The formal interview: effective face to face communications. (Checklist 096).

This checklist is designed to enable you to communicate more effectively face to face.

Management Standards

This checklist has relevance to the MSC National Occupational Standards for Management: Key Roles C and D--Manage People and Manage Information.

Definition

Within the organisation, communications can be upwards, with your own boss or other senior staff; downwards, with junior staff who work for you or for other managers; or sideways, with colleagues. Externally, face to face communications cover a range of encounters, from those with suppliers or clients to those with colleagues from similar organisations or competitors.

Action checklist

1. Clarify the purpose of the communication and its expected outcome

Work out what you expect to achieve from the encounter. Distinguish between your long term goal (for example to ensure that a major project is delivered on time and within budget) and what you expect to achieve from the particular meeting. This will provide a benchmark against which to judge whether the communication was effective. It will also provide a marker for when you should end the meeting.

2. Work out which aspects of the encounter you can, and should, plan in advance

Decide how much of the communication you can plan in advance. Do this where the outcome is known and critical, and needs to be unambiguous. This includes key contract meetings with clients or suppliers, disciplinary interviews with junior staff or critical progress meetings with senior staff. Only take an unstructured approach where the purpose of the communication is to seek information or to counsel.

3. Plan your use of space

Create and maintain a distance between you and the other person that is conducive to relaxed communication--too close and you will be intimidating; too far away and you will be threatening. If you need to compete, negotiate or argue, take up a position opposite the other person. If you need cooperation, sit side by side. For counselling or eliciting information, a neutral position at 90 degrees to the other person is best. Be wary of using your desk as an artificial barrier to reinforce your status.

4. Set a time limit

Be realistic and set a time limit within which you can reasonably expect to achieve your planned outcome. With open-ended communications, such as counselling interviews, discuss the timing with the interviewee first. Don't arbitrarily end a communication.

5. Ensure you are in the right role to achieve the outcome you want

Assume the role you need to secure your outcome, such as tutor, adviser, boss or salesperson. Do this consciously and don't slip into another role during the meeting or allow yourself to be led into one. Ensure you select the role that is appropriate: don't attempt to discipline someone if you have assumed the role of friendly adviser. Only change roles if the outcome you are seeking changes during the communication.

6. Create rapport before you begin

Smile: don't launch into your pitch immediately. Find out how the respondent is feeling and ask friendly questions to encourage the flow of information before setting out your own case. Assume junior staff will be inhibited even if they appear at ease: try to establish that you are a pleasant person to do business with.

7. Adopt the right tone

Use a tone that is appropriate to the role you need to play without appearing artificial. If you are seeking information, be relaxed, open and warm; if you are conducting a disciplinary interview be firm and business-like. Be wary of using the wrong tone or style or you will send a confused message to the listener.

8. Set the right scene

Begin by quickly providing background to the encounter and summarising previous meetings or conversations. Ask for an update or new information and avoid second-guessing what the other person will say. Present your own case openly and don't be devious or clever. Aim to concentrate both sides' minds on the intellectual issues before progressing to remedial action and a solution to the problem.

9. Understand how the values, attitudes and expectations of the other person will affect the outcome

Be aware of the other person's reference point. How do they view the issue and what barriers will this throw up to you achieving the outcome? Understand their values but be wary of introducing prejudice and assuming that all employees in a certain category will view an issue the same way.

10. Understand and manage the pressures brought to the interview by both sides

Be aware of the possible concerns the other person might bring to the encounter which could block progress: about their competence to do a job, their own career prospects, what colleagues might think, or whether they might be asked to rush a job and compromise on quality. Recognise and face up to the pressures on you: the need to be acting fairly, legal requirements, deadlines and time pressures.

11. Use the right skills to achieve the outcome you want

Strike the right balance between asking open questions at the beginning to elicit information and specific questions to tie down details. Be alive to the other person's non-verbal signals and use them to check that your questions are being understood and correctly interpreted. Use signals and gestures yourself to reinforce your message and convey shades of attitude and expression.

12. Manage the interview towards an outcome

Actively steer the encounter toward a conclusion. Use closed questions to check your understanding and assumptions. Identify the main points the other person has made and use their words to summarise the key conclusions.

13. Once you've achieved your original objective, stop!

If you have set a clear objective for the meeting and you have achieved it, stop. Don't dilute the impact of what you have said by straying on to another agenda or reviewing the content of the meeting. Being tightly focused on the outcome of a communication will gain you time and effectiveness.

Dos and don'ts for the formal interview

Do

* Get your timing right and adjust to the other person's rhythms of speech--otherwise you risk appearing either hesitant or overly brusque.

* Be aware of the impact of your own body language, posture, gestures and non-verbal signals--only a small portion of understanding comes from words.

* Put yourself in the position of the other person before you begin speaking--imagine what effect your words will have and what barriers exist to their being understood.

Don't

* Set an over-ambitious agenda for a face to face meeting--you will confuse the other person and finish without achieving any of your objectives.

* Adopt the wrong role or style for an encounter or allow yourself to be led into one that is inappropriate.

Useful reading Dialogue at work, Nancy M Dixon London: Lemos and Crane, 1998 Successful communication at work in a week, John Macdonald and Steve Tanner London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1998 Corporate communication, 2nd ed, Paul A Argenti Boston, Mass: Irwin/McGraw Hill, 1998 Corporate communication : principles techniques and strategies, Sandra Oliver London: Kogan Page, 1997 Gower handbook of internal communication, Eileen Scholes Aldershot: Gower, 1997 Say it straight : or you'll show it crooked, Abe Wagner London: Industrial Society, 1996

Related checklists

* Handling effective meetings

* Effective communications: communicating with groups

Thought starters

* What role do other people normally expect you to play in face to face encounters--is it always the right one to achieve the outcome you want?

* Which communications are you least comfortable with? Which skills do you need to develop to reinforce your confidence in handling them?

Further information

Checklists are available in the following formats:

* Individual checklists.

* A complete set of 175 on CD-ROM or in hard copy.

* Checklists with permission to photocopy.

Full details of the range of checklists that are available can be obtained from:

Lavis Marketing, 73, Lime Walk, Headington, Oxford, OX3 7AD Tel: 0845 702 3736 (local call rate) Fax: +44 1865 750079 or from Checkpoint on the Chartered Management Institute's website at www.managers.org.uk