THE WOMEN GET BACK

KA2 CAPACITY BUILDING PROJECT IN THE FIELD OF YOUTH

MODULE 2: Social and Communication skills

Project Title “The women get back”

Project Acronym WGB

Project Reference №: №: 589785-EPP- 1-2017- 1-PT- EPPKA2-CBY- ACPALA

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Table of contents: Module 2 Course Description ........................................................................................................................ 1

I. Social Competences ................................................................................................................... 2

Concept of Social Competences ................................................................................................... 2

Types of Social Competence ......................................................................................................... 6

Social Competence – Social Awareness – Emotional Intelligence……………………………………………. 7

II. Communication skills ................................................................................................................ 9

Concept of Communication .......................................................................................................... 9

Elements of Communication ............................................................................................... 12

Other Communication Skills………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 13

Barriers of Communication……………………………………………………………………………………………………..14

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Module 2: Social and Communication skills

Course Description

The workplace is changing very quickly and the development of different skills are more than

needed. Being able to communicate effectively is the most important of all life skills and it’s

never too late to work on your communication skills and improve them. Social and

Communication skills help people build a strong social support network, building up their

confidence interacting with others.

In this course we will study the concept of social competences and its components: skills,

routines and social knowledge accumulated by the individual. We will discuss the types of Social

Competences, including basic social skills, advance social competences, competences related to

feelings and negotiation, and the relationship between social competence, social awareness and

emotional intelligence, giving you some tips on how to build your social awareness.

Learning Objectives: As a result of engaging with the material in this module, women

are intended to achieve the following learning outcomes:

Knowledge: understand different concepts as social competences, communication, social

skills and their importance in our daily life;

Skills: interpersonal skills, social effectiveness, social competences, communication skills

Competences: understand how to use social-awareness and interpersonal skills to establish

and maintain positive relationships; communicating appropriately with different groups;

understand the need of social competences in the workplace;

Structure:

The module is divided into two main topics:

▪ Social Competences ▪ Communication skills

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I. Social Competences

The importance of Social competences has been in spotlight from so many years, and the

development of social skills within social processes contributes to the better interaction

between human beings, and moreover they can be also translated to career success. Talking

about social competences we refer to multidimensional concept consisting of social, emotional,

cognitive and behavioural skills, as well as motivational and expectancy sets needed for

successful social adaptation. 1 Keep in mind that social competences are not a characteristic of

the person, but of the behaviour of the person and, therefore, susceptible of learning or

modification. Often, the concept of social competence frequently encompasses additional

constructs such as social skills, social communication, and interpersonal communication.

a. Concept of Social Competences

Social competence is an ever-changing system, which consists of social motifs and social

abilities and has the function to organise social behaviour, and to trigger the operation of the

individual elements of the system. The system of social abilities is composed of simple and

complex abilities and their components, that is skills, routines and the social knowledge

accumulated by the individual. 2

• What is Skill? - According to the Business Dictionary, skill is an ability and capacity

acquired through deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to smoothly and

adaptively carryout complex activities or job functions involving ideas (cognitive skills),

things (technical skills), and/or people (interpersonal skills). 3

They are two types of Skills: Core Skills (Primary skills) and Skills Required (Secondary Skills)

Core skills are the crucial functional and employability skills that enable individuals to use

information and communicate effectively. Core skills give individuals the ability and the

confidence to accept responsibility, to problem solve, to use spoken and written communication

effectively, to build rapport with people who use care and support and with colleagues, to

understand and comply with standards, policies and procedures, to work flexibly, to challenge

poor practice, to embrace learning and personal development.

Employers have identified the following 5 core skills as the most likely to be needed in a work

environment. Of course, not every job will require a professional level of this 5 skills but having

good level of them is a pretty good start. 4

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_competence 2 http://herj.lib.unideb.hu/file/3/554a6feb1c360/szerzo/Zsolnai_0402.pdf 3 http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/skill.html 4 https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/37801.7292.htm

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✓ Communication is composed by two components – oral communication and written

communication. For communication skills we will talk in the next part of the module,

but keep in mind that the ability to communicate effectively with boss, colleagues and

staff is essential, no matter what industry do you work in. Good communication skills

always can help you to get hired and in general be a success throughout your career.

