Assertive Communication Techniques

Okay Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah. I welcome all of you to new session, the skill development session brought to you by the International Open Universities corporate relationship program. And it is indeed an honor for me to talk to all of you on a very, very important topic today, which is the assertive communication techniques. Now, before we get started off, it is extremely important and critical for us to understand what do we mean by each of these term being assertive being committed? And what is communication all about? When I talk of communication? What are the things which come into your mind, what are the first things which

come into your mind when I mentioned communication. So all of this and more we will be discussing in today's session. Without further ado, I will just quickly share with you some of the key points that will be discussed in today's session, we will look into, apart from looking into the understanding of what assert Being assertive is concerned and what communication is all about. We will also be talking about what is the other side of not being assertive. See, we are all trying to be assertive, but we need to all know where we stand. Where are we right now. Because only when I know what my current state is in terms of my communication behavior, I will be able to understand where I need to

reach out to where I need to go to. So in the light of this, I'm going to now introduce the topic to you. But before I do the introduction, it's extremely important that you people connect with me as well. I do use the social media page to share important tips on many important topics relating to skill development, one of them being communication, public speaking, etc. So if you connect with me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, wherever you go, all you need to do is just type my name Monceau daanish. And you will find me I look forward to all of you joining me on the social media platform. Okay, that's enough of my self promotion. Now we'll talk about the topic, the topic that

we have for discussion today is understanding communication. First, that's the first thing that we're going to do. What is communication? Communication, if I have to understand it simply, it means the art of communicating or the Art of Letting a person know of certain actionable that he has to do. For example, if I have a bottle of water, which is kept on the table, and if I asked him not to go and get me that glass of water, that is communication, I'm communicating something to her and telling her something, get me a glass of water, there is a table there is a jar of water kept there that just tell her to get me a glass of water. So she goes to the table and she gets me a glass of

water. This is communication, I communicated certain ideas or thoughts, or I asked her for something. And she responded to me. Now, what is effective communication? I'm differentiating between the two now, I'm saying communication is on one side. And effective communication is on the other side. So what's the difference between the two? Now when we talk of effective communication, effective communication is the art

of communicating in such a manner that the person who's listening to your communication is able to respond in the manner you wanted him to when you communicated with him in the first place.

I'll explain that simply. When I asked her not to get a glass of water, she got a glass of cold water for me on the table. But I don't drink cold water. So I tell her I'm not I'm not I don't need a glass of cold water. I wanted a glass of warm water or lukewarm water. So she tells me but you did not communicate that to me clearly. So she goes to the table and then she gets me another glass of water which is supposed to be lukewarm. And I tell her why have you got me a glass of water from the blue jar? I need the glass of water from the yellow jar. So now what's happened is my communication was not effective with Omna and therefore Aamna was not able to understand the message which I was

trying to communicate and that resulted in this miscommunication. So effective communication is when the sender of the message remember in a message in a communication, there are two parties the sender and the receiver. And what is the sender sending floods? No he sent a message

When the receiver is receiving the message, so the sender sends the message

in a manner that the receiver is able to clearly understand. So I tell Hannah Omna, please get me a glass of lukewarm water from the Yellow Jug on that table.

Now, the moment I'm doing this, I'm clearly communicating with Amina, and she understands what she has to do, she doesn't have to go back and forth.

This is a simple example. But applied to this to apply this at a workplace. Imagine if in the workplace, the communications are not clear, you will keep going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, you will lose out a lot of time and patience as well.

So that's as far as communication and effective communication is concerned. Now we come to the next aspect, which is being assertive. Being assertive is a core communication skill. When I say being assertive, it means you will talk about what assertive means. But with saying it's a co communication skill, your communication is incomplete if you're not assertive. Look, we are all communicating isn't it? All of us communicates a good speaker and an average speaker and a not so good speaker. Everyone communicates whether you have the communication skills or you lack them, you're still communicating with your lack of communication skill.

And I'm telling you that assertiveness is a core communication skill. So when we talk of communication now, in this session, we're only talking about effective communication. Because our objective today is that we need to become effective communicators, we need to become powerful operators, powerful communicators. And in order to do that, I am saying that being assertive is a core communication skill. If you are assertive, if you are able to stand for what you believe in, if you're able to put your point forward with confidence, then it will help you in your self esteem. You will feel good about yourself. You will feel positive about yourself, you will feel confident

because you know you know you have that skill by which you can communicate your thoughts clearly. You can communicate your ideas clearly, you can communicate your feelings clearly. So that's as far as being assertive is concerned.

Being assertive also helps in stress management, many of us undergo stress, because we lack the ability to communicate. If I'm not able to communicate properly, my mind's going to wander here and there. If I lack the skill of communication, I will not be able to deal with issues relating to stress.

Now a workplace is the best example of stress, you are facing stress at everyday life. And being under stress is not bad. By the way, there has to be some element of stress, because stress also works positively in people. It drives you to meet your targets for the day. So being under stress is not bad. But the art of managing that stress depends on your communication skill. And I linked this to the next point, the art of saying no, if you don't know how to say no in your workplace, so your manager keeps coming and giving you additional workload one upon the other end upon the other end upon the other. And you keep saying yes, I'll do it. Yes, I'll do it. Okay, sir. Yes, yes, Boss.

