Playing With Communication

1. Playing With Communication Portrayal Game Session

2. Agenda • Discuss Session Goals • Portrayal Game Rules • Play Portrayal • The Curse of One-Way Information Flow: The Communications Loop • Impact of Diversity on Communication • “Hearing” the Forest and the Trees: Extracting Both Details and The Big Picture in Communication • Wrap Up

3. Goals • Discuss some of the communication challenges we face in our organization • Discuss strategies we can use to address these challenges • Play Portrayal and have fun!

4. Game Rules • In each round, one player is the “portrayer” and the rest of the players are “artists”. • The portrayer selects a scene card and inserts it into the concealment folder without reading the 10 criteria on the card. • The portrayer rolls the die to choose the “golden criteria”; it’s worth three points. • The portrayer reads the title and the card and then starts the timer. • The portrayer has 90 seconds to describe the image on the scene card using any words he/she wishes, but no gestures. • The artists attempt to draw the image based solely on the portrayer’s description; they cannot ask questions or provide feedback to the portrayer. • At the end of the 90 seconds, the artists all exchange drawings. • The portrayer reads the criteria on the scene card one by one and each artist determines if the image they are judging meets the criteria. • The artists receive one point for each criteria met (three for meeting the golden criteria). The portrayer receives one point for each criteria that at least one artist’s drawing satisfies. • After scoring, players may see the actual image and review each other’s drawings. This “art show” will generate quite a few laughs. • The next round begins and a new player becomes portrayer.

5. Time To Play!

6. Teambuilding Session • The Communications Loop • The Impact of Diversity • “Hearing” the Forest and the Trees

7. The Communications Loop SENDER Transmission RECIEVER Feedback What part of the communications loop is missing in Portrayal?

8. The Communications Loop One can identify five main categories of feedback. They are listed below in the order in which they occur most frequently in daily conversations. • Evaluative: Making a judgment about the worth, goodness, or appropriateness of the other person's statement. • Interpretive: Paraphrasing - attempting to explain what the other person's statement means. • Supportive: Attempting to assist or bolster the other communicator. • Probing: Attempting to gain additional information, continue the discussion, or clarify a point. • Understanding: Attempting to discover completely what the other communicator means by her statements.

9. The Communications Loop Tips for providing feedback: • Effective feedback always focuses on a specific behavior, not on a person or their intentions. Focus on what or how something was done, not why. • Feedback should be timely (closely tied to the action), specific, and honest. • Feedback that is requested is more powerful. Ask permission to provide feedback. Say, "I'd like to give you some feedback about the presentation, is that okay with you?" • Effective feedback involves the sharing of information and observations. It does not include advice unless it was requested. • Check to make sure the other person understood what you communicated by using a feedback loop, such as asking a question or observing changed behavior. • The main purpose of constructive feedback is to help people understand where they stand in relation to expectations. • Effective feedback is as consistent as possible. If the actions are great today, they're great tomorrow. • Recognition for effective performance is a powerful motivator. Most people want to obtain more recognition, so recognition fosters more of the appreciated actions.

10. The Communications Loop Tips for receiving feedback: • Try to show your appreciation to the person providing the feedback. • Even your manager or supervisor finds providing feedback scary. They never know how the person receiving feedback is going to react. • Summarize and reflect what you hear. Your feedback provider will appreciate that you are really hearing what they are saying. • Focusing on understanding the feedback by questioning and restating usually defuses any feelings you have of hostility or anger. • Understand that one person’s feedback may contradict another’s due to various biases and differences in perception. Seek feedback from multiple independent sources. • Be approachable. People avoid giving feedback to grumpies. Your openness to feedback is obvious through your body language, facial expressions, and welcoming manner. • If you really disagree, are angry or upset, and want to dissuade the other person of their opinion, wait until your emotions are under control to reopen the discussion. • Remember, only you have the right and the ability to decide what to do with the feedback.

11. The Communications Loop Discussion: • How might Portrayal play differently if the artists and the portrayer are allowed to offer feedback during the 90 second time limit? What might some undesirable consequences of this rule change be? • What sorts of organizations might benefit by limiting or even discouraging feedback? • Does 360 degree feedback play a role in your organization? What can managers learn from the feedback of those they manage? • How does your organization encourage feedback from its customers? What is done with that feedback? • How have new forms of communication such as email, voicemail, and instant messaging impacted the communications loop? • Are you encouraged to provide feedback to your peers?

12. Teambuilding Session • The Communications Loop • The Impact of Diversity • “Hearing” the Forest and the “Trees”

13. Age Religion Class Race Gender Education Culture Political Views The Impact of Diversity SENDER Transmission RECIEVER Feedback How does diversity impact communications in Portrayal?

14. The Impact of Diversity Diversity, for the sake of this discussion, can be thought of as all relevant characteristics that differentiate people and can lead them to have different perspectives or interpretations. Diversity is a “filter” which impacts the meaning of messages. In addition to “obvious” categories of diversity such as age, race, and gender, there are also temporary, external, and message-based filters that further impact communications: • Environmental Noise: Distractions from equipment, other people, nature, bright lights, and any other external stimulus. • Message-Based: If the message is spoken too quickly, not fluently, or includes inappropriate (e.g. vulgar) words. • Emotion: Strong emotions, particularly stress, anger, fear, and love.

15. The Impact of Diversity Discussion: • How might diversity among artists and the portrayer lead to misunderstandings in the game? What strategies can portrayers use to minimize these misunderstandings? • How does diversity impact communications with customers in your organization? • What challenges does your organization face in effectively managing diversity? How do you ensure you don’t “cross-the-line” of discrimination for “protected classifications” such as race, age, sex? • How do cross-functional teams reduce the impacts of diversity on communication? Increase them? • How does jargon (e.g. technical terms specific to your organization or industry) act as a filter? • How do new forms of communication such as email, voicemail, and instant messaging act as filters? • How is globalization creating diversity-related challenges in communication? Do these challenges impact your organization, even if only indirectly (i.e. through important customers or suppliers)?

16. Teambuilding Session • The Communications Loop • The Impact of Diversity • “Hearing” the Forest and the Trees

17. Long Pointed Nose Three Buttons Round Head Top Hat Two Arms Two Small Eyes No Legs Scarf Around Neck Smiling Mouth “Hearing” the Forest and the Trees SENDER Transmission Draw a Snowman Big Picture Details RECIEVER Feedback What’s more important in Portrayal: the details or the big picture?

18. “Hearing” the Forest and the Trees In our communications we are constantly balancing the needs to provide details and “the big picture”. Because we do not have unlimited time to convey our messages, the right balance is critical to being a successful communicator. Too Little Detail Too Much Context Too Much Detail Too Little Context

19. “Hearing” the Forest and the Trees Discussion: • One “rule” for giving effective presentations is described as, “tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you’ve told them.” What does this mean? How do the three parts of this guideline pertain to detail versus context? How can using this strategy improve the performance of the portrayer? • What roles in your organization are mostly operational / tactical (detail focused) versus mostly strategic (big-picture focused). How do the communications between and among these groups differ? How does this align with the goals and day-to-day operations of your organization? • How are rumors, gossip, assumptions, and speculation related to the frequency and type (detailed versus visionary) of communications in your organization?

20. Final Thoughts No one would talk much in society if he knew how often he misunderstood others. - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

21. Final Thoughts Suppose these were Portrayal images. How would you describe them?