Developing Effective Business Conversation Skills.

Are your spoken messages organized and coherent or rambling and unfocused? Do you put off business conversations or are you able to work through issues with confidence and empathy? Do you know when to talk, when to listen and when to ask questions? Improve your business conversation skills with this seminar on effective business communication.

Enhancing and expanding your conversation skills can help you create buy-in for your ideas, make better-informed decisions and obtain committed action from others. After assessing your present communication style, you’ll practice shaping engaging, clear and effective business conversations through real-world scenarios. Each interactive exercise is designed to help you build conversational bridges at work, get your point across and steer discussions in the right direction.

What You Will Cover

Focused Conversation Skills

• Creating a focused and results-oriented conversation goal
• Achieving clarity by organizing your ideas and remaining focused
• Redirecting conversations that have gone off-track, exiting those that are dragging
• What to include in your business conversations from the listener's perspective
• How to create complete messages that cover all critical information
• Calibrating language to avoid becoming too specific or too abstract
• Integrating confidence and competence into your conversational behavior

Engaging Others in Conversation

• Building rapport and establishing open communication
• Listening strategies to gain information and create conversational bridges
• Asking and responding to questions as a way to promote effective business conversations
• Communication insights to help you flex your personal style to others’ preferences
• The appropriate role of humor
• Choosing the right verbal and nonverbal language to create consistent, coherent and targeted messages
• Implications of gender and culture on the dynamics of conversations
• How to avoid creating or showing defensiveness in business conversations

Workplace Conversations

• How to successfully approach various types of business conversations
• Tools and strategies to plan and demonstrate a specific conversation type

Conversational Style Preferences and Flexing Strategies

• Assessing conversational style preferences, strengths and weaknesses and flexibility
• Learning to use humor (carefully) in business conversations
• Mastering verbal and nonverbal language skills

Action Plan

• How to Implement new business conversation skills

How will you benefit

• Communicate with poise and clarity
• Learn how to build connections that foster trust and rapport
• Build commitment, consensus and collaboration throughout your organization
• Tailor your communications to gender, generation and position
• Tap into the power of your own communication style to get the results you want
• Apply skills to connect and engage with audiences, whether in-person or across a digital divide

Who Should Attend

Managers, supervisors, team leaders and business professionals at all levels who wish to have more effective business conversations.

Outline

Learning Objectives

• Create Messages That Are Organized and Coherent
• Design Messages That Get to the Point by Mastering Conversational Discipline
• Steer and Control the Direction of Conversations to Manage and Effectively Use Time and Resources
• Perform Workplace Conversations (Teaching/Training, Setting Direction, Coaching, Reviewing Performance, Etc.) to Become More Productive
• Listen for Information and Create Conversational Bridges to Better Engage Others in the Creative Problem-Solving Discussions and Meetings
• Create Complete Messages That Cover Critical Information in Order to Influence and Build Trust
• Establish Rapport to Build Stronger Workplace Relationships and Open Communication

Focused Conversation Skills

• Compose a Focused and Results-Oriented Conversation Goal
• Achieve Clarity By Organizing Your Ideas and Remaining Focused
• Apply Strategies to Redirect Conversations That Have Gone Off Track, or Exit Conversations That Are Just Dragging On
• Evaluate and Hone What You Include In Your Conversations from the Perspective of the Listener
• Synthesize Conservational Planning and Organizing Skills to Create Complete Messages That Cover All the Critical Information
• Calibrate Conversational Language to Avoid Becoming Too Specific or Too Abstract
• Integrate the Elements of Confidence, Competence, and Knowledge into Conversational Communication Behaviors

Engaging Others in Conversation

• Build Rapport and Establish Open Communication in Conversations
• Apply Listening Strategies to Gain Information and Create Conversational Bridges
• Create and Respond to Questions as a Way to Promote Effective Conversations
• Consider Possible Implications of Gender and Culture on the Dynamics of a Conversation

Conversational Styles Preferences and Flexing Strategies

• Identify and Use Insights Into Communication Styles to Flex Your Personal Style and adapt the Others’ Preference
• Define the Appropriate Role for Humor in Various Conversation Contexts
• Choose Appropriate Verbal and Nonverbal Language to Create Consistent, Coherent and Targeted Messages
• Apply Strategies to Avoid Showing or Creating Defensiveness in Conversations

Workplace Conversations

• Define How to Successfully Approach Various Types of Conversations
• Synthesize New Conversation Tools and Strategies to Plan and Demonstrate a Specific Conversation Type

Setting Your Plan to Implement New Business Conversation Skills

• Define an Ongoing Business Conversation Skill Development Plan