When we discuss our Workplace Skills portfolio (one day courses on key communication and teamwork topics) here at Logical Operations, clients sometimes look at us (we can see through the phone and through Teams calls!) a little funny when we mention our Interpersonal Communication or our Emotional Intelligence classes. “What’s that?”, they ask. “We don’t need that,” they say.
I think it’s important to remember that working in a corporate or business environment almost always requires working with other people – and the vast majority of employees have never received any communication or teamwork training (even at the management level). They never took a class on the topic in college or high school, and very likely didn’t receive training on the topic from their employer – which is strange, given how much of one person’s job is typically centered around communication with others.
Logical Operations Workplace Skills courses are hands-on, interactive courses. They require a good amount of vulnerability from the participants to discuss their communication skills and preferences, and review how their communication impacts others on the team and the organization as a whole. We do different types of activities in these courses. “Minds-on” activities (the first type) involve review and discussion of various scenarios (inevitably drawing parallels between those scenarios and situations for the students back in the office). “Hands-on” activities (the second type) could involve building and writing plans and scripts – working on a problem as a small group for discussion with the rest of the class – or doing something interactive with the class as a whole.
Below are a few sample activity/discussion topics from these two classes. Imagine being in a group setting – either a public class with others from different organizations or a private class with others from your organization – could you see communication skills improving after discussion on these topics (and overall productivity for the organization, satisfaction within the organization, etc. improving as well)?
- Identify and describe a workplace scenario that consistently produces a strong emotional reaction for you.
- In what kind of scenarios have you found yourself before aware of your emotions during an interaction – and how did that awareness impact that interaction?
- What are examples of self-talk that include unconditional rules, or “absolutes”, such as “should”, “must” or “ought to”. Do others share the same belief? Does your company share the same belief?
- Let’s review these typical office interactions and discuss which communication principles are present or absent:
- Discussion between manager and team member on expense report charges
- Discussion between manager and team member on schedule changes
- Requests between teammates for help on a project
As the leader here at Logical Operations who has reviewed the curriculum used in the classes, the delivery of the classes with our trainers, and the results of the material with our clients over the past 10+ years, the impact from these classes is not only substantial, but immediate. Every high performing team (regardless of area or rank within the organization) would benefit immensely from these two classes – and your organization will benefit from them as well. You can find these classes, along with many others, on our Workplace Skills catalog page here: https://training.logicaloperations.com/w/courses/cat-34-workplace-skills/.
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