Communication Skills Power

When you are in a relationship, there are many things that are important to make it work, to make it grow, and thrive.  As with anything else in life, you must strive to build your relationship and make it healthy. And, one of the key aspects to a relationship is communication. For, if you can not talk and speak openly to each other, you can never grow truly close and find a lasting relationship.

Yet, you may find it difficult to draw certain things out of your man. It is said that, these days, men are more open and sensitive. Well, that may be true to some extent, but political correctness aside, men are still men, and they often don’t speak their minds. So, how can you get the man in your life to speak more openly about his feelings and emotions? Well, there are a few tips to follow.

First, turn off the television, Playstation, Xbox etc. The male mind does best when it can focus on one thing. Trying to talk to your man while he is watching a football game or the latest “Die Hard” movie is a recipe for not talking at all; all you will get are a bunch of “yups”, “nopes”, etc.

Next, try to talk about one thing. Here again, the male mind does best if it can focus on one subject. Also, if you can mix up the subjects you want to speak about, and throw in some light and casual topics; that will help also. You may want to talk to him about love, marriage, children, visiting our family etc. But, if all you talk about is serious matters, you’re going to turn him off to talking altogether.

Consider the lesson of Dr. Pavlov and his work with dogs. He found that a conditioned response could be set up with a dog. Well, men are often compared to dogs, but they aren’t quite so crude; however,  they do respond to stimuli in a similar fashion. By talking to your man about sports, sex, and so forth, he will come to see talking as something to enjoy, not dread.

Also, when talking to your man, position, demeanor, body language, and even the clothes you wear can influence how he reacts. Men don’t do their best communicating when they’re sitting facing someone. It is rather confrontational. Here again, it all goes to biology, and the primitive aspects of the human brain. Where once men had to face off in battle for food, for a mate etc. and thus they see such a position as an act of aggression. So, if you want to talk to him, and make him feel at ease, try sitting next to him.

Next, there is the art of compromise. Remember that if you talk and yet do not really talk, merely dictate, yell or belittle your man, you are not going to encourage him to talk. This goes back to the idea of not talking on serious matters all the time. Respect his opinion, even if you do not agree with it, and tell him so. If you disagree on some point, seek to compromise on it. And, most importantly, before arguing or exploding at him, ask this question: in twenty years, will this issue be all that important? If the answer is no, consider letting it go.

Always remember, a relationship is a two way street, not one. The more you’re willing to talk about things he wants to talk about, the more you’re willing to change your views, and to listen to what he has to say; the more likely he is to talk more.

Effective interpersonal communication creates a feeling of community and intimacy where everyone’s contributions are valued. It leads to proper understanding, sometimes on a deep level, depending upon the circumstances of the communication. To have really effective interpersonal communication you need to make use of a set of skills and knowledge and to evaluate these and update your communication skills from time to time.

Interpersonal communication has a dual purpose of presentation and representation. Representation is the basic words we use and the meaning we portray; people sometimes tend to think that this is all there is to communication and they forget that how they present their message defines them and their relationships with others too.

It is in this latter purpose of communication (presentation) that misunderstandings can arise. This happens when people fail to understand the message being conveyed, or when people fail to make their audience understand; both sides of this are important as the people in a conversation all carry joint responsibility in uncovering and understanding the true meaning of a communication.

Some useful skills for making sure you have really effective interpersonal communication are:

1. Refer to your listener by name. This makes people feel valued and appreciated; it also ensures that they know that you are talking specifically to them; it alerts them to that fact and encourages them to concentrate upon your message. If they are listening more closely to you, you are more likely to be understood.

2. Adapt your message to your listener(s). The message may have to be conveyed differently according to the role and status of the listener, as well as their level of understanding. Different parts of your message will hold special importance for certain groups of people so you may want to adapt your message so that these things are emphasized for a particular group. Making your message relevant to your audience is just the hook you will need to make people start listening to you.

3. The call to action may differ according to who your audience members are, because everyone has different responsibilities. If you have something that you want your audience to do after listening to you, be explicit about this; make it clear what you want them to do, without being too dictatorial about it.

