Communication Psychology - with Gerhard Ohrband

  For many companies, especially in our information age, it seems important to gather as much information as possible about employees and customers. We have so-called Big Data . Social media companies collect enormous amounts of information about our preferences, behavior, and attitudes. Many organizations believe they need to do the same. Why? That is a good question. Let us start there. Are you collecting information because company leadership requires it? If so, do you understand the real reason, or are you simply following orders? And is that reason logical and morally acceptable to you? Many things depend on the answer. Do we want to know more about employees in order to control them better? To manipulate them more effectively? Or do we have more humanistic motives? Do we want to improve the workplace, find a better fit for employees within the organization, or gain insights that help improve the company as a whole? And how do we typically approach the task of gath...

  Especially in the business world, we want to be impeccable — including as communicators. At the same time, we believe in continuous improvement. This creates a dilemma that many professionals face: How can I improve my communication skills or social skills while at the same time avoiding mistakes during the improvement process? In almost any other human endeavor, this idea would seem absurd. If we are trying to acquire new skills or change the way we do something in music, sports, art, or any hobby, it is obvious that experimentation will be part of the process. And whenever we experiment with new behaviors, techniques, or approaches, mistakes are inevitable. Yet when it comes to communication and soft skills, many people expect improvement without experimentation. On the one hand, many companies complain that soft-skills training yields little or no measurable results. But an important question is rarely asked: What conditions does the company create for employees to c...

In times of economic uncertainty, many companies reduce or suspend activities dedicated to the development of so-called "soft skills." Budgets are tightened, priorities are reassessed, and employee development is increasingly presented as a personal responsibility. At first glance, this seems reasonable. Employees are encouraged to read books, watch videos, listen to podcasts, attend seminars, and engage in continuous self-development. After all, personal growth is important. However, from the customer's perspective, this argument misses the point entirely. As a customer, I could not care less whether an impolite employee was given a list of recommended books, encouraged to attend trainings in their free time, or received access to an online learning platform. My concern is much simpler: your company hired this person, your company represents itself through this person, and your company is responsible for the experience I receive. When I leave a restaurant dissati...

The more fluid the labor market becomes and the shorter employees tend to stay within an organization, the more important it is to ensure that the skills, knowledge, and information generated by those employees remain within the company. A simple example: in a sales position, employees often change every two years. A new employee in such a role would greatly benefit if the company could transfer the condensed experience of previous sales representatives—tips, strategies, and even failures. However, there are still companies, especially those under strong performance pressure, that do not encourage employees to share information among themselves. The reasons can vary. In some cases, managers may fear a loss of status if information becomes widely accessible. Employees might exchange uncomfortable insights or discover unequal working conditions and begin demanding equal treatment or compensation. Managers may also worry that shared information could be used in ways that might harm ...

  Preparing for a public speech is difficult enough for most people. Yet public speaking is, in many ways, easier than ordinary conversation. A speech has structure. The roles are relatively clear. One person speaks, others listen. You can rehearse your wording, prepare your examples, and anticipate objections. Even if the audience reacts emotionally, the interaction is limited and predictable. Conversations are different. A conversation is alive. It changes direction unexpectedly. Someone may interrupt after only a few seconds. Another person may suddenly challenge you, misunderstand you, or react emotionally. And in that moment, memorized sentences often collapse. This is why effective communication in conversations is not primarily about memorizing what to say. It is about psychological clarity. Before an important conversation, we should not only ask ourselves “What do I want to say?” but also: ·         What objective information...

Most of the following mechanisms are relevant to almost any kind of behavioral change. First, working on communication seems complex and difficult. It is not as though we only need to improve one single thing. Communication is an umbrella term that includes many different skills and behaviors we can — and should — work on: the quality of our voice, body language, the quality of our questions, becoming more empathetic, explaining complicated ideas in a simple way, defending our positions clearly, and many others. As a result, we often feel overwhelmed and do not know where to begin. We feel incompetent in many different areas at once. Second, we fall prey to the so-called sunk cost effect . The sunk cost effect describes our tendency to continue investing in familiar behaviors simply because we have already invested years into them — even when they are ineffective. In communication, this means that people may unconsciously resist changing the way they speak, argue, explain, react ...