What's the result of this, you've got too many things on your plate. You don't want to offend your line manager. You don't want to offend your boss, you don't want to offend your superior in this bargain, you will have taken too much of stress on your plate, you're not able to manage that stress. So communication would mean you will know how to say no to your superior. When you really have to say no. Look many a time we need to like to say pull the plug. We have to say no. Now when you say that No. How do you say it? We're going to talk about that in today's session as well. And by the way, all of this is a separate workshop dealing with stress management is a separate workshop

self esteem separate workshop communication skill, separate workshop learning the art of saying no a separate workshop and you must try and take your time out and attend these sessions. Now for those of you not been able to join us live for whatever reasons today. You will be shared the recordings from the YouTube link inshallah you can connect to the YouTube recording

things. If you are watching it in sha Allah, that's great. But you should have attended the session live. If you're listening to this in the recording mode, you probably missing out an opportunity to interact and get answers to your question. Well, nonetheless, let's move forward with that as an introduction, we are going to look at into something more now.

We'll talk about assertiveness. Now, when I talk of being assertive, before we understand assertive, let us understand what does assertive not mean. Or what does assertiveness, assertiveness, over assertiveness is because many times in trying to be assertive, we tend to become overly assertive. That is, we tend to become rude and our communication. We want to say no, but the art of saying no is lacking in us. So when we say no, it appears to be rude. It can be sometimes how disrespectful to the other person. You speak to your line manager, maybe you're speaking to your seniors, you need to know how to diplomatically say no. If you lacking that, if you're lacking courtesies, you will

appear to be a selfish person, a disrespectful person, a harsh person. And these are terminologies, but by which you will be identified in your communication skills. And it's very difficult to shed these labels, you will have to really work hard on sharing these labels and therefore my dear students who are watching the session, these skill development sessions are being brought to you so that before you embark on your career, your journey of life you know, what are the important skills that you will need in order to work in order to deal with your relationships in order to deal with your relationships at the workplace is where all of this insha Allah and more. So please take make

most of the sessions which are coming to you. Most skill development sessions are expected to come to you in the next few weeks, the semester and as we move on, there will be corporate connect sessions as well participate in the session opportunity for you to make most of it inshallah.

Okay, moving forward, Being assertive is about what so now when we talk about assertiveness, what is assertiveness, assertiveness? I start with the most important statement I said in the first slide, what was that? It's the core communication skill, effective communication. Assertiveness is about being effectively communicating with people with whom you come in contact on a day in day out basis.

What is effective communication? I gave you an example, that the sender communicates precisely what he wants to the receiver. And he uses a language which the receiver understands. And then the receiver responds in the way the sender expected him to, which means there was an effective communication.

All right. Okay. Then there's diplomatic communication. Yes. There's nothing wrong in being diplomatic. We've got diplomats in every country, isn't it? What are the rules of the diplomats, whenever there is a crisis situation, whenever there's a tense situation, a diplomatic approach to communication ensures that you're not running. You're not running on the wrong side with any of the parties, but rather, you're trying to find a mid way. You're trying to find a way where you're avoiding confrontation. But with a larger motive, the larger motive being that you want your goals to be met, you want the message to be clearly communicated and people to act upon it. You have a

team working under you, you want the team to focus on the targets, there are some confrontation happening, you need to avoid that confrontation. Now there are two levels of avoiding confrontation are two types of avoiding confrontation. One is when you're being assertive, and you're avoiding confrontation. Why? Because you're trying to find a diplomatic path by which all the parties are satisfied, and you're able to meet your objective.

The second category of avoiding communication is avoiding confrontation is when you have

you know, the other form of behaviors in communication, passive behavior, passive aggressive behavior, we're going to talk about all of them in today's session.

You're able to confidently communicate with it with your friends, your colleagues, your family members, your relationship that means you are assertive, if you're confident about the way you're communicating. If you're sure about what you communicate, if you don't end up offending people around you. People respect you for what you how you communicate. You respect the views of others.

You're aware of the rights of others, it's so critical, it's so crucial that we should be aware about the rights of the people with whom you're communicating the sensitivity surrounding the, or other sensitivities, which govern the belief systems of people, when you're communicating, you have to be a little careful about it, you don't want to end up disrespecting the individual or his beliefs, you can still make your point that is being assertive, that you still put forth your point, and you make it clear what your belief systems are. But you don't have to go into the path of criticizing someone. All right, so being assertive is to take a stand, for your point of view, stand

up for your point of view. But you don't cross the line of disrespecting someone else for a counter view, you may disagree to his opinion, does not nothing is wrong in that we can all disagree on many issues.

But this agreement and this respecting are two different things. We are separating the two today, we are saying it's okay to disagree. Why can't we not disagree and still sit on the same table and have a cup of coffee?

Why is it that a disagreement necessarily has to lead to a conflict. So therefore, being assertive also requires the willingness to work to resolve conflicts? Yes, conflicts will be there, you will face conflicts, conflicts can be avoided. By the way, in any workplace where you are, there will be conflicts, any kind of conflicts can come up, whether it's in your personal life, your relationship, friends, conflicts happen. And some conflicts can be positive. In fact, it's always good to have a little bit of conflict, because that takes out the best in the others. What's debate, in debate, you're trying to give topics, which can create conflicting views. And these conflicting views, the

way it is argued and presented, can actually improve the debating experience of the listeners. And of course of the participants who are participating as well.

