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Relationships Management

Check the benefits of our approach

How constructive are your interpersonal skills?

The success of every team, group, family or organisation depends on the quality of its human relationships. Whatever venture, plan, project or development is done or attempted eventually requires people to interact with one another.

Interactions are constructive when they build, develop or contribute helpfully and are not destructive. Constructive interactions between people are based on confidence, self-respect and an ability to treat others with integrity and dignity no matter how they behave, and an equitable approach to resolving differences. Successful relationships can proceed from nothing else.

How constructive are your interpersonal communication skills?

How do you know?

How well do you understand your own part in the relationship difficulties you experience with other people or that others have with you?

Most people make untested assumptions about their own competence in this vital area and are very willing to assign the cause of relationship difficulties to other parties. Few ever take objective stock of their interpersonal repertoire.

Their techniques for expressing needs, resolving problems, helping others express themselves and for resolving differences are based on whatever was experienced in their upbringing and early workplace years. Although modified superficially, the techniques are fundamentally unchanged.

Best communication is called for when it is most difficult.

Most of the time this may matter very little but at times of stress, high sensitivity, tension and conflict, it may matter a great deal. Then, we are especially likely to revert to early survival methods unsuited for mature interactions; we will use whatever techniques are most familiar to us and most practised, however ineffective. Anything else will be inaccessible because it has not been habituated.

Ineffectiveness in interpersonal communication is the cause of much unnecessary friction, conflict, non-productive argument, inefficiency, confusion, loss of enjoyment and wasted potential. Time is wasted and stress caused by poor listening and ineffective problem-solving; by our being unable or unwilling to tell others straightforwardly what we need, think and feel; by avoiding differences and conflicts, storing them up or dealing with them poorly; by misunderstanding others; by the fear of understanding what others might actually be saying; and through the fear of being ourselves misunderstood or even, of being accurately understood.

Our expertise

Our skills-development programme Hear and Be Heard - The Heart of Dialogue, is designed to help people evaluate, refine and strengthen their core interpersonal competencies, develop healthy relationships with themselves and transform relationships with those around them.

Hear and Be Heard deals with interpersonal competencies relevant to a wide range of roles and responsibilities: imparting management and leadership influence; supervising, supporting, coaching, parenting, counseling or consulting with others; managing performance; and resolving everyday problems and differences.

Designed and written in New Zealand by Tom Watkins, Hear and Be Heard is based on his Managing Effective Relationships programme used by corporate and community clients since 1982 to build successful relationships. It has an outstanding reputation for enhancing people-skills.

What people say about it

"A most productive and empowering programme. It gave me a mandate to change my approach to relationships and much more confidence for resolving problems."
"It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this course on the rest of my life!"
"Some aspects got my heart racing and others allowed me to hear the music. I made improvements I had not thought possible. The tools apply to communication with anyone, anywhere. I found great insights into how to help my children. One of the most enlightening journeys I've ever undertaken!"
"Deals sensitively and effectively with the 'freight' of old habits, beliefs and feelings, while teaching alternative practices that really work! I think about the concepts and ideas every day . . . Brilliant!"
"This is the programme I should have taken – we all should have been able to take – years ago."

Hear and Be Heard is available to you in the options summarised below. For further details contact us or download the programme descriptor and a listing of formats.

1. Self-study:
Self-study Hear and Be Heard concepts with our comprehensive Guidebook, Workbook exercises and planning guide. A self-diagnostic questionnaire is sent with your order. Use the order form or contact us to proceed.

2. Add a 360° survey:
You complete and return a supplied survey online. A confidential online 360° survey of your interpersonal competencies is completed by a minimum of six other people and returned anonymously. For further details and to order, see surveys. We dispatch the two publications (comprehensive Guidebook, Workbook and planning Guide) and survey results before you begin self-study.

3. Add 1:1 mentoring and tuition:
Supplement self-study with mentoring and tuition in-person (where possible), online or by telephone. We help you understand the concepts, develop new competencies and work with you on your current real-life challenges. You need not commit yourself to any set duration and may cancel arrangements without penalty, at any point. Contact us to book and pay for mentoring time.

4. Take a training programme
Hear and Be Heard can be offered in-house by arrangement anywhere in a variety of formats. Contact us to discuss this option or see H & BH training programme for further details.

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Which option?

If you are unsure of the best form of Hear and Be Heard for yourself or for others, or if you would like to discuss the availability of volume discounts, contact Tom Watkins.

Outcomes

You will learn how to -

Recognise the background, attitudinal bases and usefulness of your interpersonal behavioural repertoire.
Observe the interpersonal communication process and your attitudinal processes while you are engaged in them, to enable effective choices about your own communication mode.
Enhance your capacity for interacting cooperatively in the workplace and elsewhere.
Determine problem ownership in interactions.
Determine the most appropriate response skills.
Speak confidently and with appropriate "strength" so that others can easily listen and understand your needs, views, concerns or problems.
Listen so that others are heard and understood.
Increase your sensitivity to others' needs whilst respecting your own.
Establish and hold boundaries with other people.
Deal with and negotiate around differences or conflict confidently, fairly and respectfully.
Respond constructively to others' distress, problems, criticism or hostility.
Apply these generic people-skills to leading, managing, supervising, coaching others' performance and giving constructive feedback.

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