Managing and Leading Strategic Communication

To communicate effectively we need to be self-aware and understand the impact of our style on other people. We need to use a range of skills in different situations based on different personalities. This highly practical course helps delegates to understand their strengths and develop their own communication style through group exercises and interactive content.

Delegates will improve their communication skills in the key areas of active listening, rapport building, adopting a tone and style relevant to their audience and overcoming various barriers to effective communication. These skills will be put into practice in various scenarios ranging from inspiring high team performance to managing the communications around corporate change programmes.

Objective

By the end of this interactive training programme, you will be able to:

• Use systematic methods to evaluate what you know about yourself and what you know about others.
• Communicate more effectively with others.
• Demonstrate advanced communication skills, both verbally and non-verbally.
• Use simple empathic techniques to construct sentences based on what you hear from others.
• Understand established theories of change management and reasons for failure.

Course Outline

Module 1 - Communication Skills

• Analysing communication methods.
• Effectively structuring your communication.
• Obtaining the benefits of active listening.
• Overcoming barriers to communications.
• Understanding the role of paradigm and perception.
• Comprehending different communication styles

Module 2 - Communication During Change

• Selling in the benefits
• Developing new guidelines
• Are the benefits of the change readily observable?
• What are the 8 stages of change and what should you consider in each stage to maximise the likelihood of success?
• What are the common problems when managing changes that if neglected can seriously impact the change process?

Module 3 - Employee Engagement

• Enhanced communication skills with emphasis on non-verbal communication and body language.
• How can you improve your communication skills with your team by putting yourself in their position?
• What strategies help you gather more information about difficult cases.
• Control your reactions and avoid saying something that you could regret afterwards.

Module 4 - Communicating, coordinating and leading

• What do people say about your team - and what do you want them to say?
• Key challenges for your team and how to meet them
• Case study - communicating, coordinating and leading in practice

Module 5 - Influencing Skills

• How to establish rapport.
• How to use a simple 3-step technique to make people feel more comfortable in accepting your ideas.
• How to inspire others.
• How to use the 10-step persuasion technique to systematically prepare for an event where you expect to persuade others.
• What verbal techniques you should be aware of to improve your chances of success?