✓ Numeracy skills are related to the term “mathematical literacy”. Being numerate means

being able to reason with numbers and other mathematical concepts and to apply these

in a range of contexts and to solve a variety of problems. To have good numeracy skills

means to being able to interpret data, charts and diagrams, process information,

understand and explain solutions, making decisions based on logical thinking and

reasoning. Despite numerally skills are important, studies shows that adults are more

likely to take courses to improve their literacy than to improve their numeracy.5 The

conclusion of the mention report NRDC: Impact of poor numeracy on adults, shows that

in relation to employment problems, “numeracy deficits appear to be a significantly

bigger problem than literacy deficits” and authors predict that those with numeracy

problems would “feel the squeeze most when the economy contracts. And as the nature

of employment changes, these are the workers who are going to have to struggle

hardest to obtain and hold on to jobs, and to advance their positions in them”.

In part the difference between men and women in number skills can be put down to

differences in economic activity; men were more likely to be in employment. This could

mean that poor numeracy skills are a bar to employment or are sustained and improved

5 https://maths4us.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/nrdc_impacts-of-numeracy-review_june13-m4u.pdf

DID YOU KNOW THAT:

Globally, two-thirds of the 758 million illiterate adults in the world are women.

This proportion has remained steady over the past 20 years, despite declining

numbers of illiterate adults.

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in employment. Occupational status also has a role to play: men are more likely to be

employed in managerial and professional occupations and women hold fewer

qualifications.

✓ Information and Communication Technology skills focuses on the ability to use IT to

process information in ways which will be useful in work and in the home. This does not

mean to be a IT specialist. As ICT is developing rapidly, digital skills are increasingly

becoming important and need to be constantly updated. According to some recent

reports, the ICT industry needs to attract more

women to this sector. A lot of organizations already

started to address the gender imbalance since

women are occupying a tiny percentage of ICT

leadership roles, and around the world different

programme, trainings and summer camps are

especially organized to attract girls at young age and

introduce them to STEM (science, technology,

engineering and math) learning in a collaborative and supportive environment, getting

them into technology. 6

✓ Problem Solving skills can help a lot in your career and being a confident problem solver

is really important to your success. Problem Solving develops the skills needed for

tackling issues and problems in personal, social, vocational and occupational contexts.

The Core Skill in Problem Solving has three components: Critical Thinking, Planning and

Organising, Reviewing and Evaluating. For sure many of you, already hear a lot of time

the term critical thinking, but not everybody knows what it means and how to use it.

Critical thinking means making reasoned judgments that are logical and well-thought

out. It is a way of thinking in which you don't simply accept all arguments and

conclusions you are exposed to but rather have an attitude involving questioning such

arguments and conclusions. It requires wanting to see what evidence is involved to

support a particular argument or conclusion.7 There are a lot of debates between critical

thinking and gender differences. However, both gender need to be well equipped and

don´t believe what people always say, you need to be a sceptic. All new information that

is coming to you doesn´t have to be true, so don`t blindly believing everything everyone

tells you. People who use their critical thinking skills are these that usually ask “How do

you know that?”, “Are there another possibilities or another relevant information?”.

Women has to be curios, with desire to learn more information, being open to new ideas

and always admit that her opinions and ideas were wrong, in case she faced with new

convincing evidence that states otherwise. Problem Solving is a process that need to be

completed step by step. Women need to find the problem, defining it, find some

alternatives, evaluate them and implement solutions. However, research show that

here comes the big difference between men and women. Both genders have the same

goal of solving the problem, but they will often go about finding a solution in a very

different way to each other. Usually men approach problem solving with less

communication, while women need to discuss the problem in details, how could be

6 https://www.bostontechmom.com/ 7 https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-critical-thinking-definition-skills-meaning.html

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solved and they often rely on the help of those close to them. The importance of

problem solving skills are highly required by today´s society and employers. Having all

this in mind, women have to make some efforts and try to optimize their skills in order

to succeed in their career.

