Great communication skills enable people to understand others and make themselves understood. Effective communication skills involve active listening, delivering a message properly, public speaking, and many others. These communication skills are important in many aspects of life. In your job milieu for example, you are expected to communicate proactively with managers and team members. Managers in the quest for their ideal employees want to work with those who have strong communication skills.
In everyday life, people with good communication skills usually enjoy their interaction with their family members and friends. They convey their message to others and share their thoughts and feelings easily.
An effective communicator is one who listens to people around him and is capable of clearly translating his intentions and feelings into easily understandable messages.
As a team member, you want to clearly understand what others are saying and try to be a better collaborator and team member. Learning how to improve your communication has many benefits for you and for your entourage as well. How do you become an effective communicator? Read below !!!
1. Get feedback.
To really improve your communication skills, ask for honest feedback from your family, friends, and peers, understand them and take them into consideration. There’s no shame in asking for honest feedback on your communication skills from colleagues or family members.
This does not only concern employees but managers as well. A good manager should be able to ask their subordinates for their advice on how to improve their communication in the workplace. Asking for feedback will not just help you improve your communication skills but will help the organization as a whole. It helps forge better relationships with team members and helps identify what does not work.
2. Listen actively.
Clear communication starts with active listening and good communicators are always good listeners. As an effective communicator, you do not just focus on the message you try to convey and how you express yourself but you also want to listen and react to what others are saying.
In your workplace, you have to pay close attention to what’s being said and make sure you understand clearly. Make your managers and other team members know that they are being heard. Show up your engagement with what they are saying by giving affirmative replies, asking follow up questions, and also ask for clarification to avoid misunderstandings.
3. Ask questions.
Another important way to improve your communication skills is by asking questions. Whenever you have a doubt about someone's message, ask questions. Its usually unpleasant when someone assigns you a task and you do something completely different. This might happen when you do not clearly understand the message and you fail to ask for clarifications. In your workplace, develop the habit of asking questions more often. By doing so, you obtain more information and you ensure you don't miss out any important part or misunderstand assigned tasks. Listening carefully to others also helps you to ask good questions because it involves taking your time to assimilate what is being said and helps you identify what you did not understand.
Asking a question is also a good way of starting and keeping conversations for those who are a little bit shy. Hence helps you maintain a cordial relationship with your entourage.
4. Understand non verbal communication.
Good communicators are also those who understand body language clearly. In a workplace, effective communication also relies on nonverbal cues. Your facial expressions, your postures, and your eye contact are important in face-to-face conversations because they can either enhance the conversations or affect them negatively.
Research shows that about 93% of communication is non verbal and only 7% of communication is verbal. So make sure you develop your body language and make yourself open to non verbal communication.
5. Be open minded.
Another easy way to develop your communication skills is to be open minded in your conversations be it personal or professional conversations. Being open minded in communications shows you recognize and respect those you are talking to, you want to listen to them, and that you are receptive to whatever ideas they bring in.
Open mindedness helps build a harmonious relationship with your family, friends and colleagues. It shows that you want to listen to them and that you are willing to talk about whatever topic they want to discuss.
People usually express themselves freely whenever discussing with you because they know you won’t judge them and it allows them to feel good about the interaction.
6. Practice empathy.
Being able to understand people’s feelings and relate to them after they discuss with you shows you have great communication skills.
A good communicator should be able to understand what people say and share their feelings.
In a workplace empathy increases employees' work performance as they are able to establish connections with leaders and other workers who are willing to help them with personal problems and difficulties to accomplish tasks. Leaders should be able to understand the needs of employees and they need to be aware of their thoughts and feelings.
7.Be respectful.
Being mindful of those you are talking to helps improve your communication skills. When discussing with friends and relatives you can use informal language but when it comes to your workplace where you interact with colleagues and leaders, informal language has no place.
As an effective communicator you should be able to recognize that the message you try to convey is not just about you or what you want. You should be able to target your message based on who you are speaking to and care about who will receive the message and design the message in consequence.
8. Practice public speaking.
Practicing public speaking is an effective way to improve your communication skills. It might seem very difficult and daunting for people who have public speaking fright but there’s no better way to develop good communication skills.
Regularly speaking in front of a group of people will make you develop more confidence in yourself and also help you develop great communication habits.
Great communicators are those who are able to clearly articulate whether they’re speaking to a large group or talking face-to-face to one other person. This enables you to know your message was understood.
Enjoy your reading and share to those you think it might be of help.