‘The IT department have been through a lot over the last year or so, big change/restructure last year (resulting in quite a few redundancies). At the same time, IT have had a lot going on in terms of big business projects (such as introducing new systems moving from Lotus notes to MS Office 2010). The focus is to increase the positivity of IT overall, understand their customers better (internal & external), taking time to get the customer needs right in the first place, before actioning a piece of work or commissioning a big project.’ (Jas Parmar, Thomas Miller, May 2014).
To develop the IT department’s understanding of their internal and external customers through improved communication skills.
To build relevant skills; negotiating, building trust, increasing rapport, improving interpersonal skills.
Research has shown that increased awareness to automatic signals of emotion – in this case micro facial expressions – is a key component of empathy, rapport and trust building. These expressions, together with other non-verbal elements, account for 50-90% of all communication. Enhanced understanding and practice in application are intended to meet the primary training objective.
It was agreed that the training and coaching should allow time for reflection by the participants between sessions. Training was in the form of a two and a half hour workshop, focused on introducing and applying micro facial expressions and gestures.
The group workshop was followed up three weeks later with half hour individual coaching sessions. These sessions were built around the specific communication needs of each participant.
A self-assessment questionnaire was undertaken prior to the workshops, immediately after it and again after three weeks. Participants were asked the following statements with responses on a Likeart scale. Levels of agreement ranged from strongly disagree to strongly agree.
The statements were;
The group workshop was undertaken on the 4th June 2014 in a meeting room on the client’s premises.
The one to one coaching sessions were undertaken on 30th June 2014, also at the client’s premises.
To maximise knowledge retention the training was structured as follows;
After three weeks, 18 of the 21 self-assessment questionnaires had been completed. Of the seven delegates, none reported undertaking daily practice but all of them confirmed that they performed ‘occasional’ practice.
Results of the analysis of self-assessment questionnaires were as follows;
The group recorded scores on average of 1 point more in agreement after 21 days compared with pre training assessment.
The group recorded scores on average of 1 point more in agreement after 21 days compared with pre training assessment.
The group recorded scores on average 1 point more in agreement after 21 days compared with pre training assessment.
(Comments are anonymised)
1) “Better at recognising deception … I look around more”.
2) “Some pointers of things to look out for … I like the idea of micro expressions … made me more conscious of what I am doing”.
3) “I know what I am doing but it’s easier said than done”.
4) “You know a lot about facial expressions but its picking up that little bit more that makes the difference”.
5) “I am trying to baseline any changes I see in expressions, I am trying to get used to more observing people and not being accused of staring at them”.
6) “The main thing I learned was looking at the micro expressions and the changes in micro expressions rather than specific ones on their own”.
7) “It was good fun… it’s not huge change … I think it’s worth it … the important thing is not that I can read people’s expressions it’s that I am more aware.”
Participants will be reviewed again at 60 days to assess their levels of learning and application.
The self-assessment scores have little statistical validity but they do point to commitment by participants to the training and coaching. The range of client needs, learning and feedback demonstrates the relevance of this communication development programme to individuals and teams within the organisation.
Based on the available evidence, the key issues would appear to be;
Potential further training needs were identified as follows;