How to develop communication skills? How to learn to communicate with people? We comprehend the art of effective communication How to develop communication with a person.

It sounds very simple: say what you mean.
But too often, despite our best intentions, the true meaning of what is said is lost to our interlocutor. We say one thing and the other person hears something else, resulting in misunderstandings, frustration, and conflict.

By, you can learn to communicate with people and express your thoughts more clearly and clearly for the perception of their interlocutor. Whether you're trying to communicate with your spouse, kids, boss, or coworkers, you can improve communication skills that can dramatically improve your rapport with others, build trust and respect, and feel heard and understood.

For success in life, the ability to communicate with people is much more important than having talent.
John Lubbock

What is effective communication?

Effective communication combines more than just words used in conversation, it is a whole set of skills, including non-verbal communication, the ability to listen carefully, control yourself, communicate with self-confidence, and the ability to recognize and understand the emotions of oneself and that of the person with who are you communicating with.

Effective communication is the glue that can help you deepen your connections with others and build teamwork, normalize collaborative decision-making and problem-solving. It even allows you to send negative or unpleasant messages without creating conflict or destroying trust.

Despite the fact that you can learn effective ways of communicating with people, nevertheless, it is more effective to acquire them spontaneously from life experience, and not in the process of acting according to templates. A sight-read speech, for example, rarely has the same effect as a speech delivered spontaneously, or at least appears to be so. Of course, it takes time and effort to develop these skills and become an effective communicator. The more you put in the effort and practice, the more instinctive and relaxed your communication skills will become.

It is easiest for me to communicate with ten thousand people. The hardest thing is with one.
Joan Baez

• Take your time - take time to socialize yourself.
• Agree that it's okay to disagree with something.
• Make sure you don't hold your breath.
• Listen before you say something, even if you disagree with what you are hearing.
• Take time out when you're already overly stressed.

Barriers to Effective Interpersonal Communication

Stress and uncontrollable emotion

Lack of attention

Illegal gestures and facial expressions

Negative facial expressions

In communication, all our days pass, but the art of communication is the lot of a few ...
Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov

4 key skills to improve communication

1. Become an interested listener.
2. Pay attention to non-verbal cues.
3. Control yourself.
4. Be confident in yourself.

Skill 1: Become an Interested Listener

There is a big difference between when you listen carefully and when you just hear information. When you really listen, when you really understand what is being said, you will recognize subtle intonations in the speaker's voice that will tell you how the person is feeling and what emotions they are trying to convey when communicating. When you are an interested listener, you will not only better understand the other person, you will make them feel heard and understood, and this can be the foundation for building a closer and more reliable relationship between you.

By communicating in this way, you will also learn to calm down and maintain physical well-being and emotional balance. If the person you are talking to is calm, which is expressed, for example, in his attentive listening to your story, you too can become more balanced. Likewise, if the person is worried, you can help them calm down by listening carefully and making them feel understood.

If your goal is to fully understand the other person and their contact, you will naturally listen carefully. If not, try the following tips. The more you practice them, the more satisfying and rewarding your interactions with other people will become.

How do you become an interested listener?

Listen with your right ear. On the left side of the brain are the primary processing centers for speech and emotion recognition. Since the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for right side body, focusing on the right ear can help you better diagnose the emotional content of what the speaker is saying. Try to keep your posture straight, slightly lower your chin down, and turn your right ear towards the speaker - this will help to catch the high frequencies of human speech, which carry the emotional component of what is being said.

Don't interrupt the speaker or try to translate the conversation into your own problems by saying something like, "If you think this is bad, listen to what happened to me." Listening doesn't mean waiting in line to speak again. If you form in your head what you are about to say next, you cannot concentrate on what the other person is saying. Oftentimes, the speaker can read your facial expressions and understand that you are thinking about something else.

Show interest in what has been said. Nod in approval from time to time, smile at the other person, and make sure your posture is open and communicative. Encourage the speaker to continue the conversation with small verbal comments such as yes or uh-huh.

Any conversation becomes interesting if the listener gets carried away ...

Give feedback. If the thread of the conversation is interrupted, reproduce what was said in other words. “That I hear this,” or “You seem to be speaking,” are great ways to get the conversation back to the right place. Do not repeat verbatim what the speaker said, it will sound feigned and unintelligent. Instead, express what you understand the meaning of the words you heard. Ask questions to clarify some points: "What do you mean when you say ..." or "Is this what you mean?"

Recognize the emotional content of words by training your middle ear muscles

Skill 2: Pay attention to non-verbal cues

Developing your ability to understand and use non-verbal communication can help you communicate with others, express your thoughts clearly, handle difficult situations, and build better relationships at work and at home.

