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How to Develop Self Awareness: To Overcome Communication Biases

Biases can impact communication interactions in various contexts, including personal relationships, organizational settings, and broader societal interactions, which can influence interpersonal relationships and decision-making processes.

Overcoming biases requires conscious effort and a willingness to challenge one's beliefs, assumptions, and cognitive tendencies, which are based on self-awareness. 

                                                         https://youtu.be/Laawk-inDU4

Strategies to Develop Self-awareness to Mitigate different types of Biases:

Self-Awareness: Being Aware of One's Biases: The first step in overcoming biases is to recognize that bias exists and acknowledge their potential influence on your thinking. Reflecting on your beliefs, attitudes, and decision-making processes and being open to the possibility that you may be biased in your interpretation of information is the starting point.

How one can Develop Self-awareness:

- Reflect on your judgments and recognize how they may influence your interpretation of communication cues.

- Pay attention to your thoughts and judgments during communication interactions and be open to acknowledging and challenging any biases you may have.

-  Be mindful of your cognitive tendencies.

   But the question is, what can trigger or lead to self-awareness in an individual regarding biases?

Self-awareness regarding biases can be triggered by a variety of experiences, reflections, and interactions.

§ Personal Experiences: Recognizing and reflecting on experiences where one felt biased or where one was a target of bias can help one learn from situations where bias was evident. The realization that you felt uncomfortable in a situation because of preconceived notions can trigger a reflection within you about your biases toward other persons based on their race, ethnicity, etc.

§ Critical Incidents: Reflecting on incidents where bias played a significant role in the outcome can act as a catalyst for awareness. Witnessing or being involved in a situation where someone was treated unfairly due to their gender and recognizing your own biased assumptions in that scenario.

§ Reading and Media Consumption: Reading books, articles, watching documentaries, or listening to podcasts that explore bias and discrimination can educate individuals about biases and their impacts through various forms of media. Reading a book on implicit bias and recognizing behaviours or thoughts that resonate with your own experiences.

§ Engaging in Difficult Conversations: Having open, honest conversations about bias with people who have different perspectives can challenge the views held by an individual. Discuss racial or gender biases with a friend with a different background and listen to their experiences and viewpoints.

§ Feedback from Others: Receiving constructive feedback from colleagues, friends, or mentors about potentially biased actions or statements can help one gain external perspectives on one’s attitudes. A colleague points out that you tend to interrupt women more often than men in meetings.

§ Exposure to Diversity: Interacting with people from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and experiences can broaden your perspectives and challenge preconceived notions. Joining a multicultural group or community organization that encourages dialogue and collaboration among members from different backgrounds. Exposure to a variety of viewpoints, opinions, sources of information, and alternative possibilities, including those that challenge or contradict one’s existing beliefs, can broaden one’s understanding. 

§ Self-Reflection: Engaging in regular self-reflection through journaling or mindfulness practices can help one critically examine one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Reflect on your reactions to different social situations and question whether they were influenced by stereotypes or prejudices.

§ Mentoring: An individual can receive expert advice and structured support in recognizing and addressing biases by working with a mentor. Participating in mentoring sessions where one explores underlying biases and discusses strategies to mitigate them.

Through these interventions, one can know oneself better and proactively identify and mitigate the impact of biases on one’s decisions.

Dr. Karminder Ghuman, Head of MBA Department, LM Thapar School of Management,              Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology (Deemed to be University), Patiala

Based on contents from the book: "The Art and Science of Effective and Impactful Communication" 


https://shorturl.at/x5Qo8

This book has research-based proven tools and strategies to guide professionals regarding the following aspects of communication:
  • What is Effective and Impactful Communication?
  • What makes Communication so Difficult? How to Overcome Biases and Barriers
  • Communication Apprehension
  • Communication Frameworks
  • Dimensions of Effective Communication
  • Communication Styles and Types of Communicators
  • Worldview and Communication
  • Managing Expectations
  • Silence as Communication
  • Humour and Communication
  • Emotional Intelligence and Communication
  • Empathetic Communication
  • Diplomatic Communication
  • Deception in Communication
  • Ethics and Communication
  • Personality and Communication
  • Transactional Analysis and Communication
  • Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z,  and Generation Alpha
  • Gender and Communication
  • Hearing and Listening: Process of Active Listening, Barriers to Listening
  • Mindful Listening and Self-awareness
  • Choice of Words, Shades of Meaning (Nuances), Power Words
  • Phrases, Figurative Language
  • Linguistic Style
  • Framing, Reframing, and Spin Doctrine
  • Paralinguistics: Pitch and Tone, Pace, and Pause
  • Non-Verbal Communication: Body Language, Posture, Facial Expressions, Gestures, Eye Contact, Proxemics, Haptics
  • Manners and Etiquettes, Netiquettes, Announcing Bad News and How to Say “No”
  • Relationships and Communication: Seduction and Communication, Difficult Communication within a Relationship, Reviving a Broken, Strengthening a Strained Relationship
  • Neuro-Listening Programming (NLP)
Location: India

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