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M1 Communications
- 1. FísFoghlaimForbairt www.pdst.ie © P D S T 2 0 1 6 This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ie/. You may use and re-use this material (not including images and logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike Licence.
- 2. www.pdst.ie Cumarsáid agus Tógáil Deachaidreamh Communication and Building Relationships
- 3. www.pdst.ie Participants will… • Develop an understanding of what Communication is and how it works • Explore different modes of communication within a school setting • Recognise the importance of building and maintaining good relationships • Recognise how effective communication is an integral part of building and maintaining relationships Key Messages
- 4. www.pdst.ie The act of transferring information from one place to another. What is Communication?
- 6. www.pdst.ie • Your school is in transition…. Situational Awareness
- 8. www.pdst.ie “I know that you believe you understand what you think I said but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” U.S. Government Official What is said v What is heard
- 9. www.pdst.ie • The average person speaks at a rate of 150 wpm • The average person can hear at a rate of 1000 wpm • What do we do with all the extra time we have? • Do we really listen? Listening Dilemma
- 10. www.pdst.ie • What modes or methods of communication are there in your school? • Are they the best mode for the information being delivered? • Are they efficient? • Do they allow for two-way communication if it is needed? Modes of Communication
- 12. www.pdst.ie Dea-chaidrimh: Building and Maintaining Relationships
- 13. www.pdst.ie Characteristics of a good relationship: • Trust • Mutual Respect • Mindfulness • Welcoming Diversity • Open Communication Good Relationships
- 14. www.pdst.ie • Identify relationship needs • Schedule time to build relationships • Self-awareness and awareness of others • Appreciate others • Assume positivity • Manage boundaries • Avoid gossiping • Listen Actively How to build good relationships?
- 15. www.pdst.ie • Why? • How to improve? Difficult Relationships
- 16. www.pdst.ie Tacaíocht: Instruments that can support 17
- 17. www.pdst.ie • When is the appropriate time to begin? • How will you start? • How will you develop it? • How long will it take? • What would you like it to look like at the end of the process? Dearfacht: How to get started on building positivity in your staff
- 18. www.pdst.ie • Watch, listen, learn…. • Buy yourself time… • Don’t make too many promises…. • Be seen…. • Be aware of what went before… • Get to know your people… Remember….
- 20. www.pdst.ie
Editor's Notes
- This is a very simple but clear definition. When we start to think about how we communicate then it becomes more complicated. Warm-up exercise: Ask participants to turn to a person next to them – shake hands, say good morning, introduce yourselves and tell the person one interesting piece of information about yourself that they may not already know.
- Where does communication fit in to each of these areas in the Profile of leadership? Do we need to communicate in our role? Discuss
- Before moving on, remind participants that their school is in transition. They are taking on a new role and whether they are an internal or external appointment there is new territiory to traverse. They need to be cognisant of the fact that change can highlight feelings of sentimentality and loss as well as new energy. They need to make themselves aware of what practises are already in place in school before bringing about any new change. They need to be fully aware of the school culture before bringing about changes and the best way is to move slowly.
- Ask participants to contemplate their first week on the job. Who do they expect to communicate with? Make a list which we will refer back to in a little while.
- Communication is a complicated process. The person imparting the information must first encode it, the person receiving the information then decodes it. There are many variables that may affect the manner in which a message is encoded or decoded e.g. is the encoder under stress? Is the receiver feeling defensive? The medium of communication (e.g. face-to-face/phonecall/letter) etc can also have an effect on the how the message is decoded.
- Chinese whispers activity? Is it worth getting a fresh pair of eyes on what you intend to communicate… Will someone else read differently into what you’ve said. If you’re caught on the hop, still thry to think before you speak. Buy time until you might be in a better frame of mind. Phrases like ‘I’ll get back to you on that’ can buy you time but make sure you do follow up on a query.
- Listening bad habits Checklist (Handout) Ask participants to go through the checklist and tick any that apply. We are all guilty of ineffective listening to a certain degree, but the points on this checklist are worth considering to help us examine our listening behaviours going forward. The handout is as below: Listening Bad Habits Following is a list of ten bad habits of listening. Check those listening bad habits that you are sometimes guilty of committing when communicating with others. Be honest with yourself! I interrupt often or try to finish the other person’s sentences. I jump to conclusions. I am often overly parental and answer with advice, even when not requested. I make up my mind before I have all the information. I am a compulsive note taker. I don’t give any response afterward, even if I say I will. I am impatient. I lose my temper when hearing things I don’t agree with. I try to change the subject to something that relates to my own experiences. I think more about my reply while the other person is speaking than what he or she is saying.
- First ask the participants to think about these questions. Take these questions away with you and consider your own situation. Next ask them to make a list of modes of communication that they might use in school – or that might already be in use in their school. Give examples: Are there pigeon holes? Aladdin? Noticeboard in staffroom? What modes were used prior to you? Think Pair Share?
- Ask participants to refer back to their ‘who’ list and now ask them to consider what modes of communication might be useful to communicate with these people. Allow them a moment or two to consider this and make some notes if necessary. Make the point that when starting off, face-to-face contact can be most effective. It is impossible to read tone of voice or body language from an email and if somebody doesn’t know you, or doesn’t trust you, or feels defensive towards you, then something meant in innocence could be taken up completely wrong. Get to know parents as soon as possible if you don’t already. Even if you do, something as simple as being seen at the school gate every morning with a pleasant greeting can have a profoundly positive effect on the wider school community. If participants have chosen modes of communication other than face-to-face, ask them to consider why they have chosen this mode. E.g. if there is a list of items that need to be ordered, then communicating this list to the secretary via email or in writing would be more appropriate than reaming off a list to her face-to-face. However, it would be no harm to pre-empt the list via conversation telling her you’ll send it through, initially at least until you establish mutually effective systems. Why choose this mode of communication? Is it the most suitable for the purpose intended? Why are you communicating with this purpose? Are there emotional barriers to consider?
