Compassionate Communication Workplace Training

Does your workplace need this?

High quality communication can make a profound difference to the experience, outcomes and potential of our interactions.  Few of us are actually trained in processes and understanding to achieve this, and it’s not uncommon in workplaces for strong emotions to bubble to the surface in times of pressure as people struggle to communicate well.

When staff are skilled in dealing with challenging situations that arise out of the blue, they can help ensure a cool head and open heart prevail in such moments.  Increasingly, this strength is being sought after by organisations who value high quality, honest and effective interactions within the workplace.

 Finding compassion means that even though you might not have felt or acted exactly like someone else does in their struggle, pain or strong emotion, you could have, or you have found yourself in similar situations some other time. This enable us to listen with our hearts to understand, speak without judgment or rancor, and to negotiate wisely.

Benefits/Outcomes

Participants undertaking this training can expect to:

• Have a deepened understanding of what compassion actually is
• Understand the aspects of their own selves that help or hinder compassion
• Develop capacity to deal with their own roadblocks to compassion, and work past these
• Understand what compassion actually feels like
• Recognize when we are communicating with compassion
• Understand their own responses in situations, where these are coming from, the effect they have on their communication.
• Develop a higher level of self-awareness, for better management of their communication responses
• Increase their emotional resilience
• Leave with a ‘kit bag’ of additional tools to enrich their communication
• Have increased confidence to tackle the more challenging aspects of communication.
• Develop a useful array of skills which can be readily applied in tricky communications to foster compassion
• Understand how to better care for themselves.

Why our training for your staff?

A key component of this training is welcoming in participants’ real challenges and aspirations for their work. This provides the opportunity to practice the learnings in situations most meaningful to your staff.

Our experience consistently demonstrates an 80:20 rule. Good communication is 20% good collaborative process, and 80% having the emotional resilience and communication skills to ensure those processes are applied effectively to achieve their purpose.

The Groupwork Institute has been working with groups at work and in the community since 1984. Over that time, we have developed and established this model for peer learning. It has been tried and tested in a wide variety of arenas. People appreciate a well-structured well facilitated space to reflect on their work practices.

We always tailor content around your group’s specific needs, working on specific communication issues faced by the team. We pay special attention to tricky communication situations where your highest skills are needed.

What will participants learn?

Understanding Ourselves in Groups

The more we understand our own inner ‘selves’ and their interplay, the better communicators we will be. First manage thyself! Come prepared to know (and accept) yourself better!

1. mapping our own Community of Selves
2. getting to know and working on the fears and other self-limiting messages that hold us back as good communicators
3. develop the emotional resilience to manage our own reactions to challenging dynamics

 Interpersonal Dynamics

So much of what goes on in relationships has an emotional content. Much of it is to do with our unconscious. Gaining an understanding of these dynamics enables participants to better harness the full potential of the situation.

1. the creation of openness and trust in relationships
2. a framework for understanding unconscious dynamics, and their effect on people’s behaviour
3. Role Theory as applied to group dynamics

 Essential Principles of Communication

Communication practice needs to have a strong, clear value base.  As good communicators we need to be clear about our approach.  This training will cover:

1. the central values and principles of good communication;
2. an understanding of how our principles can guide our behaviours

Micro-skills for Communication

There are a range of key micro-skills needed for compassionate communication. These allow us to:

1. hear and validate people’s contribution
2. synthesise wisdom
3. welcome difference
4. deal with un-spoken dynamics

 Dealing with Conflict and Other ‘Hot’ Situations

Most of us have fears and avoidance behaviour around all sorts of challenging encounters. As good communicators, this will have a negative impact on our work. We need strategies to deal with our own and other’s feelings and reactive behaviour.

This includes:

1. understanding our responses to conflict or the expression of strong feeling
2. working with ‘hot spots’ and ‘flat spots’
3. helpful processes for surfacing and working through conflict
4. skills to intervene in dynamics you find challenging.

In summary, this communication training will foster practical confidence and competence in participant’s communication endeavours.

We look forward to seeing if we can be of service.

Details

Duration: One day 9.30am – 5.00pm

Provided:  Delightful lunch, morning and afternoon tea, workshop materials and comprehensive resource: Compassionate Communication Training Booklet

Venue: Groupwork Centre Training rooms, location to be advised.

Facilitation services: Engage our staff for a complex situation you’d like to address collaboratively. Learn more

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Our approach to training

We create an environment where you can look at your work practices with safety and lightness. Our work is lively, experiential and practical – and fosters emotional resilience throughout. And we have a bit of fun along the way!

A large part of the program is devoted to practising skills using situations your staff members want to work on. We encourage them to bring real-life examples, and we allow time for them to address individual needs and issues faced in the workplace.