4. Make sure you include all the information that is necessary in order to make yourself and your message understood. If you can repeat your message and illustrate it in different ways, so much the better, as members of your audience will all understand things in different ways.

5. Avoid jumping to early conclusions. Listen to the whole message first if you are not the one doing the main talking. If you think you have the idea of the conversation very early on, often you will find that you will switch off or at least not listen so attentively to the rest of the message and this is one area where mistakes are often made.

6. Be aware of any assumptions you are making; are they correct? Will your audience understand your assumptions or do you need to communicate to them too, for effective communication? You should always try to judge how you are being interpreted by others too. Ask questions and mirror back what people seem to be saying to you, paraphrased, so that you can check that you have the correct understanding. This also shows that you care about how the other person is feeling; they will warm to you and you will ease communication with them.

7. You should ‘own’ your message, using terms such as ‘I’ and ‘my’; this makes your communication sound more genuine and sincere.

8. You should learn to express your feelings as that can make them clearer to you as well as to other people.

If you keep in mind these few tips and you try to practice them in your interactions with other people, you will see that you soon develop much more effective interpersonal communication, both as a speaker and a listener.

Whatever reason you have for wanting to improve your speaking or listening skills, you can pick up some useful tips from interpersonal communication articles. Reading about the techniques and tips lets you digest the information when you’re not under pressure to
communicate. It can be a nerve-wracking thing if you’re not confident in your ability to talk, sometimes even in everyday casual conversation, and it’s such a shame as you should have a lot of fun with interpersonal communication; articles can teach you some of the basics.

The skills that you need for good interpersonal communication differ according to the situation in which you want to communicate. Some people find it difficult to start or continue conversations even with friends; others will need to deliver seminars and get their points across on subjects an audience is unfamiliar with; others will need to organize and communicate within a large organization, to people both above and below them in the company hierarchy as well as fellow managers on their level. That is only a small selection of the different situations in which one might need interpersonal skills.

However, whatever the situation, interpersonal communication articles will all tell you that both listening and speaking are important.

Listening skills might include:

1. Giving the other person time to speak without butting in with whatever it is that you want to say. That way you will put them at ease and you ma well learn something;
2. if you don’t let them talk you have no chance to learn from them and you are then giving a lecture, not communicating.
3. Not finishing other people’s sentences. You’re not a mind reader and so it can be seen as rather rude to finish off other people’s sentences. Let them tell you themselves.
4. Really actively listening to the person’s words so that you understand the full meaning of what they are trying to say. If you are busy wit other tasks or the TV or some other distraction, you are not listening as well as you might.
5. Maintaining a comfortable level of eye contact to put the other person at ease.
6. Adapting your body language to demonstrate that you are listening and that you really understand what is being said; for instance, making sure that you are nodding and smiling in the right places and adopting an appropriate posture.
7. Concentrating full on the moment and picking up on the mood of the person who is speaking as well as the actual words they are using.

Those listening skills will really benefit you in all your interpersonal communications, no matter what the purpose or who you are trying to communicate with. Some speaking skills are generic too, and therefore useful in all communication:

1. Speak clearly so that your words can be understood. Quite often people will be too embarrassed to ask you to repeat yourself so you need to take the responsibility for being as clear as possible.
2. Use a vocabulary that can be understood by your listeners. Interpersonal communication is about being understood; it is not about showing off how wide your vocabulary is or how many long words you know.
3. Use an appropriate pace and volume. You can’t be heard, you can’t be understood or effectively communicate anything.
4. Make your call to action clear so that your listeners know what you want them to do.
5. Check people’s understanding. Don’t probe, but you could ask questions to check your audience’s understanding, or if you feel that your audience knows you well enough and will tell you if they don’t understand anything or have a question to ask, you could invite questions.

Although interpersonal communication articles can help you through all of these basic skills and more they are are no replacement for the real thing and what you need is practice, practice, practice and hopefully you will enjoy that.