Ranjit Sidhu of ChangeQuest, a training company with the aim of sharing what drives the true nature of communications within projects, has carved an enviable niche in the project management profession. A former practitioner herself that now leads workshops and presentations, Ranjit presents students with opportunities to self-examine their focus on the behavioural and language choice patterns that can alter messages coming in and those going out. A proponent of neuro-linguistic programming, session with Ranjit leave the professional, open-minded student re-thinking their approach to communicating with all stakeholders and in a great position to improve those interactions.
These statements are not made blindly. Having sat through two workshops that provided great opportunities to improve my own communication abilities, I can say all of this about ChangeQuest from a first-hand perspective. Having participated with the rest of the Arras team in Ranjit’s personalised, team building “Advanced Communication Skills Workshop” earlier this month, we at Arras People had an inside track on her ways to help participants better understand traits of effective communication in project management, change management, and even those everyday life settings.
As with many training situations and learning scenarios, Ranjit’s most recent workshop offered some particularly memorable elements, the cream of the crop if you will. In sessions that combined group activity, video and slides in a highly personalised fashion, you can take away particularly strong NLP lessons as a seeker of the best in communications strategies.
You Are The One Who Shapes Your Communications Behaviours. Ranjit laid this out for us with a good acronym: Are you the one that is driving the bus? So often, we forget that we’re in charge of our responses and the elements that can best shape those responses. It’s a simple change of perspective really: too often, we’re led to think that the environment, the attitudes, and all these mitigating factors will be the ultimate determinants of your conversations. While they all play roles, what you must remember is that none of those necessarily have to change how you are coming across. You can, in fact, make the choice to re-shape it all by yourself.
You can respond in kind to that loud fellow on the other end of the line; you also have the choice to rise above the tone, stay the course in a professional and polite tone, and ultimately get the right & complete information across, not merely the information your “in kind” tone might unintentionally dictate you to remember. A tone may be offered to shape the behaviour and the ultimate communication that has been made to you; it is equally down to you as the effective communicator to re-shape that tone to fit the content of the message…
If you want to learn more about Ranjit Sidhu, NLP communications and project management, or glean more of what I got out of our meeting with Ranjit, check out the original article from the June 2011 edition of Project Management Tipoffs, the project management & recruitment newsletter from Arras People. Subscribe to Tipoffs to receive next week’s edition free.
