Author: Don Hejna

Reading Assignments in Messages Book

Hi COM60 Class,

After reviewing the feedback I received, I heard from several people that they would like to focus on work related issues:  Co-workers and dialogue with bosses and direct reports.  In light of that, I will modify the order of a few exercises so we can cover this in greater detail next week.  Also to prepare for those exercises, we’ll read a few chapters in the book out of order as follows:

Also, give some thought to sections you’d like to work on:  Being a boss, being an employee in an exercise, dealing with crafting an email or have a back and forth dialogue.  I may bring different exercises to allow people to choose the situation they most want to work on.

 

Next Reading in “Messages” Book:

Part III (Part 3):  Conflict Skills

Assertiveness Training  (Page 125 – 149)

  • Fair Fighting  (Page 150 –  160)
  • Validation Strategies (Page 150 –  160)
  • Negotiation (Page 173 – 187)
  • Please take a short look at the Clarifying Language section summary (especially page 121-122 Summary chart) if you have time.

Optional Bonus Reading:  Page 89:103

  • Transactional Analysis:  This will be most useful for those of you working on triggers and “buttons” (being triggered, or triggering others)

 

Preview for the coming weeks:

After Class 4 the reading assignment will skip ahead and be to prepare us for the Public Speaking Guest Lecturer from the Graduate School of Business:

Part VI (Part 6):

  • Influencing Others
  • Public Speaking
  • Interviewing

After Class 5 the reading will be:

Part II (Part 2):  Advanced Skills

Page 59:  88

  • Body Language:
  • Paralanguage and Metamessages  (especially page 77: Verbal Modifiers and page 78 Coping with MetaMessages)
  • Hidden Agendas:

Page 104 : 122

  • Clarifying Language (especially page 121-122 Summary chart)

Part IV (Part 4): Social Skills

  • Prejudgment
  • Making Contact

We will not cover the information in Part V (Part 5) Family Skills   But please do read if interested, it’s also very good.

 

Resources for Spring 2016

COM60 Homework after Class 2:

  1. Introduce yourself to 5 people.
  2. Bonus Homework: ask one or more of those people for feedback after you have been chatting for a while.

(Remember doing things that are a little outside your comfort zone helps you move those things into your comfort zone.)

Reading in “Messages” Book(Messages: The Communication Skills Book):

Pages 6 – 55.

I find the reading goes pretty fast, if you are squeezed for time, scan the pages, looking at the headlines and bold text and get the gist of the ideas.  These are very good ideas covered in not much text so I think you’ll find the time well worth it.

 

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Use this link to for first exercise:

First Impression Exercise

 

(Nerd option:  http://45.55.27.244:8000 )

 

Resource Links from COM60: Winter 2016

Video Links:

Relationship Links:

Hostage Negotiation:

Facial Expression Differences Across Cultures: