Resolution #3. Polish Your Comportment
Despite all the fancy technology in our lives, there’s nothing like person-to-person communication to help pass the torch of knowledge, overcome shyness, or make a tax-payer feel they’re really getting unquestionable value and service for their investment.
Comportment involves body language, voice tone, observation and listening skills, and a good librarian needs to become an expert in all of these to establish a sound and safe educational environment.
Regarding del.icio.us resources I mentioned in the webinar along these lines, The Non-Verbal Dictionary is shared by 242 members. Once again, it’s a resource you can use to learn how to project the proper non-verbal communication for the situation: friendly, open, alert, maybe dominant if need be?
As I mentioned in the webinar, we should consider adopting the attitude of being “performance coaches”.
In a book entitled The Winning Spirit, the famous football quarterback Joe Montana and his co-author Tom Mitchell outline 7 important roles of a performance coach. What body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice could you use to perform the following?
1.Encourage: Give power strength and confidence; supply belief; help release fear and doubt.
2.Support: Be present and available; participate and assist; reinforce and comfort.
3.Challenge: Invite reflection, growth and change; demand honesty and clarity
4.Envision: Dream and imagine; understand goals, plans and processes.
5.Inspire: Be a source of energy; give optimism, desire and will; generate enthusiasm.
6.Counsel: Be an active listener—ask essential questions, understand ideas and feelings, care deeply and take a personal interest.
7.Center: Help the patron to focus and remember; offer calm performance confidence; celebrate, evaluate and re-create.
Think about these as you peruse the Nonverbal web site. Perhaps start with their section on Hands, which the author argues are our most expressive body parts. In my Librarything collection, one of the books I use that has been shared by over 150 other members is Body Language by Julius Fast.
Remember to look inside the record for three significant features:
1.Tag Cloud - remember, the most common tags used in describing this book are in the largest Font size. Clicking on a tag will produce a list of other member books using that tag, and show you an RSS/HTML button that shows recently added books with that tag. At the top of the list now is a promising entertaining one on how to read Poker Faces!
2. Recommendations - Books of a similar orientation. Clicking on all recommendations lets you see books with similar tags, what people who have this book also have, and a few other collection criteria lists. They also have an un-recommended list, books least like this one. Strange but fun!
3. Reviews – What other members have to say about it. These can load pretty slow, have patience.
Becoming a Body language expert also involves two other skill sets I discuss in my book, Observation and Listening.
Regarding Observation skills, In the webinar I had folks do a quick observation, and talked about focusing on details of a person “from the top down”. When you are confronted with a shocking incident, reminding yourself to remember details from the top down can help you avoid repressing them. Here’s another observation exercise:Go into a crowded area and review your immediate space (30 yards) for 10-15 seconds. Then go somewhere else, use a sheet of paper and record how many people were in your observation area, how many of which gender, race, age group. What were individuals wearing, did they have glasses, approximately how tall were they? Weight? Hair color or hat? Do this several times over the course of a few days and you should see a good improvement in your observation skills.
Regarding listening skills, those resolved to improving their skills in this area should go through the Ohio Reference Excellence Module 2 for The Interview. Do the exercises for paraphrasing, open questions, clarifying, the six results of a good interview, and ending the interview.
-Ed Rossman, Interim Branch Manager for the Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments
Click here to access an archive of Ed’s webinar and a PDF of the slides he used.
