At the End of This Session, Each Participant Should Be Able To s1

At the end of this session, each participant should be able to

• Describe Aristotle’s model for effective communicating

• Use tools for Effective Communication

• Use tools for Effective Listening

• Practice communicating a message to use after the JLT course

The Greek philosopher Aristotle studied communication and devised a model that still stands today. That was more then 3,000 years ago.

Aristotle’s model tells us that all communication has three parts—a message, a sender, and a receiver.

A speaker should approach communicating well as a matter of respect.

Out of respect for listeners, a speaker will make sure he sends the message as well as he can.

Out of respect for the speaker, listeners should make sure they understand.

You can see it as a matter of following the Scout Law. Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind…

Often during this JLT course, we have talked about The Teaching EDGE and The Leading EDGE. Both are simply ways of describing how a sender can effectively communicate a message. What do the letters of EDGE stand for? (Explain, Demonstrate, Guide, Enable). That’s a way of packaging information so it’s easy to send, easy for receivers to remember. The Teaching EDGE—Explain, Demonstrate, Guide, Enable The Teaching EDGE focuses on the role of a teacher—a sender of information.

This session is using the Teaching EDGE: We’re Explaining Aristotle’s model of a message, a sender, and a receiver. We’re Demonstrating with the Message Toss Game. Later we’ll be Guiding you through some exercises to package a message and to be effective senders and receivers. By the end of the session, we hope to be Enabling you to take these skills and use them on your own. We looked at ways that leaders can adjust their leadership methods to address the needs of individuals and groups at various stages of development. A newly-formed patrol that is full of enthusiasm but has few skills, for example, requires a different kind of leading than does an experienced crew that is highly skilled and very confident.

The importance of using the Leading EDGE to match leadership styles to stages of team development. Take a moment to review the four stages of team development…Forming, Storming, Norming, Conforming By rephrasing the information and bouncing it back to the speaker, the listeners are making sure they are hearing what the speakers have to say and they are letting the speakers know that their messages are getting through. How are good communications important for using the leading EDGE?

To be good senders of information, we need feedback from those who are receiving it. Engage the audience by asking frequent questions to assure that information is being received correctly and to guide the audience understanding why the information is important.

We can also benefit from the feedback of those who will evaluate how we communicate, not just what. This is a perfect skill to evaluate using SSC. “What should I start doing? What should I stop doing? What’s working well that I should continue to do?” Effective Listening is a sincere attempt on the part of a listener to understand in depth what a speaker is saying.

Effective listeners pay attention to more than just the words they hear. They also take care to notice a speaker’s body language, tone of voice, and emotional sense and consider them part of the message the person is sending. Much of communication is conveyed by body language, or physical cues and reactions, such as shaking one’s head to show you are receiving the message, facial gestures such as smiles and frowns, leaning forward to show interest. Body language can convey a message opposite of what information or tone is being sent or received.

The same tools that work well for communicating with peers will are also effective when communications are with adults. Perhaps they are even more important.

Communicating well with adults may mean getting rid of “bad habit” words. “Like” “You know.”

“Like” and “you know.” They are part of a language of many youth, but they get in the way of communicating well with anyone except your close friends. Let’s say you go home after this course full of great ideas for making your troop better. You want to talk with your Scoutmaster about changes you want to help make in the troop.

No matter what message you want to share, and no matter who your audience, a five-step process is almost certain to succeed:

1. Here is the reason I am asking for some of your time. 2. Let me share an idea with you. 3. Let me summarize the situation for you. (Put your idea in context of who, what, where, when, why, and how.) 4. Reinforce the benefits. “Here’s why it makes sense.” “Here’s how it helps us reach our goals.” “Here’s how it helps us complete an action plan.” “Here’s what’s in it for you.” 5. Let’s discuss the steps to turn this idea into action.