So being assertive means I also work on resolving conflicts. And I'm doing that by being diplomatic. I'm doing that by speaking confidently and doing that, but taking my stand, whatever I believe in, at the same time, I'm not crossing the threshold and starting to, you know, pound on you and say that, well, your beliefs is all gone. And it's not up to the mark and you know, being disrespectful to his views. Your opinion is worthless. No, you don't go to that extent. I disagree with your views. There's nothing wrong, as I said, in disagreeing with people on the views.

Okay, let's move on.

What are the types of behavior that we will be studying today we will be looking into what is assertive behavior, passive behavior, aggressive behavior and passive and aggressive behavior. Now, there are four ways in which people are normally communicating. There are some people who are very assertive in nature. Some people who are very passive in nature, that some people are quite aggressive in nature, militant, literally in their behavior. There's some people who are a mix of both, you know, there's sometimes passive, sometimes aggressive, very moody at times, you really never know how they're going to come across. Okay? So we're going to look into all of them. Let's

start off with the assertive behavior, who or what are the characteristics of a person who is characterized as passive. When we say a person is passive generally is a shy person is a shy person, he doesn't like to, you know, take any position, he is a fence, sitter, whatever the group will decide, I'll go with them. Whatever you say is correct. Whatever you will say, I will do that. These are people who are overly easygoing. They don't want conflicts in their life. They don't want stress in their life. They don't want tensions in their life. They're too passive, too shy. They are avoiding conflict. And I call these people fence sitters. fence sitters are those who don't have an

opinion of their own. They don't have any position. If you tell them what's your position, they'll say, Well, what's your view? Okay? If you think like that, I go with you. Another group comes and says, Why are you with them? You shouldn't be with us, says, Don't worry, I'm with you. And he jumps off. And he joins another group. He has no view of his own. He's just going with whatever the group decides. Where would you like to go on a holiday? Wherever you guys decide? He doesn't have any say, Okay. He does not prioritize his own feelings and thoughts.

But he gives importance to the others. I respect your feelings. And I respect it to the point that I don't bother about my own feelings and emotions. Now.

It's not wrong. To give importance to others, you should give importance to others. Why shouldn't you, it's a good behavior. It's a good practice to give importance to people with whom you come in contact. However, it should not be at the cost of your own personal feelings. At your own personal thoughts. Have the courage to stand up for your point of view, say what you feel

without being aggressive, without being disrespectful. But if you're the opposite of all of this, then you're being very passive. Now the passive people will have issues because these passive people are now facing internal conflicts. I said, Yes. But I wanted to say No, I said, I'm going to be there. But I know I can't be there. Or I have said yes to two people at the same time, how will I be there and to see at two different places at the same time, they are facing continuous internal conflicts, such people will suffer from stress, they are suffering from stress, because they are not being able to say no, they will suffer from disappointment and resentment. Because naturally, they

are taking too many things on the plate.

And they're not happy with what they are doing. At the same time, they're not being able to say no to it. So they're absolutely in a state of resentment in a state of disappointment. You see, they don't smile there all the time stressful, they're all the time worried you're thinking. They're seething anger from within, you know, the anger is within I want to show my anger, but I control my anger. Why? Because I'm passive, I don't want to be seen of as a person who's very aggressive. So now again, he's seething anger from within, he feels I'm being victimized. You know, I'm the poor cow here, who's being victimized. Alright, the person may even have a vengeful nature, who might

want to take revenge with those with whom he is not being able to communicate effectively. So he feels that others are trying to corner him. So he has that vengeful nature from within, he may try to harm you in some other ways. And he's also unsure of his own judgment, he doesn't know what decision to take in life, he's unsure, should I go here? Should I not go here. That's why we said these guys are fence sitters. They like to go with the group, they follow the group mentality. So that's as far as passive behavior is concerned. Next up, we have what is called the aggressive behavior. People characterized with aggressive behavior or aggression, are normally seen as bullies,

you know, they keep bullying people, you will find that they will ignore the needs of others. They're not bothered about what you feel. They're not at all concerned about your opinions and thoughts. It's only about me, self righteous attitude, selfish, superiority complex. Such people can be very intimidating in nature, they can sometimes even physically threaten others, because they are aggressive, they are overtly aggressive. Now, one has to be extremely careful that if he or she has such an attitude, then this is also not the right approach. being passive is not good. Nor being aggressive is good. Because you will be seen as a bully.

You will be looked down upon in the society because you're a person who thinks you are the best, and everyone is good for nothing.

Now, aggressive behavior will come at a cost. If you're aggressive. People will not trust you understand the fallouts they lack faith in you, they lack trust in you, there will be no mutual respect because you're not respecting them. Don't expect respect in return from them either.

Aggression will lead to others resenting the aggressor, what will happen to those who are coming in contact with you, they resent you that disappointed with you, they don't like you, they will start will start complaining against you, they'll oppose you, they will avoid you, you will find that these guys may end up becoming loners.

So being passive is an extreme. being aggressive is the other extreme. We've looked at both of them.

