Stakeholder Engagement: Communications

1. Stakeholder Engagement: Communications • March 18 – 20, 2014 • Mary Barron, PPC • Steve Duarte, SLDS SST • Deanna Khemani, WDQI TA • Robin Taylor, SLDS SST

2. Welcome

3. Essential Questions How can states more effectively communicate particularly between IT and program teams or between agencies? What are some effective strategies to “say what you mean”? How might others interpret what you say?

4. Goals of this session • To understand differences in what is said and what is heard • To identify strategies to help alleviate communication interpretation and translation issues • To share tips and suggestions for improving communications between teams and agencies

5. Introductions (after session 1) Within your state team, without speaking or writing: • Choose a person to verbally introduce each team member by name. • Choose a different person to share with the rest of the group each team member’s role in the project. • Choose a third person to share with the group how long each team member has been with their respective agency. • Choose a fourth person to share with the group each team member’s favorite thing to do when not working.

6. Overview of Relationships

7. How Well Do You Communicate?

8. How Well Do You Communicate? Effective Communications* – a set of skills that includes: • Non-verbal Communications • Listening • Managing Stress in the Moment • Understanding Emotions (yours and your audience) *Reference: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/effective_communication_skills.htm

9. How Well Do You Communicate? https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog/PMO-Setup-T3---Tips-Tools-and-Techniques/5229/

10. How Well Do You Communicate? • If you know your own strengths and weaknesses, you can effectively handle any situation. • As we talk about these four skill areas, think about your strengths and areas of need.

11. How Well Do You Communicate? Non-verbal When I am leading a meeting I pay attention to the demeanor of the audience in the room. When talking with a colleague and they tell me they agree with what I’m sharing, I move on even though they were visibly irritated when they said it. I always make eye contact with the person or persons to whom I am speaking.

12. How Well Do You Communicate? Listening I tend to plan my response in my head and write notes as a team member is explaining something. As I am listening to the person speaking, I paraphrase what the speaker is saying. Whenever I have a meeting with someone with whom I often disagree, I make sure the meetings are short.

13. How Well Do You Communicate? Managing Stress in the Moment If I feel stressed in a conversation, I tend to continue anyway until the issue is resolved. When I find myself in a stressful situation, I tend to come up with a way to introduce some humor. I believe that sometimes we have to “agree to disagree” before we find an answer or move forward.

14. How Well Do You Communicate? Understanding Emotions As a colleague explains his or her concern/problem, I ask probing questions to help me determine the “real” issue or issues. I try not to show any feelings when delivering a negative message.

15. How Well Do You Communicate? • Discuss at your table situations when you didn’t understand something and needed someone to Interpret or Translate for you. • How did it feel to not understand?

16. How Well Do You Communicate? Effective Communications (speaking, listening and writing) • Includes Two Parts: • Sending, receiving, exchanging and processing messages • Understanding the emotion behind the messages/information

17. How Well Do You Communicate? The Communications Process (one-way or two-way) • Person who is source encodes something into a message and transmits it. • Person who receives it decodes the message and, in one way or another, feeds back understanding or lack of understanding. • “Feeds back” is the difference between one-way and two-way.

18. How Well Do You Communicate? One-way • You telling something—informing Two-way • You telling something and expecting something back—inquiring, involving One-way and Two-way • Should always lead to inspiring others

19. How Well Do You Communicate? Informing • One-way sharing of information through email, power points, press releases, memos Inquiring • Two-way sharing using listening tools like surveys, focus groups, meetings, or other feedback loops Involving • Two-way engagement allowing for person(s) to shape policy, programs, or procedures and processes Inspiring • “Bottom Line”—creating owners and champions

20. How Well Do You Communicate?

21. How Well Do You Communicate?

22. Activity

23. How Well Do You Communicate? Activity – Part 1 • Create a list of “when you say….,”“I hear…” statementsfrom your group’s perspective. • Put your statements on chart paper.

24. How Well Do You Communicate? Video Clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwjAAgGi-90

25. How Well Do You Communicate? Activity – Part 2 • Share the list with the other team so they can interpret or translate “what they meant was…” • Record the interpretations or translations on the chart paper.

26. How Well Do You Communicate? Activity – Part 3 • Walk around the room and review the statements and interpretations/translations. • Record questions, comments, suggestions, or other feedback on a Post-it note and place it near the appropriate statement or interpretation/translation.

27. Strategies

28. Strategies Strategies for improving skills inthe four areas… Non-verbal Communications Listening Managing Stress in the Moment Understanding Emotions (yours and others)

29. Strategies Non-verbal Communications • Appropriate body language to reinforce and support what you are saying

30. Strategies Listening • Actively listening – conveying that message to the speaker

31. Strategies Managing Stress in the Moment • Importance of creating and maintaining a “calm” state

32. Strategies Understanding Emotions (yours and others) • Determining the “real” message

33. Strategies Strategies – Table Discussion What are some strategies to increase effective communications, mitigate the need for interpretations/translations, and reduce misunderstandings? Record at least 2 strategies for each of the 4 skill areas on chart paper and be prepared to report out.

34. Strategies Strategies – Report Out by Table What are some strategies to increase effective communications, mitigate the need for interpretations/translations, and reduce misunderstandings?

35. Questions? • Comments?

36. Stakeholder Engagement: Communications Reflection Reflecting on this session, what do you want to make sure you do (or don’t do) when you get home?

37. Thank You

38. Contacts Contact information: Mary Barron, marybarron@qi-partners.com Steve Duarte, steve.duarte@sst-slds.org Deanna Khemani, dedekish@yahoo.com Robin Taylor, robin.taylor@sst-slds.org