settings.  “The competent communication model not only includes feedback, but it also shows communication as an ongoing, transactional process; the individuals (or group or organizations) are interdependent—their actions affect one another—and they exchange irreversible messages. (O’Hair, et.al, 2015, p. 21)”  Many times it seems like people forget that children are our communication partners as well and they are learning from everything we do or say, we impact who they will become by our way of respectfully communicating with them in a transactional process.