Now we're talking about being assertive. But before we come to that, we'll talk about under the quality which is a mix of two that is the passive aggressive behavior. There are some people who have both qualities they are passive, as well as aggressive, such people who are passive and aggressive. You will see that they wanted to say yes, but they end up saying no or they wanted to say no and this is

They're saying yes, they're confused. And because of this confusion, they you will find that they are complainers, you will find that they're often complaining behind others, they will say that you know what, again, victimization behavior that's coming from passive behavior, right? They are so caustic because they have that bit of aggression in them, but their aggression is being controlled by the passive nature. So what happens is they start being sarcastic to others, they start complaining behind others, that's the maximum that they can do with their aggression.

They avoid confrontation. Remember, I said avoiding confrontation in assertive behavior as well. But over here, when they are avoiding confrontation, they're doing it but they're also holding negative feelings and within. So there is negative feelings within these people within which is a cause of concern. Furthermore, people act difficult when they have passive aggressive behavior. The reason being that they are really no way you know that they're not taking any particular position. They're not taking any particular side. So that is the reason for the sin. Okay, moving on.

And someone is unmuted, please mute yourself, please check your mic. If you're unmuted, kindly mute yourself. Thank you so much.

Okay, then we have what is called being assertive. Now, before I discuss being assertive once more, I have a reminder for all of you. And the reminder is that you can connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and LinkedIn. By doing this, you will be able to share your views with me if you have any questions or queries on communication skills, techniques, etc. Interested in any workshops, etc. One on One workshops, group workshops, so on and so forth, you can get in touch with me. So please do connect with me on social media. If you're on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook, I'm there in all of these platforms, you can get in touch with me. Okay, let's get started

with the last bit. The whole objective of covering today was how do I become assertive? So let us understand what are the firstly, what are the benefits of being assertive. Being assertive helps you in gaining self confidence. It helps you and your self esteem.

You see, as I mentioned to you good effective communication leads to confidence building, you're confident about yourself, you're positive, this is going to give you that self confidence to take on new tasks, new projects, whereas others are still thinking whether we should take the next big move, the ones who are assertive, they take the next big move, they take risks, why they take risk, because they're confident about themselves. They have a self esteem, and they work towards building that self esteem. They work towards sustaining that surface team. They know that if they are too critical, too harsh, too rude, their own esteem is going to take a hit their own self respect will

take a hit. So these people are assertive, who have a self esteem and they work towards that. They gain a sense of empowerment. Trust me, my spected students and friends and colleagues and whoever you are listening to the session today, it gives you a sense of empowerment. Communication, makes you feel that you're the king of the world. Okay, when I say king of the world, we mean King with the small key Alright, so please don't come pouncing on me what did I mean when I said king of the world. It simply means you feel that you can just go anywhere, talk to people communicate with people, you're confident about yourself, you go to a mall and trust me there are some people who

walk into a mall but they're too scared to even talk to a salesperson which the to shy. But being assertive, they're able to talk you're not worried because you know where your esteem is, she you know yourself very well you know, you know you know how to use the right choice of words, you are a good communicator, that gives you the sense of empowerment.

So, there are so many kinds of empowerment which are there. There are some people who are talking about

you know, women empowerment, and, and so on. And so for them, there's so many different categories of empowerment. I'm talking about empowerment through communication, master the art of public speaking, mastered the art of communication, trust me, you will feel confident, you will feel that sense of empowerment, you will feel that you can go ahead and talk to 1000s of people at the same time.

I started at some place right when I started communicating at a public level at a public scale.

I never had a prior experience. I was not even a trained speaker at one point of time. So therefore I could never even think of going up and speaking, but post my training as a speaker, initial days used to be a little nervous, you know, initial period of time, the first year, year and a half, two years, I used to be a little nervous, but hamdulillah over a period of time, as you keep talking and talking and talking and you get more assignments, more projects where you are invited to come and speak, you slowly build your confidence, building confidence, and being

self righteous are two different things. You good to be self confident, but it's not good to have self righteous attitude, then you become an aggressor. So we avoid that. Now, assertive will also help you recognize your own feelings. Remember, we said that the passive person is not thinking about his own feelings and thoughts

is all the time worried about the others is trying to make others happy, but less than your own happiness is equally important. So by being assertive, you're able to also put forward your thoughts, your feelings on a subject matter, you're able to recognize the importance of your own feelings, as they say, the best care is self care. Yeah, so when you say I am taking time for myself, the best time that you can take out for yourself is look after your own feelings. Look after your own thoughts. Apart from looking after your own health, looking after your own emotions, you also have to look after your self esteem, your self confidence, your own feelings, your own skills,

and you build on these skills. These are life skills. That's why we call these skill development sessions a life skill when the promos went out to all of your students are listening to the session. And I'm extremely annoyed with many of you not joining the session live, only a handful of you have joined the session live. And unfortunately or other, it's good to see the same names joining again and again. Unfortunately, I am disappointed that the other students have not taken time out to participate in such a session. It's your own benefit, you know, they're the ones attend the sessions, they benefit. You're the chosen ones who are attending the session today. You have been

chosen, chosen by Allah subhanaw taala you're here to make most of your skills, work on these skills in sha Allah, it will be helpful for those of you are listening to the recording. Please if you have any questions do get in touch with me to the platforms we have shared. Furthermore, assertiveness helps earning respect from others. People will say that this person has some self respect, he stands up for what he believes in, he has his own point of view, people respect you. It helps also improve your communication skill. Because communication is a continuous cycle. You have to keep working on it and on and on and on and on. You can just feel that I have now mastered it haulers I can just sit