✓ Ability to work with others – When employers interviewing a candidate, despite all the

qualification and educations person possess, they also need to find that skills that make

an individual work well within an organization. Being able to work in a team, is another

advantage that can ensure you a new job position. Talking about difference between

men and women, here we have a good example that gives advantage to the female.

Numerous studies have shown that women prefer to work in teams, men prefer to work

alone, and women perform worse in competitive environments, even when their

performance was similar to men in non-competitive environments.8 You have to know

that women outnumber men in many helping occupations, from charitable

organizations to nursing, both of which offer cooperative production with less financial

reward.

Nowadays, the competition for jobs is increasing unrecognizable, and employers need to find

the right person taking into account also its secondary and tertiary skills. Secondary skills are all

these skills that are used outside of primary skills in order that a professional can complete their

objectives. Example of secondary skills include competence on everyday programs such as

PowerPoint and excel, stakeholder management and time organisation, they can also embrace

soft skills. There are some secondary skills that are not related directly to the job you are

applying for, but they can also help you when you apply for a new job. Sometimes your hobbies

and sports skills can be considered positive and can bring you more points to your profile.

• What is routine? – According to the Business Dictionary, routine is activity performed

at fixed or regular intervals or can be define such as unvarying repetition of a procedure.

The daily habits of the person can be crucial for his success also in the workplace.

Routine was the second component of the social system, followed by social knowledge

accumulated by the individual.

8 https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/why-women-prefer-working-together-and-why-men-prefer-working-alone/278888/

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• Social Knowledge - In a social or cultural context, social knowledge can be the collective

knowledge base of small groups, like a family, or it can be a massive and constantly

evolving body of knowledge, like Wikipedia. The defining characteristic of social

knowledge is that it is a product of the group sharing and contributing knowledge, not

the sum total of a group's knowledge. In the case of Wikipedia, this is a good example

for a social knowledge because it is a site that produces a collective knowledge base

through collaboration and participation, and not an aggregator such as Google, which is

created by pulling together information into one collection.

b. Types of Social Competence

Every situation in our daily tasks/life require us to reveal some social or other skills. According

to their complexity, social competences are divided into basic social skills and complex social

skills. Social skills are the tools that enable people to communicate, learn, ask for help, get

needs met in appropriate ways, get along with others, make friends, develop healthy

relationships, protect themselves, and in general, be able to interact with the society

harmoniously.9 The process of learning these skills is called socialization.

Basic Social Skills are the most essential once that can ensure us maintain good communication.

Here we refer to: listening, public speaking, initiate and maintain communication with others,

to be able to introduce yourself and to introduce others, to thank, to give and accept a

compliment. The advanced social competences are that ones you build once you already have

learned the basic social skills: ask for favours, ask for help, give and follow instructions,

participate actively, apologize or admit ignorance, confront criticism and be able to express your

personals opinion. There are social competences related to feelings: Know your own feelings,

know how to express your love, pleasure and affection, understand the feelings of others, solve

fear and justified expression of annoyance, dislike or anger. Social Competences on negotiation

are other group that we can identify - ask for permission, share something, help others,

negotiate, possess self-control, answer the jokes, avoid problems and not getting into fights. The

last group is Social Competences on planning: take decisions by yourself, reject requests,

discern the cause of a problem, set a goals, determine your own skills, collect information, solve

problems according to their importance, make a decision and concentrate on a task.

9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_skills

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c. Social Competence - Social awareness - Emotional Intelligence

Social awareness is the ability to understand and respond to the needs of others. According to

Daniel Goleman, author and science journalist who was reporting on the brain and behavioural

sciences for more than twelve years for The New York Times, he had announced that the

competencies associated with being socially aware are:

• Empathy - the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from

within the other person's frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in

another's position. Types of empathy include cognitive empathy, emotional empathy,

and somatic empathy. 10

• Organizational Awareness - the ability to understand the politics within an organization

and how these affect the people working in them. 11

• Service orientation - the ability to understand and meet the needs of clients and

customers.

