Chalk 2 Cheese, a Personality Development and enhancing soft skills Academy is more like a Grooming School. It helps you to become the best version of yourself. COMMUNICATION SKILLS Communication is power. Those who have mastered its effective use can change their own experience of the world and the world's experience of them. All behavior and feelings find their original roots in some form of communication. Being able to communicate effectively is one of the most important life skills to learn. Communication itself is defined as transferring information to produce greater understanding. It can be done vocally, through written media, visually or non-verbally. All of these means of communication skills are essential soft skills that are vital for a successful career. Communication is one of the most important skills that you need to succeed in the workplace. If you want to be an expert communicator, you need to be effective at all points in the communication process and you must be comfortable with the different channels of communication. This is because poor communications often struggle to develop their careers beyond a certain point.
Every communication involves one sender, a message and a recipient. This may sound simple, but communication is actually a very complex subject. The transmission of the message from sender to recipient can be affected by a huge range of things. These include our emotions, the cultural situations, the medium used to communicate and even our location
Communication is a two way process which involves transferring of information or messages from one person or group to another. This process goes on and includes a minimum of one sender and receiver to pass on the messages. These messages can either be any ideas, imagination, emotions or thoughts.
All creatures on earth have developed means in which to convey their emotions and thoughts to one another. However, it is the ability of humans to use words and language to transfer specific meanings that sets them apart from the animal kingdom.
Communication in the workplace is important because it boosts employee morale, engagement, productivity and satisfaction. It is also a key for better team collaboration and cooperation. Ultimately, effective workplace communication helps drive better results for individuals, teams and organizations. As a manager, building good communication skills has profound short and long term benefits for your organization. An effective communicator is able to motivate their team to get more done with better results and fewer misunderstandings. Different communication channels are ideal for different types of communication. Depending on the type of information being conveyed, those different channels can enhance or detract from how it is received. An effective communicator will develop different skills and tools to match the type of communication needed.
Strong communication skills are essential for advancement in your career. Almost all jobs require you to communicate with others, whether to make sales, work on internal projects as a team or complete other tasks. Whether you are preparing a business report, answering a phone call or just nodding your head in approval, you are communicating in some form. Some jobs, such as those related to sales or service, may require strong interpersonal skills as a basic eligibility criterion. Hence, good communication skills help you discharge your duties, better relationships at your workplace and increase your chances of success in your career.
Different types of communication.
Verbal communication is the most common type of communication. It involves the use of spoken words of sign language to share information. It can either happen face to face or through other channels, such as mobile phones, radio and video conferencing. If your job involves conducting business meetings, giving presentations and making phone calls, your employer would expect you to have good verbal communication skills.
Non verbal communication involves passive communication through the use of gestures, tone of voice, body language and facial expressions to share your thoughts and feelings. You can even communicate non verbally by the way you dress. The tone of your voice and your posture can reveal your mood or emotions to those around you.
Written communication includes communicating through writing, typing or printing. It is done through channels such as letters, text messages, emails, social media and books. Business may prefer writing communication because it has fewer chances of distortion. Communicating a business plan in writing ensures that everyone gets the same message and can refer to it any time in the future.
Visual communication uses graphs, charts, photographs, maps and logos to share information. It is mostly used in combination with verbal or written communication in order to simplify the information. Using slides and flowcharts during a presentation makes it easier for the audience to grasp complex data.
Skills for Effective Communication
Listening is one of the essential elements of effective communication. People who are active or engaged listeners understand things in more detail. If the speaker is not highly effective even then active listeners understand what the user is trying to say. Sometimes people do not listen to what other people say; they ignore it or do not listen with full attention. All this causes valuable information to be misplaced and reduces the essence that you need for effective communication. Being an active listener also helps you identify the current mood of the speaker and the intentions behind it. Hence for effective communication, build a deeper connection and build trust within your team members, it is crucial to be an attentive listener.
To be an attentive listener, make proper eye contact with the speaker and focus on his or her expression and the words. In case of any confusion, you can ask numerous questions. But make sure to do this after the conversation is over, as interrupting for your benefit is not recommended. Be attentive and have a proper body posture to practice active listening.
Another skill that you should learn to be an effective communicator is to be precise with your message. If you are a person that tells the whole background story that is inauthentic and without any proof to explain your things, then you are not an effective communicator. However if you are specific with your message, your audience can comprehend you better.
Being concrete with your message also means providing explicit details about the information you are delivering, including facts & figures. You should be clear with your message as well. It should be well defined and clear so others can understand you better in a short time. The clarity in a message is vital as it ensures that every member of the work team can understand you without any inconvenience. To be clear in your speech use simple vocabulary, use active voice and be clear about your objectives.
Your body language plays a vital role for you to be an effective communicator. Words are important but what is more important is your tone, eye contact, facial expression and hand gestures. Hand gestures while communicating represent that you are confident and courageous. Hence, it allows the person you are speaking with to pay attention to you and actually listen to what you are saying. Using non verbal communication while speaking, helps build a stronger relationship with others and deliver your message more conveniently and effectively. To improve your non-verbal communication, learn about different hand gestures, tones and stances. Also, make sure to pay attention to other people’s body language to interpret the message better.