idle. And don't worry about it. No, you have to work on improving your communication skills. Some more benefits of being assertive is that it gives you a win win situation. negotiation. When you're negotiating with people across the table, you're looking at a win win situation where I don't want the person communicating with me or who's on the other side to feel offended or to feel that I'm disadvantaging him. So in a win win situation, through assertive behavior, I look at my feelings. At the same time I'm not disregarding or disrespecting the feeling of the others. So I'm trying to create a win win situation. We're working on improving our decision making skills. We're working on

creating long lasting and mutually beneficial relationship, healthy relationships, honest relationships. communicating with each other on a continuous basis, through assertive means will allow people to know what exactly your feelings and thoughts are. You're not holding on to your feelings. Whatever you feel you share with people.

It helps you gain job satisfaction. If you're at a workplace and you are communicating assertively, it helps you in job satisfaction as well. Okay, so my next question is, how do we become more assertive, I have few tips. I'm going to run you through these steps. Now, the first step to being more assertive and this is the last slide. So we will go through them one by one. First and foremost that you have to do this is an exercise and I want you to make a note of this. All of you are attending this session. Okay, make a note of it right now. The first step that you have to do is why ask yourself, Do I voice my opinion, or do I remain silent?

Remember, we're trying to do an introspection to find out what is my style? Am I passive? Aggressive? Am I passive and aggressive? Both? Or am I assertive? Let's first understand where you are, before you will become an assertive speaker or an assertive communicator. First no way you are maybe you are an aggressor. So you need to know where you need to now watch your language Watch your words, watch your styles.

So assess your style. Ask yourself, Do I say yes to any additional work which comes on my table? Even when my schedule is full? Which means I'm struggling to say no. I haven't learned the art of saying no and assertive people do know how to say no.

Are you judgmental about others?

Remember, the passive aggressive person or the passive person is being judgemental about others? Do people seem to dread talking to you? Which basically means are you an aggressor? Are you coming across as an aggressor?

Because the person who's an aggressor, no one wants to talk to him. Remember, we said everyone wants to avoid him? Everyone wants to oppose him. So is it that people are avoiding you people dread talking to you. If the answers to these are yes, you will clearly know which side of the

communication behavior you fall in.

Okay, moving on

to the second tip that we have for being assertive. Use the eyes statements. letting others know about your feeling is not wrong. But when I say letting others know about your feeling, we're talking about feelings from a professional perspective. Now you don't sit down with people and start sharing your personal rules and problems and feelings. No, we're talking more from a professional point of view. So there's nothing wrong if you're sharing your feelings or your thoughts. By being assertive. Remember, we said the ones who was assertive, they give importance to their own feelings as well. While they don't disrespect the others, they don't disregard the others, but they give

importance to their feeling. Therefore, you will see the people who are assertive they tend to use the I word more. And therefore I'm advising you say things like I disagree with you, instead of saying you are wrong.

Now the moment I say you are wrong, I'm pointing fingers at the person.

But if I say I disagree,

I am not I'm taking it upon myself. I'm taking responsibility of my own opinions and views. I'm not disrespecting the person on the other side of the table.

Now, I have said so many things in the last few minutes. Some of you may have disagreed to that.

Some of you may feel that I don't agree to this at all. And if you turn around and tell me, you are wrong, that's a strong statement. Because You're disregarding on this suspecting my knowledge, which I'm sharing with you, but if you say I disagree with you on this, that means you are the person who's trying to say that that look, I disagree with you. You may be correct. from your own perspective, I have my own perspective as well.

Okay.

All right. Some of you are sharing some messages in the group. Let me just quickly go to that. I guess we missed the session as wrong link was shared with us. Okay, I'm not too sure about this. But anyhow, we will continue with our discussion. I disagree. Instead of saying you're wrong, I would like to help you with this. Instead of being very

what you call aggressive and saying you need to do this. When I say you need to do this, I'm coming across as a very bossy person, sometimes very close to being a bully. That means I'm showing too much of aggression. So I'm telling you that the second tip is that you need to use the eyes statements often taking responsibility of what you're saying. That's what I statement is all about. When I say you are wrong, I'm putting the entire blame on your statements. Whatever you said is wrong. When I say I disagree, I'm not saying that you're wrong. All I'm trying to say is that I have a different set of thoughts, beliefs, value systems, and I disagree because of that. Similarly, I

can also instead of saying you need to do this, I can say I would like you to help. I would like to help you on how to do this matter. So what happens is you're still

getting your matter addressed. But you're just changing your choice of words. The way you frame your sentences is so critical in communication. You're coming

negation can become powerful. And just the way you say or use the choice of words. Okay?

The third tip that we have, and we have about six of them. So we're going to run through, we're not going to run to the middle, take it easy. Okay? Third tip is learning the art of seeing a no, practice it practice to say, No, I cannot do that. Now. If somebody comes and put something on your table, and you know that you're full, you really can't take on additional responsibility, say no. Because if you don't say no, how will the other know that you are available? Or you're not available? is you're not saying no, in any of the times, I'm going to think that you're available all the time. For me, I am on my job to be done. If you don't say no, that's good. For me, at least

I can push you to get my work done.