- Ask participants to jot down on their own, who they might need to build relationships with in their new post. Remind them, that even if they have been appointed from within and they feel they know the staff, their role is different now so this will alter relationships. Situational Awareness
- Trust – This is the foundation of every good relationship. When you trust your team and colleagues, you form a powerful bond that helps you work and communicate more effectively. If you trust the people you work with, you can be open and honest in your thoughts and actions, and you don't have to waste time and energy "watching your back." Mutual Respect – When you respect the people that you work with, you value their input and ideas, and they value yours. Working together, you can develop solutions based on your collective insight, wisdom and creativity. Respect for the culture Mindfulness – This means taking responsibility for your words and actions. Those who are mindful are careful and attend to what they say, and they don't let their own negative emotions impact the people around them. Welcoming Diversity – People with good relationships not only accept diverse people and opinions, but they welcome them. For instance, when your friends and colleagues offer different opinions from yours, you take the time to consider what they have to say, and factor their insights into your decision-making. Open Communication – We communicate all day, whether we're sending emails and IMs, or meeting face-to-face. The better and more effectively you communicate with those around you, the richer your relationships will be. All good relationships depend on open, honest communication. Feedback is an integral part of this
- Identify Your Relationship Needs Look at your own relationship needs. Do you know what you need from others? And do you know what they need from you? Understanding these needs can be instrumental in building better relationships. Schedule Time to Build Relationships Devote a portion of your day toward relationship building, even if it's just 20 minutes, perhaps broken up into five-minute segments. For example, you could pop into someone's office during lunch, reply to people's postings on Twitter or LinkedIn , or ask a colleague out for a quick cup of coffee- but don’t be seen to be showing favouritism. These little interactions help build the foundation of a good relationship, especially if they're face-to-face. Focus on Your EI Also, spend time developing your emotional intelligence (EI). Among other things, this is your ability to recognize your own emotions, and clearly understand what they're telling you. High EI also helps you to understand the emotions and needs of others. Appreciate Others Show your appreciation whenever someone helps you. Everyone, from your boss to the office cleaner, wants to feel that their work is appreciated. So, genuinely compliment the people around you when they do something well. This will open the door to great work relationships. Be Positive Focus on being positive . Positivity is attractive and contagious, and it will help strengthen your relationships with your colleagues. No one wants to be around someone who's negative all the time. Manage Your Boundaries Make sure that you set and manage boundaries properly – all of us want to have friends at work, but, occasionally, a friendship can start to impact our jobs, especially when a friend or colleague begins to monopolize our time. If this happens, it's important that you're assertive about your boundaries, and that you know how much time you can devote during the work day for social interactions. Avoid Gossiping Don't gossip – office politics and "gossip" are major relationship killers at work. If you're experiencing conflict with someone in your group, talk to them directly about the problem. Gossiping about the situation with other colleagues will only exacerbate the situation, and will cause mistrust and animosity between you. Listen Actively Practice active listening when you talk to your customers and colleagues. People respond to those who truly listen to what they have to say. Focus on listening more than you talk, and you'll quickly become known as someone who can be trusted.
- Here discuss that occasionally there may be a difficult relationship that needs particular work. There could be a number of reasons why this might be – throw out a few… perhaps inherited ill-feeling with a previous principal? A colleague that also applied for the job? The aim here is not to be best friends with that person but to develop an appropriate working relationship with them. You don’t need to be friends but there must be a professional relationship in place for the good of the school.
- This slide is used in a later Misneach. Don’t spend time on it here, just flag the documents and explain that they might be a helpful starting point for a conversation in the situation of a difficult relationship. These will be explored further in later Misneachs Notes from later Misneach module: NB: We can approach Building Staff Relations in many ways - obliquely or directly. We’re opening possibilities for you through the discussions here today. If you consider staff relations to be important it is not something to be discussed just at Misneach – it must be brought back to school. What’s the appropriate way to do this in your school? Is it something we need to address in a formal or in an informal way or do we need to raise an awareness and consciousness of the routines and procedures around positive relations e.g. all of the actions that we named earlier (the positive ingredients). Consider (with your staff) whether or not whether you might /might not need to use any of these instruments with your staff. The behaviours discussed already are very powerful as you as school leader model how we interact with each other in school every day and build good relationships in our schools. It is not solely the responsibility of the Principal to build staff relations. If you need to address this on a more formal level as leader in your school The INTO Working Together dates from 2000 but has been updated and is available online as is the other more recent document Supporting Each Other from IPPN/NPC. The following slides outline the key content and approaches but do presenters should not go in to detail or allow themselves to be side-tracked by participants with individual agendas. Everyone can read the document for themselves and the school scenarios later will allow them to tease out some of the issues anyway. So just refer to each of the slides 13 to 21 and then get to the scenarios.
- Ideally start when there is not currently a conflict/difficulty, to avoid being perceived as targeting any individual. (Situational Awareness) If a situation is very toxic, the time to start is immediately but a mediator/outside facilitator may need to be called in, possibly through your patron, local education centre, union etc. Positivity can show itself in many ways, a smile or friendly gesture can make a huge difference. Allow participants a few moments to think about what positivity means to them and how they might encourage it within their school.