Stress and anxiety can ruin your communication and discourage you. Both these things can cause you to be an ineffective communicator. To communicate effectively, you should relax and be stress-free. Stress causes you to choose the wrong sets of words. It makes it harder for your audience to understand you. Remaining calm and stress-free during a conversation helps you understand the value of the conversation in a better way. In addition, being relaxed also ensures that you make decisions that you no longer regret in the future and avoid numerous complications. Hence to communicate effectively, it is recommended to stay calm.
To be an effective communicator, you should inform your audience about what your conversation would be about. It would help your audience to have a general idea about the conversation. It would also allow them to grasp the knowledge easily. You should also inform your audience about the key features or points that they should listen to and keep in mind during the conversation. Informing others about what the conversation is about prepares your audience and helps them take the necessary action needed to comprehend you. Always explain your points in detail to your audience, as not all your audience might have the same informative background as you. Explaining your ideas and thoughts in detail helps numerous groups in the audience, which allows you to be an effective communicator.
Representing the information that you want to display in front of your audience in a visual form helps them to remember it for a long time. It is embedded in human psychology, that the information that we process a lot faster than is expressed in the form of pictures. It was concluded that we do not remember words for a longer time as compared to pictures. To be an effective communicator, you must be able to make your points understood to your audience and to do this; it is advised to choose the right info delivering strategies like visual communication. It means representing the information through charts, maps, images and graphs.
Showing empathy means showing understanding. There are times when your statement of opinions contradicts with other members of the team. But in a situation like this you should not be angry or frustrated. Instead, you should respect their opinion and admire their courage. To show exceeding levels of understanding and make sure that other people consider you as a competitive communicator and would help others to know that you were paying attention to their views and would boost their morale.
Completeness means completing your sentences while communicating. Sometimes you may notice that people start a sentence but after a short while they get so confused, they start explaining other points leaving the first one. Hence, all this creates utmost confusion and does not help with effective communication. To communicate effectively, you must completely explain the first point in detail, then move to the next one. Make sure that you move in a sequence while explaining your points and there must be a connection and logical deduction within the sentence. It is also crucial if you are replying to someone, as completeness makes numerous things in conversation easy and structured. If you want to be an effective communicator, make sure to develop this skill.
Giving and receiving feedback is essential and one of the core skills for effective communication. Giving feedback encourages a person and similarly receiving a couple helps you to view and improve your weak points. You might not get all the feedback stating how good of a person you are. Sometimes they may be tough to read, but you must act positivity on them to be a better communicator. Also try to understand the problems that are causing people to give the feedback they are giving. You can also ask the senders about what it means if you cannot comprehend the feedback well.
To effectively communicate in a workplace or your profession, you must know your team members. So, do not waste the precious time that you get during coffee or lunch break in just sitting alone and eating. Make sure to utilize that time to know more about your colleagues to have a better understanding of them. The better the understanding you would have about your team members, the better you would be able to communicate with them.
Common types of communication in the workplace
Different communication channels are ideal for different types of communication. Depending on the type of information being conveyed, those different channels can enhance or detract from how it is received. An effective communicator will develop different skills and tools to match the type of communication needed. Managers often deliver one way communications to their teams. The goal may be to inform an update, such as news about a new company policy or a change in direction. Leaders also often communicate to persuade, encourage and inspire commitment. They often communicate through stories more than data.
Managers often have to communicate with their own managers and with other leaders who are not in their direct chain of command. These may take the form of emails, reports or a slot in a standing meeting. Regardless of the format, these types of communication should be considered more formal. Updates often fall short of being a type of strong communication. Use a visual tracker or dashboard to carry the load and save your verbal or written commentary for drawing the audience’s attention to what is most important.
This might include surprises, obstacles and potential risks as well as wins. These formal communication events tend to receive the lion’s share of attention, for good reason.
Presentations are considered tools that are typically aimed at a longer audience with higher stakes. They have objectives like informing, influencing and persuading. In addition, many people fear public speaking and thanks to TED and other series, we have a high expectation for entertainment as well as insight. Meetings, whether large or small, are a critical part of a workplace's internal communication strategy. They are also one of the least understood and most overused types of communication. Effective meetings build synergy between teams and quickly communicate information that would have a high potential to be misunderstood in another format. The best meetings are highly collaborative and leave participants feeling energized, not drained.
Communicating with customers can ruin the entire gamut discussed above, for one-offs to face-to-face, virtual, spoken or written and formal. In general, all of the considerations of communication among employees go double for customers. Be deliberate and plan your messages to provide what your customer needs, in the way they prefer and create a positive impression for the company and the product. Informal communications include the emails and chats you engage in all day, making requests, asking for information, responding to requests and giving or receiving support and guidance.
In addition to moving the work of the organization forward, these informal communications have secondary objectives of forming social connections, building culture, establishing trust and finding common ground.
When employees are directly involved in work products and initiatives, it helps to foster a sense of ownership in the company’s future. It also makes them want to work to improve things like the company’s profitability, customer satisfaction and brand.
In summary, clear communication is essential in all kinds of relationships whether they be personal or professional. It entails paying attention and speaking clearly, demonstrating empathy and understanding and responding and giving feedback. By putting these components into practice, people and groups can strengthen their connections, communicate more effectively and accomplish their objectives more quickly.
Success in any field depends on effective communication, which is also essential for both personal and organizational growth. As a result, it is crucial to work on your communication skills and to remember the numerous components of good communication in all of your contacts.
Communication is your ticket to success, if you pay attention and learn to do it effectively. To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.
We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
Communication is a skill that you can learn. It is like riding a bicycle or typing.
If you are willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.
The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply.
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