Good Communication Training Skills

 You can install new behaviors or responses in your audience by taking them through a series of examples where such a behavior was demonstrated and can be used in future( story plus future pace). Once you finish a few generic examples, you can ask someone in the audience to be a demonstration subject and take him through that specific situation. Allow him to explain how specifically he will use the new skills he has learned.

Make sure he verbalizes. The keyword here is that he should be able to demonstrate the skills in front of everyone.

Most of communication skill trainings fail because too many people feel that by intellectually imagining (or thinking about) the situation, they can develop these skills. This is completely wrong, until you represent a new skill in visual, auditory and kinesthetic responses, for events in past, present and future, the skills will not be embedded in the person.
 

While giving out the group sessions, Try the rule of 3. It is one of the open secrets of all communication trainings. One person will be the stimulator, one the responder and the other one will act as an observer. All the 3 will take turn in all the positions.
 

Next, challenge them to come up with at least one way of using it in next 24 hrs. They have to verbalize the situation; this directs their unconscious mind to generate behaviors where they can use their Communication trainings.
 

Most of us might have been using tricks that we learned or discovered. But you may not have known why they work. Now that you know the principles, you can create your own tricks to mark out your uniqueness in your communication training. That way, everybody wins.
 

If you have some of your own, please share it with others by sending it to us. We will recognize your contribution. Remember, knowledge grows only when shared. That's the reason I suggested, the best way to improve you own communication skills is by actively conducting communication training.

You don't even have to call it communication training. Give it your own name. Make sure you use these principles in all kinds of training because they are universally applicable.
 

Communication Skill Training principle 4: Be ready to accept if YOU are Wrong.

It is a great way to demonstrate that it is ok to be wrong. Too many people focus and waste too much time in not doing the wrong thing. Due to this focus, they tend to do more mistakes. To get rid of this self consciousness, do a stupid mistake and admit it.

A lot of trainers I have come across have bloated egos and feel they are always right. These are the ones who find it hard to be content and usually have an anything-for-a-buck mentality. That can be a major obstacle for any kind of communication training.
 

In contrast, some of the best trainers I have come across were more willing to accept when they were wrong. They were comfortable being themselves. The other ones who feel threatened by challenges feel their value will go down if people discover they are wrong. (These are the egoistic ones and trust me; you will find a lot of them around)

That notion can be correctly called as Insecurity.

When a person admits his mistake and says "hey, I make mistakes. I'm human too", his subordinates and juniors will respect him more than ever. The last thing you want to do is give a picture of you as a perfect individual.
 

If you give such an image, they will automatically assume all that you teach will be difficult and their effort will be to imitate you "The Teacher" than incorporate the principles and skills into their own persona. I have told often, what happens when material is not naturalized into one's persona?
 

More and more frustration. Your communication training will go waste.

There are numerous principles involved in communication training. But I shall restrict myself to these and end with the last of the principles.

Communication Skill training principle 5: Create Multiple Ways to Collect  Feedback.

Most of the trainers think feedback will have to be a piece of questionnaire which is given at the end of a session. I don't agree with that.

Feedback comes in many ways. Some of it can be obtained even before the training begins. The most important feedback though, will be the one which happens during the training. If you observe a lot of people checking their watch, you don’t have to wait to see the words on the feedback form telling ' It was a long training' or ' I am bored'.

You have that feedback right when you need it. Staying alert for non verbal feedback you get during the training will save you a lot of time and effort.
 

People will approach you during breaks and after session with doubts. Pay attention to the kind of doubts and clarifications. You may have to think of changing approach next time or explain some more. Communication training is multi mode training. Use more than one Mode to teach and use more than one mode to gather feedback.
 

The last type is the written feedback form. No matter how bad one is as a trainer, People won’t tell us on our face, especially in writing. They will hide their real feelings. That is the reason why it is so necessary not to focus only on the written feedback.
 

Yes, by using clever questions, you may get some information but, not as fully as you can get while you are on that stage, training them. After all, communication is a dynamic field, and so should communication training be.
 

Checking for feedback over a period of time is also good. If the participants had a good time and enjoyed the training because it was entertaining, they will say you’re good. That state is often temporary. If you keep a track of their skill level over a period of time, then you will know your real success rate in your communication training.
 

For feedback especially, please don't pick the bright ones: they will not be good indicators. Focus more on the meek ones. They will help you in creating good communication training and bring you a lot of experience.

Human mind is always in constant search for short cuts. It is hedonistic in nature and many believe that laziness is one of the biggest hedonistic pleasures. Let's make sure we do no fall in to that trap.

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