At best being socially aware is a natural response to people, taking their situation and needs into

account as much as possible, trying carefully to consider what people want, and plan to

communicate with them in a way that is intended to meet that need. Being connect to the other

is important skills that you need have, but it´s important to control your empathy, otherwise it

could become a burden on you.

David Goleman has written books on topics including self-deception, creativity, transparency,

meditation, social and emotional learning, and his book “Emotional Intelligence” was on The

New York Times Best Seller list for a year-and-a-half, a best-seller in many countries, and is in

print worldwide in 40 languages. According to Goleman, Social Awareness meets Emotional

Intelligence, because Social awareness is the third component that compose it.

Emotional intelligence consists of four basic capabilities:

• Self-Awareness - knowing what we are feeling in the moment, and using those

preferences to guide our decision making; having a realistic assessment of our own

abilities and a well-grounded sense of self confidence;

10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy 11 https://www.change-management-coach.com/social-awareness.html

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• Self-Regulation - Having control over our emotions so that they facilitate rather than

interfere with the task in hand; being conscientious and delaying gratification to pursue

goals; recovering well from emotional distress.

• Social Awareness - the ability to understand and respond to the needs of others.

• Relationship Management composed by communication skills, ability to persuade and

lead, develop strong working relations. Relationship management is a strategy in which

a continuous level of engagement is maintained between an organization and its

audience. Relationship management can be between a business and its customers or

between a business and other businesses. 12

Emotional Intelligence also known as Emotional quotient (EQ), is the capability of individuals to

recognize their own emotions and those of others, discern between different feelings and label

them appropriately, use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour, and manage

and/or adjust emotions to adapt to environments or achieve one's goal(s).13

Here we give you some TIPS on How to build social awareness:

• Improve your listening skills. You can take a short course in effective communication

skills or read some book on the topic. Different research show that there is a physical

difference in listening between men and women. However, men and women can listen

equally well, and listening ability appears to be more due to individual differences and

circumstances than due to gender. Having effective communication skills, it doesn´t

depend of being male or female, everybody can master its skills.

• Pay close attention to interactions with other people. Be aware of what they say, how

they say it and what they do.

• Identify other people’s emotional states. Listen carefully to what they're saying and

notice how they respond to external events, such as someone greeting them or asking

them to do something.

• Think about your feelings. How does the other person’s emotion make you feel?

• Always think before you answer and give clear answers.

12 https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/relationship-management.asp 13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence

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II. Communication skills

Being able to communicate effectively is the most important of all life skills and it’s never too

late to work on your communication skills and improve them. if you are applying for jobs or

looking for a promotion with your current employer, you will almost certainly need to

demonstrate good communication skills because these are the essential skills that employers

seek.

a. Concept of Communication - The origin of the word communication is Latin, and comes

from " commūnicāre" which means to share something.

Communication is the act of conveying intended meanings from one entity or group to another

through the use of mutually understood signs and semiotic rules.14 Communication is about an opportunity to meet the other, allows for understanding, coordination and cooperation, factors that enable and stimulate personal and organizational growth and development.

Since prehistoric times, significant changes in communication technologies (media and

appropriate inscription tools) have evolved in tandem with shifts in political and economic

systems, and by extension, systems of power. Communication can range from very subtle

processes of exchange, to full conversations and mass communication. Human communication

was revolutionized with the origin of speech approximately 500,000 years ago. Symbols were

developed about 30,000 years ago. The imperfection of speech, which nonetheless allowed

easier dissemination of ideas and stimulated inventions, eventually resulted in the creation of

new forms of communications, improving both the range at which people could communicate

and the longevity of the information. All of those inventions were based on the key concept of

the symbol. 15

Forms of human communication can be grouped into two broad categories - verbal

communication and non-verbal communication.

14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication 15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_communication

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• Verbal Communication is the spoken or written conveyance of a message.

Human language can be defined as a system of symbols and the grammars (rules)

by which the symbols are manipulated. Verbal communication is all about what

we say, which is an important way of getting our message across. It´s important

to ensure that verbal or spoken messages are received as intended, and it´s good

to have in mind that the first few minutes are very important as first impressions

have a significant impact on the success of further communication. However,

important is also how you close the communication, because this is the time

where you can arrange your future meeting and determine the way a

conversation is remembered.

