There are three maintakeaways from Communicating for Success:

1. A deep understanding of the oral communication process

2. A deep understanding of how to interpret oral communication events

3. A deep understanding of how to communicate for positive results

Communicating for Success achieves the course goals through an examination of a number of topics, specifically:

• The Communication Process

• Barriers to Communication

• Empathic Listening

• Body Language

• Self-awareness

• The Johari Window

• Giving and Receiving Feedback

• Formal Feedback

• Informal Feedback

• Checking the Message

• Open-ended and Closed Questions

• How Much Information is Enough?

• Communication Styles

• Personality Types

• Intergenerational Communication

You communicate with many different people in many different situations, so you need to be able to choose from a wide range of skills and adapt them to the needs of the situation. Communicating with a family member, for example, is likely to be quite different from communicating with a business client or a member of a team you play on. If your oral communication skills are strong — and you know how to select and adapt them according to the situation — relationships will have a better chance to go smoothly.

A very special part of the course is the extensive developmental activitiesdesignedto help youturn your new knowledge into useable skills. Also, you willbe encouraged to keep a Communication Journal that will be, among other things,a record of youruniquejourney to your communicationgoals.