In the last two weeks, KUBIK hosted two really successful and popular assertiveness workshops led by Orsi Szabó, psychologist/trainer. Her style is based on solution-oriented techniques, borrowed from the field of HR.
But what assertive communication really is?
Assertiveness is a learnable skill and mode of communication, which involves respect for the boundaries of oneself and others. Assertiveness presumes an interest in the fulfillment of needs and wants through cooperation. This skill helps to establish nonviolent communication, and later, social effectiveness. Such communication emphasizes expressing feelings forthrightly, but in a way that will not turn into aggression.
Instead of the frontal lecture style, Orsi generated real debate situations to bring the whole concept of assertiveness closer to us. In each debate, everyone had to take a stand. The discussions started as usual with normal tone, until Orsi paused the situation to demonstrate the three ways of “listening and awareness” based on our discussions: active listening, sensory awareness or assessment of attention. Building on the situations created by us, she also demonstrated a way to calm our aggressive debate partner down only with our attention.
During these workshops we got to see the effectiveness of such easy communication techniques and started to learn the proper way to use them during our everyday conflicts.