• Non-verbal Communication - describes the processes of conveying a type of

information in the form of non-linguistic representations. Examples of nonverbal

communication include haptic communication, non-verbal signals, gestures,

body language, facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice, and even our

appearance, how one dresses. Some of the functions of nonverbal

communication in humans are to complement and illustrate, to reinforce and

emphasize, to replace and substitute, to control and regulate, and to contradict

the denotative message.16

Some facts about non-verbal communication:

✓ Non-verbal communication is omnipresent - included in every single

communication act. To have total communication, all non-verbal

channels such as the body, face, voice, appearance, touch, distance,

timing, and other environmental forces must be engaged during face-to-

face interaction. Written communication can also have non-verbal

attributes. E-mails and web chats allow individual’s the option to change

text font colours, stationary, emoticons, and capitalization in order to

capture non-verbal cues into a verbal medium.

16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication

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✓ Non-verbal behaviours are multifunctional. Many different non-verbal

channels are engaged at the same time in communication acts, and allow

the chance for simultaneous messages to be sent and received.

✓ Non-verbal behaviours may form a universal language system. Smiling,

crying, pointing, caressing, and glaring are non-verbal behaviours that are

used and understood by people regardless of nationality. Such non-

verbal signals allow the most basic form of communication when verbal

communication is not effective due to language barriers.

Apart verbal and non-verbal communication, another important communication is the

interpersonal. Simple describe, interpersonal communication is the communication

between one person and another, and Interpersonal skills are the skills we use when

engaged in face-to-face communication with people. In verbal interpersonal

communication we distinguish two types of messages:

• content message is about information, tasks, details, and facts.

• relational message is communicated through your body language as well as the

word you choose and the tone of your voice. With the relationship message you

are giving a message that communicates what you think about this person i.e. do

you accept this person or not.

Interesting fact is that most people receive the relationship message first, and the

impact of this will determine how they receive the content of the message. That’s why

for having good relationship with the people around us is important to develop a greater

awareness of this message and always make it a positive one.

As an example of interpersonal communication skills we can give you the ability to listen.

Keep in mind that listening is not the same as hearing, and we don´t have to take it such

as granted skill. Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in

the communication process, and without this skill messages could be easily

misunderstood. Research show that adults spend an average of 70% of their time

engaged in some sort of communication, and an average of 45% is spent listening

compared to 30% speaking.

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b. Elements of Communication

• The message. Formed by the different ideas or information, which are

transmitted by codes, keys, images, etc., whose meaning will interpret the

receiver. The message is also called content.

• The sender and receiver. The sender is the subject that first communicates or

takes the initiative of that act of communication, while the receiver is the one

who receives the message. The sender has some kind of information—a

command, request, or idea —that he or she wants to share with others. In order

for that message to be received, the sender must first encode the message in a

form that can be understood and then transmit it.17 In order to comprehend the

information from the sender, the receiver must first be able to receive the

sender's information and then decode or interpret it.

• The code. It is the set of keys, images, language, etc., that serve to transmit the

message. It must be shared by sender and receiver.

• The channel. It is the medium through which the message is delivered. Usually

oral-auditory and graphic-visual are used, complementing each other.

• The context. It refers to the specific situation where the communication takes

place. It will largely depend on how the roles of the issuer and the receiver are

exercised.

• The noises. They are all physical origin alterations that occur during the

transmission of the message.

• The filters. They are the mental barriers, which arise from values, experiences,

knowledge, expectations, prejudices, etc. Of transmitter and receiver.

• The feedback. It is the information that the receiver returns to the issuer about

its own communication, both as regards its content as to the interpretation of

the same or its consequences in the behaviour of the interlocutors. The

communication process reaches its final point when the message has been

17 https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-communication-process-1689767

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successfully transmitted, received, and understood. The receiver, in turn,

responds to the sender, indicating comprehension. Feedback may be direct, such

as a written or verbal response, or it may take the form of an act or deed in

response.

c. Other Communication Skills

• Presentation Skills – These skills are required in almost every field, and knowing

how to present yourself and connect with your audience is very important. To

make people or person pay attention on you and on what you are talking about,

you need to focus on your audience’s needs, concentrate on your core message

and avoid giving information that people don´t need to know or is not related to

your core message. You already know that presenting yourself doesn´t mean to

just speak about yourself. You need also to control your body language and voice,

non-verbal communication.

