Goal Setting, Communication and Conflict Training Course - 1 Day

You need to get the best from others, but to do that, you must first get the best from yourself.
Therefore, this course is predominantly about personal development training.

Goal setting is important because the first step to achieving a goal, is to set it.

Your organisation exists to achieve goals. The organisational goals are long range and broad, and these are divided into subset-goals, which are shorter range and more specific.

It is important to know how to set specific goals and how to communicate them to everyone who needs to know.

We explore the difference between a wish and a goal.

We are interested in goals, not wishes. You can wish for anything. But goal setting is a more rigorous process.

We will ask you to make clear the distinction between wishes and goals.

We can all share the same goal, that is, “To add value to others”. Your organisation succeeds when it adds value to the marketplace: to its customers, shareholders, employees and community. If it doesn't add value, it fails.

In a similar way, each one of us has to add value to other people, to our friends colleagues, customers and family. We will discuss what happens if you do not add value to others and what happens if you detract value from others?

The major model of the first session is the goal setting formula itself.

Our model is an advanced version of the standard, five-part model called SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound.)

We believe this model to be insufficient because, ironically, it is not specific enough. It is too abstract.

We will give you the fully updated and improved version called 8 Part SMART, which has the advantage of being more practicable and more easily turned into a series of eight questions, which you will learn and use every day.

The 8-part SMART model can be used in multiple ways, including to help you set your own goals, and to help you set and agree goals for other people. We will examine how versatile and useful this model is.

Now you have goals, you must communicate them with absolute clarity. It is important to be able to express yourself, to make your meaning clearly understood. Many people have trouble conveying their exact meaning; they are often unclear, vague and unconvincing.

We will show you terrific ways to make your exact meaning crystal clear.

When you finish this session, you will know how to make people understand exactly what you mean.

Once you understand how to make yourself clear, you can use the same principles to extract the other person's exact meaning.

We want you to make a distinction between two types of language: affirmative and negative.

Affirmative tells people what IS. Negative tells people what IS NOT.

It is not enough to tell people what you are not going to do, and why.
We need to tell people what we are going to do, and how.

We will practice turning negated statements, into affirmative statements.

Not only is there negative language, you also have to deal with negative people.

We will discuss how you can use your new communication skills to transform a negative personality type (the cynic), into a positive personality type (a critical thinker).

When you learn this technique, you will be pleased you came on the course.

The final point of the morning is a fascinating discussion about the power of suggestion. Everyone is influenced by suggestion. For instance, if several people say to Bob, “Bob, you don’t look very well today”, poor Bob will begin to feel sick. We are influenced by advertisers, media, politicians and friends. These suggestions are usually subliminal, and we are not aware of them.

But from now on, you will learn to make conscious use of the power of positive suggestion, by ensuring that you use words in ways that deliver ONLY the messages you intend.

Conflict management is important because conflict is inevitable, since not everyone shares the same standards of behaviour.

It is important to manage conflicts well, because a badly managed conflict can quickly degenerate into a major row, and relationships can be destroyed beyond repair. If you manage conflicts well, then issues are quickly resolved, and normal service can be resumed.

Four ways people try to handle conflict

In essence there are four ways to handle conflict, but only one of them works. The way that works is by reason. We need a rational approach to conflict management.

The three ways that don’t work, are:

1. Getting angry and aggressive.
2. Getting upset and tearful.
3. Evading conflict and running away.

We will show you what it means to apply, a rational approach to conflict management.

A rational approach to conflict, is one based upon a logical evaluation of all the available facts, a mutual commitment to finding a negotiated answer, and the proper professional use of language.

We discuss how important it is not to attack another's self-image (their character, identity, ego). If you criticise a person's character, you will trigger a negative emotional response.

We will show you how to distinguish character assassination statements, from behavioural statements. We ask you to never use character assassination statements.

We discuss the details of language. You will learn to distinguish between two types of language: objective and subjective.

We explain why, during conflict, you should NOT use subjective language. You should restrict yourself to objective language only.

We show how to use the correct language and you will practice describing events in objective terms.

When people are asked why they do things, some people will give reasons, others will offer only excuses.

We will distinguish between what constitutes a reason, and what constitutes an excuse. This is a vital distinction because you should only give concessions to those who give reasons.

We explore what would happen if you gave concessions to excuse givers.

It is not enough to use the right words; you must also use the right body language. Body language is how you use your face, eyes, posture, arm and hand gestures. We will show you what to do and what you must never do.

How you sound is as important as what you say. Your voice tones make a huge difference to the final outcome. We will discuss volume, pace, pitch and intensity.

Your goal is to be assertive, but never aggressive, or passive. We will talk about each type and learn its exact identity.

You will have the option to practice your new skills with one of the five role-play scenarios. You do not have to take part in the role-play, you can just prepare your scripts as if you were facing a real-life situation. Then you can either join in, or learn by watching others. It’s up to you.

As we come to the end of the day, we note that every communication should finish on a positive. People remember the last thing they heard (the recency effect), so it is important to ensure that the last thing they hear from you, is positive.

Whenever a person does something good, or even stops doing something bad, you should immediately appreciate that fact. Not because you are happy with them, but because it is good tactics to do so. The lack of appreciation is a negative.

Appreciation, praise and thanks are all examples of social motivators. We will learn about social motivators and how you might use them to encourage people to give you their best performance.