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| Improve Your Communication Skills |
| by Kellie Fowler & James Manktelow |
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Regardless of what business you are in – a large corporation, a small company, or even a home-based business – effective communication skills are essential for success. The articles in this section of Mind Tools help you to understand effective communication, and then show you how to communicate your message in the best possible way. After completing this section, you should have a better understanding of how to communicate effectively – to individuals and groups, via spoken communications, written communications, and even electronic communications.
The additional resources found elsewhere on the Mind Tools web site further support these articles. These include other important sections that help you be the best you can be, courses, book reviews, additional resources and more. Take a look around this Communications Skills section of the Mind Tools web site, and then take the time to view other sections, all researched and written by the Mind Tools staff who share a strong commitment to helping you achieve lifelong success and happiness. |
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| • Introduction - Why Communications Skills Are So Important |
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The purpose of communication is to get your message across to others. This is a process that involves both the sender of the message and the receiver. This process leaves room for error, with messages often misinterpreted by one or more of the parties involved. This causes unnecessary confusion and counter productivity. In fact, a message is successful only when both the sender and the receiver perceive it in the same way.
By successfully getting your message across, you convey your thoughts and ideas effectively. When not successful, the thoughts and ideas that you convey do not necessarily reflect your own, causing a communications breakdown and creating roadblocks that stand in the way of your goals – both personally and professionally.
In a recent survey of recruiters from companies with more than 50,000 employees, communication skills were cited as the single more important decisive factor in choosing managers. The survey, conducted by the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Business School, points out that communication skills, including written and oral presentations, as well as an ability to work with others, are the main factor contributing to job success. In spite of the increasing importance placed on communication skills, many individuals continue to struggle with this, unable to communicate their thoughts and ideas effectively – whether in verbal or written format. This inability makes it nearly impossible for them to compete effectively in the workplace, and stands in the way of career progression.
Getting your message across is paramount to progressing. To do this, you must understand what your message is, what audience you are sending it to, and how it will be perceived. You must also weigh-in the circumstances surrounding your communications, such as situational and cultural context. |
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| • Communications Skills - The Importance of Removing Barriers |
Communication barriers can pop-up at every stage of the communication process (which consists of sender, message, channel, receiver, feedback and context - see the diagram below) and have the potential to create misunderstanding and confusion.
To be an effective communicator and to get your point across without misunderstanding and confusion, your goal should be to lessen the frequency of these barriers at each stage of this process with clear, concise, accurate, well-planned communications. We follow the process through below:
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Sender |
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To establish yourself as an effective communicator, you must first establish credibility. In the business arena, this involves displaying knowledge of the subject, the audience and the context in which the message is delivered. You must also know your audience (individuals or groups to which you are delivering your message). Failure to understand who you are communicating to will result in delivering messages that are misunderstood.
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Message |
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Next, consider the message itself. Written, oral and nonverbal communications are effected by the sender’s tone, method of organization, validity of the argument, what is communicated and what is left out, as well as your individual style of communicating. Messages also have intellectual and emotional components, with intellect allowing us the ability to reason and emotion allowing us to present motivational appeals, ultimately changing minds and actions.
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Channel |
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Messages are conveyed through channels, with verbal including face-to-face meetings, telephone and videoconferencing; and written including letters, emails, memos and reports.
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Receiver |
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These messages are delivered to an audience. No doubt, you have in mind the actions or reactions you hope your message prompts from this audience. Keep in mind, your audience also enters into the communication process with ideas and feelings that will undoubtedly influence their understanding of your message and their response. To be a successful communicator, you should consider these before delivering your message, acting appropriately.
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Feedback |
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Your audience will provide you with feedback, verbal and nonverbal reactions to your communicated message. Pay close attention to this feedback as it is crucial to ensuring the audience understood your message.
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Context |
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The situation in which your message is delivered is the context. This may include the surrounding environment or broader culture (i.e. corporate culture, international cultures, etc.). |
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| • Removing Barriers At All These Stages |
To deliver your messages effectively, you must commit to breaking down the barriers that exist in each of these stages of the communication process. Let’s begin with the message itself. If your message is too lengthy, disorganized, or contains errors, you can expect the message to be misunderstood and misinterpreted. Use of poor verbal and body language can also confuse the message.
Barriers in context tend to stem from senders offering too much information too fast. When in doubt here, less is oftentimes more. It is best to be mindful of the demands on other people’s time, especially in today’s ultra-busy society. Once you understand this, you need to work to understand your audience’s culture, making sure you can converse and deliver your message to people of different backgrounds and cultures within your own organization, in this country and even abroad.
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| • Communication In Your Organization |
To ensure successful communications within your organization, it is best to start with the very basics: your knowledge of verbal and non-verbal communications. In the workplace, these types of communications are continually exchanged, oftentimes without much planning or even the thought that such communications are taking place. |
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| • The Importance of Non-Verbal Communication |
For instance, it’s not always just what you say. It’s also how you “say” it – taking into account your eyes, your posture, your overall body language, even your appearance at the time the communication is exchanged, and the voice in which you offer the exchange. In verbal communication, an active dialogue is engaged with the use of words. At the same time, however, non-verbal communication takes place, relying on nonverbal cues, such as gestures, eye contact, facial expressions, even clothing and personal space.
Nonverbal cues are very powerful, making it crucial that you pay attention to your actions, as well as the nonverbal cues of those around you. If, during your meeting, participants begin to doodle or chat amongst themselves, they are no longer paying attention to you: Your message has become boring or your delivery is no longer engaging. Once again, you need to be mindful of cultural differences when using or interpreting nonverbal cues. For instance, the handshake that is so widely accepted in Western cultures as a greeting or confirmation of a business deal is not accepted in other cultures, and can cause confusion.
While eye contact, facial expressions, posture, gestures, clothing and space are obvious nonverbal communication cues, others strongly influence interpretation of messages, including how the message is delivered. This means paying close attention to your tone of voice, even your voice's overall loudness and its pitch. Be mindful of your own nonverbal cues, as well as the nonverbal cues of those around you. Keep your messages short and concise. This means preparing in advance whenever possible. And for the impromptu meeting, it means thinking before you speak. |
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| • Giving People Time |
Setting aside a specific time for meetings and regular communications is a great idea. This allows time for everyone involved to prepare. Also, keep in mind that listening is oftentimes much more productive when working to communicate effectively, and can very well be more important than talking. Allow everyone involved the time they need to communicate effectively. |
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| • Enhancing your communications |
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Because gestures can both compliment and contradict your message, be mindful of these. |
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Eye contact is an important step in sending and receiving messages. Eye contact can be a signal of interest, a signal of recognition, even a sign of honesty and credibility. |
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Closely linked to eye contact are facial expressions, which can reflect attitudes and emotions. |
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Posture can also be used to more effectively communicate your message. |
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Clothing is important. By dressing for your job, you show respect for the values and conventions of your organization. |
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Be mindful of people’s personal space when communicating. Do not invade their personal space by getting too close and do not confuse communications by trying to exchange messages from too far away. |
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• Better Public Speaking & Presentation - Ensure Your Words Are Always
Understood |
While we discussed many of the cues used to ensure your spoken words are understood in the previous section (Communicating in Your Organization), there are many other things you should do to ensure that your verbal messages are understood time and time again. Although somewhat obvious and deceptively simple, these include:
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Keep the message clear |
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Be prepared |
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Keep the message simple |
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Be vivid when delivering the message |
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Be natural |
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Keep the message concise |
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Preparation is underrated. In fact, it is one of the most important factors in determining your communication successes. When possible, set meeting times and speaking and presentation times well in advance, thus allowing yourself the time you need to prepare your communications, mindful of the entire communication process (sender, message, channel, receiver, feedback and context). By paying close attention to each of these stages and preparing accordingly, you ensure your communications will be more effective and better understood.
Of course, not all communications can be scheduled. In this case, preparation may mean having a good, thorough understanding of the office going-ons, enabling you to communicate with the knowledge you need to be effective, both through verbal and written communications. |
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| • Being prepared: Guidelines for Thinking Ahead |
Ask yourself: Who? What? How? When? Where? Why?
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Who |
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who are you speaking to? What are their interests, presuppositions and values? What do they share in common with others; how are they unique? |
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What |
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what do you wish to communicate? One way of answering this question is to ask yourself about the ‘success criteria’. How do you know if and when you have successfully communicated what you have in mind? |
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How |
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How can you best convey your message? Language is important here, as are the nonverbal cues discussed earlier. Choose your words and your nonverbal cues with your audience in mind. Plan a beginning, middle and end. If time and place allow, consider and prepare audio-visual aids. |
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When |
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Timing is important here. Develop a sense of timing, so that your contributions are seen and heard as relevant to the issue or matter at hand. There is a time to speak and a time to be silent. ‘It’s better to be silent than sing a bad tune.’ |
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Where |
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What is the physical context of the communication in mind? You may have time to visit the room, for example, and rearrange the furniture. Check for availability and visibility if you are using audio or visual aids. |
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Why |
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In order to convert hearers into listeners, you need to know why they should listen to you – and tell them if necessary. What disposes them to listen? That implies that you know yourself why you are seeking to communicate – the value or worth or interest of what you are going to say. |
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Be concise. Be brief. Use short words and sentences. Where appropriate, support these with short, easy-to-understand examples, which help demonstrate your message. |
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