But you have to practice no, I cannot do that now. And no is a complete sentence in itself. It doesn't require any further explanation. You don't have to say no, I cannot do that. Because you know, what has happened is that so and so Jack and Jill had gone up to the hill to fetch a pail of water, and Jack has fallen down and broken his crown And Jill is going to come tumbling after. So I have to go and address to Jack and Jill. You don't have to go around saying all of that. No is a complete sentence doesn't require further explanation. However, if it does give a brief explanation, so you don't have to go around with the long stories of Jack and Jill, you can keep it short give a

brief explanation. No, I can't do this. I'm a little tied up I've got too many things which is come up on my table too many deadlines. If this if this task can wait till another two weeks I can take on it. Otherwise I'll have to say no to you avoid too much of elaboration. Okay, avoid the Jack and Jill story.

Okay, use body language communication. And this is a separate workshop altogether. Body language is so critical. The Albert Mehrabian model we talked about that communication is more than verbal language. In today's session, when I have been communicating with you, I have been carefully using the tone of my message, I have been changing the tones of the message. Depending upon which aspect of my message is important. Which aspect of my message doesn't really require too much of tone modulation, I can just push through them. All of this happens to practice, practice and practice. And you need to get yourself trained as a speaker because you need someone to guide you on how to do

all this. Look, the content, the message is important. But it's not the everything. I'll tell you honestly, there are people who will just pick up a piece of paper, and they will just simply read through their speech. They might use a lot of body language, but it's looking at a piece of paper and reading through. And such people are very boring, very dull, not good communicators. It's good to have your points on your table. It's good to know the content that you have to speak. However, you have to understand the importance of body language. Body language is a very powerful tool, the way your hand gestures move the eyes you know, your eyes stalk.

You sometimes you will see your eyes become you enlarge your eyes. You know, you look stared at people when you're talking to them. Look, be careful. You know, you open your eyes, you want to make them know that this is something serious. Okay, oftentimes you're smiling and your eyes are also smiling. Alright. So, these are nonverbal behavior, gestures, body language tones, extremely important. In fact, you will be surprised to know that Albert Mehrabian did his study on communication. And he identified three important aspects to communication. He said that communication is incomplete without these three, the content, the most important thing, the content,

the second gestures, body language, and the third tones. And guess how much of weightage is given to all three. All three are important. Your message should include all three, the content, the body language and the tone. But he says that verbal behavior which is the message only carries 7% weightage doesn't mean that it's not important it is important. Without that everything is zero. But the message in and of itself can only communicate the message effectively by 7%. The rest of the 93% is coming through tones and gestures 38% to tones and 55% to body language

That's all important body languages.

Okay, so again, work on your body language. Don't be an aggressive board, you know person with an aggressive body language, people who are aggressive the you will see that the hands tend to be always the palms are facing downward, which means they are more like teachers, or, well, I don't say teachers aggressors. But what I mean to say is that they are more controlling in nature aggressors are those who try to control situations. Now, when you're talking to people who are younger to you, or who are junior, who are subordinates of yours, you may tend to use this body language, there's nothing wrong in that. But based on situations, you might want to change your body language. When

the teacher is talking to the students. She's Conveying her topic, her study her research work, she talks with a palm facing downward because she's disseminating information.

But when she's done with all of that, she opens up a palm of her hand towards the class and says, Do you have any questions come forward and ask your question. So the body language has to keep changing, depending upon the situation you are in.

The fifth tip that we have is to rehearse to practice what you have to say, you are learning to be assertive. Don't put yourself into a situation where you just go blank out assertive and it turns out to be aggressive. Practice. Practice makes a man perfect is a very famous old adage. I think it makes a woman perfect as well. Okay, so the gender neutral lies this quotation and we say practice makes a person Perfect. Okay. But the original quotation says practice makes a man perfect. And a woman as well. Practice, rehearse yourself. You see the greatest of boxers, and wrestlers and sports personalities, they spend more time practicing than performing, because performance is only for few

minutes. But for that success in that few minutes, you have to put in hours and hours of practice and days and weeks and months of practice.

So that's how you learn to become assertive as well. Watch out for your slip ups. When you're practicing. When you're rehearsing in front of the mirror, repeat your communication, see where you're making the mistake, record yourself and see where you're going wrong.

Keep your emotions in check, engage in reading exercises, sometimes what happens is we tend to get anxious, Don't get anxious, relax, calm yourself. Breathe. They say breathing is a good exercise. It allows to get your emotions back in check, you know back in place. Don't take do not make things personal. Don't think people are out there personally trying to settle scores with you. The worst thing that you can do in communication is a zoom, that the whole world is planning and plotting against you. That's the last thing that you can do. So act more than you react. That is the message. When I say keep your emotions in check, don't react act. But before you act, as they say, Think

before you act. So you need to think you need to practice you need to rehearse, you need to understand if I say this, or if I act in a certain manner. What can be the possible outcome of that? Am I going to be too rude? Am I being a little passive? So you choose your emotions initially practice. Practice yourself, okay.

All right. This should have been Tip number seven, but we've gone up to tip one. Let me just correct that.