You can make communication even more effective by using open body language: do not cross your arms, stand with an open body position or sit on the edge of your seat, and maintain eye contact with your interlocutor.
You can also use body language to emphasize or reinforce your spoken message, such as patting a friend on the back, congratulating them on success, for example, or banging your fists to emphasize your message.

Tips to help you better interpret non-verbal communication

Analyze non-verbal cues comprehensively. Don't look too much for a single gesture or non-verbal cue. Consider all non-verbal cues you receive, from eye contact to communication tone and body movement. Anyone can occasionally make a mistake and avert, for example, their eyes and let their eyes slip contact, for example, or cross their arms briefly without implying anything negative. To better understand a person's true thoughts, analyze their non-verbal signals comprehensively.

Adjust your non-verbal cues based on the context of the conversation and setting. Your tone of voice, for example, should be different when addressing a child and when addressing a group of adults. Also, take into account the emotional state and cultural background of the person you are communicating with.

Use body language to express positive emotions, even if you don't actually feel them. If you’re nervous about a situation — an interview with an employer, an important presentation, or a first date, for example — you can show confidence in yourself, even if you don’t actually feel it, by using positive body language. Instead of hesitatingly walking into a room with your head down, looking away and squeezing into a chair, try to straighten your shoulders and stand with your head held high, smiling and maintaining eye contact, and shake the other person's hand firmly. It will make you feel more confident and help relax the other person.

Skill 3: Control yourself

How many times have you experienced a disagreement with your spouse, children, boss, friends, or coworkers and then said or did something that you later regretted? If you can quickly release the stress and calm yourself down, not only will you not need to regret later, but in many cases, you will help the other person cool off. Only when you are in a calm, relaxed state, you will be able to understand whether it is necessary to respond in this situation or it is better to be silent, which is signaled by the behavior of the other person.

In situations such as a job interview, a business presentation, a stressful meeting, or getting to know a loved one with, for example, it is very important to manage your emotions, think on the go and communicate effectively in a stressful situation. These tips can help:

Stay balanced in stressful situations

Make one judgment and provide an example or information to support your statement. If your response speech is too long or you are idly chatting about everything at once, you risk losing the listener's interest. Focus on one judgment with an example, look at the reaction of the listener and evaluate whether it is worth talking further about something else.

Be clear and clear. In many cases, the way you speak can be just as important as what you say. Speak clearly, maintain the same tone of voice, and make eye contact. Let your body language speak of relaxation and openness.

At the end of your statement, make a short summary and stop. Briefly summarize the main point of your speech and stop speaking, even if the room is quiet. You don't have to keep talking to fill the silence.

When the discussion gets heated in the middle of the conversation, you need to do something quickly and immediately to reduce the emotional intensity. By learning how to quickly relieve tension in the moment, even if you can handle any strong emotions you feel, control your feelings and behave intelligently. If you know how to keep your mind balanced and on, even when something is happening that can unbalance, you can stay emotionally prepared and not get lost.

Quick Ways to Relieve Tensions to Continue Effective Communication

1. Notice when you get nervous.
   If you are nervous during communication, your body will let you know about it. Are your muscles or stomach contracting and / or sore? Are your hands locked? Is your breathing shallow? Do you "forget" to breathe? Take a moment to calm down before continuing or postponing the conversation.
2. Seek "help" from your mind and quickly pull yourself together by taking a few deep breaths, contracting and relaxing your muscles, or remembering, for example, a calming, positively emotional picture.
   The best way to manage stress quickly and reliably is to listen to your senses: vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell. But each person reacts differently to the sensations of the senses, so you need to find something that will have a calming effect on you.
3. Look for a drop of humor in the current situation.
   When approached correctly, humor is a great way to relieve tension during communication. When you or others start to take things too seriously, find a way to cheer everyone up by telling a joke or funny story.
4. Be willing to compromise.
   Sometimes, if both you and your interlocutor are able to give in a little, you can find a middle ground that will suit and calm all interested parties. If you realize that the subject of the conversation is more important to the other person than to you, it may be easier for you to compromise, while laying a solid foundation for future relationships.
5. If necessary, stand by your opinion.
   Before returning to the situation, take a break so that everyone can calm down. Take a short pause and step away from the situation. Take a walk outside if possible, or meditate for a few minutes. Physical movement or resting in a quiet place to restore inner balance can quickly relieve stress and calm down.