• Writing skills are important part of our communication and it´s essentially to

know how to express your message clearly and effectively. The better your

writing skills are, the better impression you will make on the people around you

- your friends, colleagues, clients or boss. When you write something, first of all

take into account the audience you want to embrace and the format you want

which your message will have. Your readers or recipients, should define your

tone as well as aspects of the content of your message. Correct grammar,

punctuation and spelling are another crucial parts of your written text. Keep in

mind, that if you apply for a job and your employer notice the contains of spelling

or grammatical mistakes in your CV or Motivation letter, he can immediately

reject your application. However, writing skills can be learned and improve like

any other skills, and the like the most things, the more you write, the better you

are going to be. ☺

• Personal skills are the skills that we use to maintain a healthy body and mind but

they can also enhance communication. Here we refer to self-esteem, confidence,

assertiveness. All of these personal skills will be discuss in details in the fourth

module “Sense of self & community”.

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d. Barriers of Communication

We already know that communication is a conversational process of sending and

receiving messages, but sometimes exist barriers that can distort or prohibit a message

from being properly understood or sent. Barriers of communication are also defined as

“aspects of or conditions that interfere with effective exchange of ideas or thoughts”.

The first step that can help you improve the effectiveness of the communication is to

identify that barrier. The most common barriers to effective communication are the

following ones:

• Physical barriers - this has to do with poor or outdated equipment used during

communications, background noise, poor lighting, temperatures that are too hot

or too cold.18 They are often related to the nature of the environment.

• Attitudinal barriers are also known as “Emotional Noise”. The emotional state

of the person can affect the conversation and the effective communication. Here

we talk about emotions such as anger, sadness, nervous. In the work

environment these barriers can appear because the lack of consultation with

employees, personality conflicts which can result in people delaying or refusing

to communicate or poor management.

• Language barriers are not referred to people that speak different language.

Sometimes even people that speak the same language can have some

communication problems because of the use of jargon and ambiguity that affect

the conversation. Ambiguity creates a barrier in communication because it

leaves too much of the message undefined. The sender may dismiss the message

because she does not understand or may misinterpret it.19

• Physiological Barriers - These may result from individuals' personal discomfort,

caused - for example - by ill health, poor eyesight or hearing difficulties.

18 http://effectivecommunicationadvice.com/barriers 19 https://bizfluent.com/about-6714357-define-barriers-communication.html

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• Problems with Structure Design - it´s related to the problem with the

system/structure in a place in the organization. There are companies that have

a bad structure which cause a problem in the communication – lack of

supervision or training, bad information systems, etc.

• Cultural Noise - this can happen when people already have some stereotypical

assumptions about others based on their cultural background. In general,

cultural difference exists in every aspect - different countries, different religious

groups and also different organizations or organizational levels. Understanding

all these cultural aspects means to have a knowledge of different cultures in

order to communicate effectively with cross culture people. 20

• Gender barriers – very notable problem among the different genders. Even in a

workplace where women and men share equal stature, knowledge and

experience, differing communication styles may prevent them from working

together effectively. For example, many women are found to be more critical in

addressing conflict. It's also been noted that men are more than likely to

withdraw from conflict when in comparison to women. Although not all men or

all women communicate the same way as the rest of their gender, researchers

have identified several traits that tend to be more common in one gender or the

other. This breakdown and comparison not only shows that there are many

factors to communication between two specific genders, but also room for

improvement as well as established guidelines for all. 21

To overcome all these communication barriers, try to avoid use of slag, use simple

language, adapt conversation style to other party, encourage feedback from the receiver

and improve your listening skills. ☺

20 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication 21 http://work.chron.com/gender-barriers-communication-6858.html

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