Okay, so now the last tip that we have is to start small, you know, you need to identify low risk situations, apply the tips that I have been sharing with you today. You don't have to become assertive overnight. I told you it's not a one overnight business. You know, I have attended a course skill development session.

Next year Alhamdulillah become assertive. I can go around saying no to everyone. And I can start being you know, self confident and my self esteem shoots up. No, it doesn't happen that way. Gradually practicing. There is a thin line between aggression and assertiveness. Choose your path carefully. In trying to be over excited, you may jump over from assertiveness to aggression. You have to be careful. You have to watch your path carefully. Okay. All right. So that's what we had. Now in conclusion, I want to say that smile is also a powerful communication tool. Use smile. Use your smile effectively when you're communicating with others. Smiling can also make important

messages go through or difficult messages understood easily.

Use positive emphasis statements. Remember when I was saying that the way you choose your words, your vocabulary, your sentences, your diplomatic approach is going to make you assertive or non assertive. So use positive emphasis statements. I have not done this work is sounding negative. But if you say,

I will get this work done by tomorrow night.

My apologies for the delay. So both aspects have been covered, your apology has been covered. At the same time you've given another deadline.

Learn the email etiquette all of your students should know how to write an email today letter writing an email writing are two different things. Social media WhatsApp typing and email typing are two different things. Some of you, my dear students send me messages and emails where the entire content is drafted in the subject line. Do you know that and and I refuse to read such emails, I just reply back we send the proper email,

learn the email etiquette. Take workshops on that if you don't know all that there's a separate workshop. In fact, we have already done a workshop on email etiquette. I don't know whether we did it with the alumni or not. But we certainly did a similar workshop with our students at the IOU, maybe the alumni are still to do a course on that. But yes, you need to learn the email etiquette at your workplace today, when you join, they don't expect you to learn email etiquette at the workplace, they expect you to have already known how to write basic emails today. So you should know how to write an email, greetings in an email, using the right choice of words, giving a clear

explanation as to why you've written an email, putting the subject line ending the mail with proper regards. Okay, avoid the use of too many short forms. I said that because

the WhatsApp culture has made us some people who are using too many short forms. Don't do that in your communications. Okay. Now, of course, we've been talking about verbal communication today, not written communication. But in your written communication. Since we spoke of email etiquette, avoid using short forms when you send out meals, etc. All right. And lastly, connect with me again, third time I'm asking you all people, if you have any queries, you know where to get in touch with me, you can connect with me on Facebook and Twitter, and LinkedIn any way you wish to connect with me. And I'm available for any questions right now. So we're going to open up the Forum. Thank you so much

for joining the session, I can see a few things which have come up on the chat box. Let me read through this.

I guess we missed the session because the wrong link was shared with us. Subhanallah, the they just shared the Zoom link and we're waiting on YouTube. I am not too sure on how the wrong link was shared, because I recall sharing exactly the correct zoom link with

the person. But anyhow, we will check on that.

All right. What else is there on the chatbox is sincere apologies. The meeting link for changing the meeting link from YouTube link was never shared with the students. It was not supposed to be shared with the student. It was supposed to be a private meeting on Zoom. And it was supposed to be privately recorded on YouTube and then shared in public. So I think there was a mistake. It's okay. It's already happened. We'll be more careful in sha Allah next time. But if you have any questions, please go ahead. Raise your hand if you have any question. And I'm going to invite you to ask your question. So please go ahead. If you have any questions, raise your hand. For those of you who have

been listening to the session entirely.

Please go ahead.

Just like BarakAllahu li QC, thank you so much for taking the time out in attending the session. Thank you to all of you who attended the session, you sort of require the new routine.

Both tell you, all of you who have attended the session, Sally, so please go ahead. Ask a question.

Yes, whether Sally so please unmute yourself and ask a question.

Okay.

Can you hear me? Yes, I can.

So apologies even though I'm actually just listening to that, but as I'm driving.

I have one question. Then if you make, I don't know. So that's

my question goes about like,

how thin is the line between trying to be assertive

and sometimes becoming aggressive.

Yeah, that's about five, five centimeter. Okay.

So that question

so that's what now my suggestion is about

to change the timing for the session

Alhamdulillah. We know for those who have been attending, etc, we know it's a gift.

Some sometimes you wonder where you're acting like, how do you just get there?

But I came to think that maybe, sometimes we can session.

Not so like, how would I say not so convenient for a lot of people? Because, you know, we can get really well we could get thrown around to a lot of things and what? So, I'm thinking maybe next time, we're going to have a session, which you got. I added the Aisha quite a few sections and identity sometimes more attended, maybe, depending on the concern, though, but because sometimes you heard them during the weekdays. I want to believe maybe it also has something to do with that. Because sometimes even when you're working in the office, they realize with you don't get in, okay, let me join this. Compared to weekend. That's one. The other one is regarding the flyer that has

more to do with the IE two.

I one of my colleagues one time actually like, oh, he saw me post a flyer about the email, something I think he had or something I can't remember the session before this one. But he was so interested in watching the recorded, you know, so I actually like tell him okay, sorry, I have to get Clarence and you know, because one, that session was said he was that for AG, you know, in the flyer, he said the title then for I E I O U Alumni Association. So that's one Secondly, he's also a non Muslim, you know, so, I was thinking if we can share publicly, maybe we need to adjust how we do the flyers or something. I don't know.