Skill 4: Be Confident

To increase self-confidence:

• Appreciate yourself and your abilities. They are as important as someone else's.
• Know your needs and wants. Learn to express them without violating the rights of others.
• Express negative thoughts in a positive way. It's okay to be angry, but you need to show respect for others.
• Take comments in your address positively. Accept compliments graciously, learn from your mistakes, and ask for help when you need it.
• Learn to say no. Know the limits of your patience and don't let others use you. Look for a way out of the situation so that everyone is happy as a result.

It is much better not to believe in a person, but to be confident in him.
Stanislav Jerzy Lec

Developing the skill of positive communication

Growing self-confidence can be used when your first attempts have been unsuccessful. Over time, you become more decisive and assertive: your statement can communicate specific consequences in the event that your needs are not met. For example, "If you do not comply with the agreement, I will have to go to court."

Start practicing assertiveness in less risky situations that will help build your confidence. Or ask friends or family members if they will let you practice assertive techniques on them first.

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There is an opinion that it is impossible to teach a person to communicate. They say that the ability to talk with people is some kind of genetically inherent ability: either given or not given. But in recent years, psychologists have been actively refuting this stereotype and boldly declaring: communication is exactly the same skill as dancing, singing or cooking. And just like in the development of any skill, there are certain exercises to practice.

We are in websitetoday we have collected for you 8 unusual exercises that can make even the most shy introvert talk. These are not just exercises to improve speech, but a whole range of activities that help you learn how to think during a conversation and build an engaging dialogue.

1. Retelling

For what: You learn to think and speak at the same time. The connection between thinking and speech is becoming stronger.

How to do: You open your favorite blog, find any article, choose any 2-3 paragraphs from it. Read them and retell them aloud to yourself. Further - the next few paragraphs, and so on until the end of the article.

Exercise duration: Depends on the volume of the article. You need to retell 1 article a day.

2. Continuation of someone else's thought

For what: You learn to look for non-standard solutions, develop flexibility of thinking.

How to do: Turn on your TV or any video on the Internet. Listen to the speaker for 30 seconds, then turn off the sound and develop his thought for 30 seconds.

Exercise duration:5-10 minutes a day.

3. The mystery of Lewis Carroll

For what: You break your own stereotypes, habits of thinking in a certain way.

How to do: The riddle that Carroll came up with is: "How does a raven look like a table?" The exercise builds on it. It is advisable to do it together, so as not to juggle yourself with more "comfortable" items. One calls any word, the other calls any other word, insert the question between them: "How are they similar?" It turns out something like "How does the closet look like a rabbit?" Sit back and look for options.

Exercise duration: It's worth starting with 10 pairs.

4. Lecture to anyone about anything

For what: By fetching non-applied information from memory, you train your memory. Make your thinking process more flexible.

How to do: The exercise is performed together. You choose any object from those that surround you, and tell about it to the interlocutor. How did it come about? Why is it important on a human scale? What is it used for here in this room? With regular practice, you will soon be able to slide in an hour-long lecture about an eraser, a chair, or a cabinet door.

Exercise duration: Start with 5 minutes.

5. Dialogue with the mirror

For what: You observe yourself from the sidelines, learn to speak coherently about your thoughts, establish contact with yourself.

How to do:The task is to look at yourself in the mirror, get any thought out of your mind and develop it out loud. That is, you go to the mirror, start thinking and talking about what you think. Move smoothly from thought to thought, connecting them with each other. After a while, you will start to get a coherent and sincere story about what is spinning in your head.

Exercise duration: 10 minutes a couple of times a week.

6. Conversations with a full mouth

For what: Immediate improvement of diction before the "speech".

How to do: There are different options here. You can put an ordinary spoon on your tongue or a handful of nuts in your cheeks and try to pronounce the words as clearly as possible.

Exercise duration:7-10 minutes is enough.

Many children find it difficult to make friends or maintain friendships because they lack the necessary communication skills. Danny is such a child. He is a quick-witted, lively three-year-old who attended kindergarten morning classes five times a week. Danny really wanted to have friends, but nothing came of it. At the beginning of the year, he usually rarely approached other children and could wander by himself most of the time. He stood out noticeably in singing lessons when he embarked on a lengthy reproduction of songs learned at home. During the semester, Danny tried several times to become a participant in children's games, but all his attempts were unsuccessful. For example, he will walk up to Alison and Becky, who are solving a puzzle, and stand next to him. Alison calmly says to him: "Get out of here." "Why?" Danny asks. "Because I don't need you here." Danny quietly disappears. Another time, Danny walks over to Josh's desk and tells him, "Hi." Josh doesn't respond and Danny simply leaves. Since Danny was unable to attract the attention of other children, he tried to communicate with the teachers. So, while some children play with colored plastic pipes, Danny picks up some pipes and, turning to the head teacher, asks: "Will you collect them with me, Mrs Benson?" When, in response, the teacher invites him to play with Dylan, Danny, with pipes in his hands, goes to the far table alone, singing a song to himself. Another case: Danny and Kevin swing together on the ropes. Then Kevin runs away and calls his best friend Jake to join him. Danny was left to rock alone. He slowly walks to the school fence and looks for a long time through a crack at the neighboring school yard, where unfamiliar children from a parallel class are playing. When asked who his best friend at school is, Danny answers "Kaleb." When Danny is asked why Kaleb is his friend, he replies: "Because I want it."

To make friends and maintain friendships, children need to master several different skills. They should be able to engage in group activities, learn to be supportive and supportive of their peers, manage conflicts appropriately, and be sensitive and tactful.

Mastering these skills can be difficult. As Jenny's experience shows, in kindergarten, children who make direct attempts to engage in already established group activities are at risk of abrupt rejection. William Corsaro notes that as soon as two or more children have invented and defined a certain kind of activity for themselves, be it solving a puzzle or flying aboard a spaceship, they often "protect" their activities, not letting anyone from outsiders who might dare ask them. They may not respond to the greeting, to the question “What are you doing? - to answer: "We are making Easter cakes, but you are not," and to a direct question: "Can I go with you?" - to give the same direct answer: "No". Thus, in order to get involved in the activity, the child apparently needs to be careful, be able to skillfully maneuver and be persistent after the first refusal - a skill that Danny has not yet mastered.

The art of being friends also includes being a friend. The most popular children with whom classmates love to play are those who often pay attention to their peers, praise them and willingly respond to their requests. Conversely, children who are often ignored, ridiculed, blamed, threatened, or rejected by their peers are usually disliked by classmates.

This means that in order for a child to be included and accepted into their community by other children, he or she must also “include” and “accept”. It must be admitted, however, that "friendly" behavior is not always rewarded with friendship. Whether the manifestation of tenderness is really appreciated by another child depends on how this tenderness is expressed and how the recipient understands it. While some children need to learn to behave in a more friendly way, others need to learn to contain too much friendship.

As children develop sensitivity, they also learn the subtle art of interaction needed to settle conflict and maintain friendship. Even four-year-olds can be so tactful, especially if it comes about close friends. As a confirmation of these words, I can, for example, refer to the conversation I overheard between David and Josh, who were walking together, depicting robots:

DAVID. I am a rocket robot and can launch rockets from my fingers. I can shoot them from anywhere, even from my feet. I am a rocket robot.

JOSH (teasing). No, you're a fart robot.

DAVID (protesting) No, I'm a rocket robot.

JOSH. No, you're a fart robot.

DAVID (offended, almost crying) No, Josh!

JOSH (realizing that David is upset) And I'm a bunch of bunch of robots.

DAVID (cheered up again) I'm a pee-pee robot.

During this fight, Josh realized that he had said something ("You are a fart robot"), which greatly upset his friend. He skillfully got out of the situation, humiliating himself ("And I am a robot bunch-bunch"), thus showing. that his bullying should not be taken seriously. David's answer (“I'm a pee-pee robot”) to Josh's move means that Josh has accurately assessed the situation and successfully saved his friend from humiliation.

Friendship skills can be very difficult for a preschooler to develop, especially if he or she has not had sufficient peer experience in the past without direct adult supervision. Kindergartens often serve as “testing grounds” for the development of these skills.

Children acquire communication skills not so much from adults as from contacts with each other. Through trial and error, they are more likely to discover which line of behavior works and which does not. Children also learn communication skills under the direct tutelage of their peers or by their examples. When one day David whimpered, "And Harry pushed me," Josh confidently advised him: "Just tell him to stop." In other cases, children introduce their friends to each other, help others find a common cause, or show them how to resolve conflicts. And I tend to believe that this kind of advice and help from respected peers is often more effective than similar intervention from teachers or parents.

However, there are times when children need adult help to learn special companionship skills. A vicious circle - when kids want to be friends but don't have companionship skills - can be set in motion. Single children need to interact with their peers to gain the confidence and skills they need to communicate successfully. But their lack of communication skills - for example, if they are unable to reach out to other children or often scare them away - can deprive them of just that opportunity. In such cases, parent or teacher intervention may be required. One way is to set up a child who has no friends with some other specific child - sometimes the one who also has no friends - with whom adults think he could get along. In at least some cases, such “procuring” helps two introverted children gain an initial and valuable experience of social acceptance. Another way is to pair an older child who is too fond of measuring strength or is too aggressive, and a younger child who the first (bully) will treat as a "big brother" and, acting in this role, learns that you can win recognition without being a bully.

Psychologists have also developed a number of programs for teaching communication skills to children of preschool and school age. These programs provide children classified as singles or exiles with a series of sessions showing specific communication skills, giving them opportunities to practice and giving feedback on the results. Under one of these programs, unpopular third and fourth graders participated in pairs in a series of training sessions aimed at acquiring four skill groups: how to take part in certain games, do things one at a time and together, and communicate with other children in more verbose and how to support peers by giving them attention and assistance. In at least some cases, such training programs have markedly contributed to the engagement of children who were initially unpopular with their peers.

Since there is a tendency in communication education programs to focus on promoting children's acceptance or popularity in society, some tantalizing questions about value systems arise. Are these programs really helping children develop the ability to be friends, or are they tailored to the American ideal of lively sociability and good nature, which has little to do with true friendship. (Peter Swedfeld explains the tendency of our society to advocate “all together”) The answer to this question depends on both the details of the program and the value system of those adults who implement it. From the point of view of some, at least leading, practitioners, “the purpose of teaching communication skills is not to create“ popular ”or“ sociable ”children, but to help children, no matter what type of personality they belong to, to develop a real relationship ... with at least one child or two. It can also be questioned whether it is ethical to impose communication learning on children who have little choice in this matter and who in some cases may not really feel the desire to become "friendlier." Ultimately, the most compelling argument for such programs is that they seem to increase the child's self-control over their own life:

“A child who is able to initiate play or socializing with others of his kind may still prefer to spend time alone. But such a child will be able to communicate successfully when he (she) wants it or if the situation requires it. On the other hand. a child who does not possess communication skills may remain alone or be "isolated" out of necessity rather than of his own free will ".

Parents and teachers do not need to open formal courses to teach children companionship skills at school or at home; it is enough to resort to demonstration of such skills, explanations and feedback about them. While adults have a role to play when teaching children communication skills, it is best if they play it in a subtle way. In particular, adults need to beware of “correcting” in full view of all children who have not yet mastered some skills and thus embarrass them, as well as publicly calling children “shy”, because they will begin to consider themselves as such.

Adults do not need to impose indiscriminate communication skills; they need to respect the real differences between children, which encourage some children to establish friendships with many peers, others to focus on one or two friendships, and still others to spend a lot of time alone. Any of these models can suit the individual child and suit him. In trying to help children make friends, we should be more interested in the quality of children's friendships, rather than their number.

Why are some people able to find a common language in a matter of minutes without any problems and win the trust of completely strangers, while others are unable to come to an agreement even with their relatives? There is only one answer to this question: these people have different communication skills.

One of the most powerful and yet simple ways to improve your communication skills can be summed up in just one word - be a good listener.

Listening is about not just closing your mouth so that the other person has time to insert a few phrases. You should really be attentive and interested in listening to other people's words. This will not only help you connect, but it is also a great way to show respect for the other person.

When people feel this way about themselves, it immediately changes the atmosphere of your relationship. Just remember how great you felt when someone listened intently to you while you were enthusiastic about an important event for you.

All people want to be heard. By giving them this opportunity, you will immediately make many friends. Just don't pretend: follow the story, ask clarifying questions, react to key points. Sometimes this is not so easy, especially if your interlocutor does not shine with oratory.

In addition to listening, there are a few other tips that can help you improve your communication skills.

1. Never interrupt

This shows a real lack of respect. Interrupting someone, you explicitly signal to him: "I don't care what you say, I have to say much more important things."

2. Never finish someone else's sentence.

Yes, human thought is far ahead of the possibilities of speech, and sometimes you just want to help the interlocutor express the thought. By doing this, you will not help, but show your doubts about the mental and oratorical abilities of a person and cause only a feeling of annoyance in response. So you better bite your tongue at times like this.

3. Paraphrase

If you want to show that you really understood someone, then simply repeat the key thought of the other person. Before agreeing to anything or protesting, simply record your understanding of what you heard. Half of the world's misunderstandings are due to the fact that people think one thing, say another, and listeners understand the third.

4. Listen actively

As noted above, your activity as a listener is of particular importance. Show your interest in the story, give a response to the narrator, and the interlocutor's gratitude will not keep you waiting.

5. Maintain eye contact

Do not look away at extraneous things, but focus on the speaker. By looking another person in the eye, you tell them that you are interested in their story. Stop all your activities and try not to be distracted.