Okay.

All right. Thanks, brother Silas, for your thoughts that you shared. Let me firstly, start off with the first question that you asked which was regarding how thin is the difference between being aggressive and being assertive. As I told you, it's a very thin line, you're treading on a very thin pot and when I say we are treading on a tin pot, it means your choice of words will make a difference. Your emotional reactions will make a difference Remember, I told you to ask the question, Am I judgmental about the other so you need to assess and ask yourself, do you become judgmental about others because people who are reactive, they are judgmental about others, they feel

that oh okay. So and so's written such and says such thing. So they're probably trying to be you know, trying to settle scores with me. So you need to ask these questions to yourself point number one, point number two, assertiveness requires you to have the confidence, confidence and being overconfidence is the difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness. People who are aggressive are overconfident. They tend to look down upon people people who are assertive they don't look down upon people that this is a thing of your heart. You need to ask yourself do you look down upon people? Now if you say that you don't look down upon your people that you need to ask yourself am I

using the right choice of words?

If you say yes I'm using the right choice of words then I have to ask you have you have you checked the tone of your message is your tone right? Because it could be that everything is going right but your tone is not right. Your tone itself is sound making you appear harsh alright. So these are certain things that you will have to check again as I said check assess yourself first where you are and things can proceed from there on now coming to the second thing which is on the timing of the security of this workshop. I am honestly also exploring you know I did change the time this time around previous sessions I used to start at seven o'clock

seven o'clock India time where I was earlier now I'm in the UAE and so we decided to do it at 730 UAE time so I'm also trying to check the timings Alright, so I'm also doing that bit through these sessions. I want to see how many people are turning up for the sessions. So inshallah we will keep this in mind inshallah Allah next time around to try out the different time zones.

Of course we

One option is to take polls and I think the I can do that the Alumni Association and do that the timezone we have changed. I mean, as far as I'm concerned with the I've never done a session on a Sunday, so at least as far as my sessions are concerned, they will either happen on a Friday or a Saturday. This is the first time I've done a session on a Sunday, because the Friday and Saturday over here in the UAE itself is a holiday and Sunday is an extended holiday. So I wanted to share the extended holiday with all of you. But again, we will keep trying out different time zones. I think Brad solace Uzziah and Hamlet is here as well so they can insha Allah work out something and get

back to us Inshallah, as far as anything else bread salsa, you shed is a is that all Did I cover all the things that you asked for?

And if there are any further questions, please let me know. Okay.

I think just the last one.

However,

I said just the last one, which I said regarding the flyer,

joint, non IE, you know, or get the link for the recordings so that they can do so.

So

what

So what you can do for this session is that this session will be released on YouTube insha Allah and the session is being recorded, as soon as it is released on YouTube share the link with your friend as well. But as far as future sessions are concerned that we will have a mix of both sessions, so most of my sessions, I'm trying to keep it exclusively for the students of IU and for the alumni. Alright, my objective is to focus only on the students and the alumni. However, we can have general courses as well. And Inshallah, when we have the general courses they can attend. I know that some of the courses which we do for the alumni, I have categorically instructed the alumni team not to

release it on YouTube because I just want the alumni to benefit from it. There has to be some exclusivity, okay, there's something which is only because you are people from IOU students from IOU but I'll take your feedback in mind brother Sally Sue and insha Allah Allah we can try to work out on accommodating people, but we will have to see okay, we will have to see which course that is and based on that we can accommodate. Inshallah, thank you so much for that feedback as well. As far as the flyers are concerned, I mean, the changes and all which you're seeing, again, goes back to the same thing, it has to be a decision which we have to take, we will Inshallah, work on that

BarakAllahu Li. Now anyone else has a question, please raise your hand. I'm just seeing what's written on the chat box. Reader says we missed a major part of the session when will we get the recording, you will get the recording it will come up on YouTube if you're already subscribed to the IOU YouTube channel. And remember to ring the bell, the notification bell so you very soon you will get a notification saying the videos released. What exactly BarakAllahu Li is SR kya for your feedback. May Allah subhanaw taala make it beneficial whatever is good and brings is from Allah subhana wa Tada and whatever has missed its point or was not to be said or spoken. It is from my own

personal weakness and we seek forgiveness for that.

Okay. All feedbacks are coming in. Can I have the email address? The email address? So can we get my email address? Yeah, sure, you can. My email address is CRP dot head at I O U taught edu.jm. That's my professional mail ID you can get in touch with me.

Yes, I know we are trying to have a good communication cause developed for the alumni. The only thing is that we will have to work out on how to do it alright. Because there are so many aspects of communication when I was taking you through the slides Didn't I tell you this itself is a separate course and negotiation and learning the audio signal? There are so many sub parts to the communication course. So we will have to do a bit of brainstorming on that. But inshallah Donna, we will certainly come up with something. All right, I don't see any other hands raised. So I take it there are no further questions. I would like to thank you for taking your time out and attending the

session on a Sunday evening. Please enjoy the weekend or whatever is left of the weekend with your families and your friends. And remember us all in your two hours. With that we will conclude the session remember please join me on social media connect with me. My email address is already shared in the chat box Subhanak Allahumma Behanding a sugar learn I learned the stuffer to be like

Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh