Communication is an art that you can grow and develop. It involves listening and conveying information in an understandable and comprehensible way. Cultivating this skill can have significant benefits in your professional and personal life.
Communication is an essential skill for every human being. Your ability to communicate will help you stand out in the crowd. Therefore, how to improve your communication skills is a subject that bears the capacity to mould effective communicators and plays a significant role in career advancements.
Why Communication is Important?
Effective communication involves offering empathy, open-mindedness, and helpful feedback based on what you hear.
The following are some of the benefits of communication:
- Builds Trust
Gaining trust, especially as a leader, is not easy. A study by PNAS.org explains how your level of power impacts people’s trust in you. Listening attentively to others, and embracing various points of view, will have others see that you are making optimal decisions.
Effective communication that combines exemplary body language and vocal tone can help convey your message confidently. Understanding your audience well also helps build trust. Additionally, managing your own emotions will help you adapt to the emotional needs of others when it comes to building trust.
- Improves Productivity
One of the main pillars of productivity is accountability. For example, when people are held accountable at their workplace, their standards increase which helps them reach a higher potential. Additionally, people feel fulfilled when they know they are operating at their highest level. As Ron Malhorta quotes, “The only fear we should have is the fear of wasting our potential”.
But how is this accountability achieved? One of the ways is through effective communication. Through effective communication, clear and definite instructions will arise, enabling the recipients to work according to what is required.
When people understand their roles and expectations, they can focus more on what they are required to do. It will also help resolve conflicts within a team, resulting in greater productivity.
- Improves Relationships
Effective communication can help build stronger relationships. It helps build mutual respect when people feel heard and understood. If you want to speak about something authoritatively, framing it with a value statement can go a long way in pleasing others. As Ron Malhorta quotes, “Respectful disagreement is fine. Disrespectful disagreement is not.”
Also, let your communication connect to your audience. Learn to speak from understanding their mindset and needs.
- Increases Engagement
According to a study, only 15% of adult employees are engaged with their employers. Improving your communication skills can significantly help increase engagement amongst team members.
Increased engagement will help boost your retention rate, spur greater employee loyalty, build happier employees, increase employee safety, and lower absenteeism.
- Helps to Solve Conflicts
Clear communication is the best way to solve any conflict from arising. It will help you understand another person as you get your points across clearly.
Effective communication will help solve misunderstandings quickly whenever they arise. It will help build trust, ease tension, strengthen relationships and make people feel at ease because they are mutually understood. Therefore, communication is the basis of any long-term and prosperous relationship.
Types of Communication Skills
There are various types of communication skills. They include:
- Verbal Communication
Verbal communication refers to words used to share information with others. It typically involves oral and written communication.
Oral communication involves what we say to others through words. Its effectiveness depends on the words you choose, how you pronounce them, and how you reinforce them with nonverbal gestures. Verbal communication can include intrapersonal, interpersonal, small group, and public communication. Intrapersonal is your route for vocal conversation, while interpersonal is one-on-one verbal communication.
Conversely, small group communication is where your communication grows from one person to a group of several people, while public speaking involves speaking to a large number of individuals. This type of communication saves time, helps one get feedback quickly, and is the most convenient and precise method of communication.
Also Read: Top 10 Communication Skills in the Workplace and How You Can Master Them
- Non-Verbal Communication
This type of communication is nonverbal, such as facial expressions, eye contact, posture, gestures, and body language. It can include distance, kinetics, social cues, and physical appearance. Facial expressions play a considerable portion of nonverbal communication. Surprisingly, this expression is similar globally regarding happiness, sadness, anger, and fear.
Facial expressions and gestures are among the most common forms of non-verbal communication. Gestures usually relate to movement and signals to convey a message without words. Some of these ways include; waving, using fingers to indicate numbers, and pointing.
- Written Communication
Written communication, unlike verbal communication, relies on grammar, word choice, and punctuation. It is a type of communication where you relay your message in writing. However, it is worth noting that developing these skills requires keen attention to detail and practice.
Written communication can enhance an organisation’s image as this type of communication skill is more succinct and precise. Practical writing communication skills depend on five pillars: clarity, conciseness, tone, active voice, grammar and punctuation.
- Visual Communication
This type of communication depends on visual elements to communicate ideas or information. They can include GIFs, videos, screenshots, pie charts, slide presentations a0nd infographics.
Visual communication aids understanding through technology that combines words and images to communicate ideas. It also helps support oral communication.
- Listening
This point is one of the most vital communication segments. However, the act of listening shouldn’t be confused with hearing. Hearing is the awareness of sound and its meaning, but listening involves engaging with another party to understand what they are trying to communicate.
Listening will help build respect, enhance clarity, build better relationships, increase likability, and better understand shared information.
11 Tips to Improve Your Communication Skills
You can become a better communicator by following these 11 tips:
1. Learn to Be a Good Listener
A good listener is an active listener. Active listening can enhance proper communication by encouraging honesty and openness. When you pay attention to the other party you communicate with, they feel heard. This situation builds trust, and they think that your conversation matters.
Good listening requires practice. Practice will improve your communication skills and ability to connect with others. It will also increase your capacity to retain information. It would also help if you had one conversation at a time to help you maintain undivided attention. For example, if you are responding to an email, don’t speak on the phone simultaneously.
2. Take Notes
Writing things down during a meeting or a conversation can help you greatly when your memory fails. Note-taking will keep you active and help you avoid feelings of distraction. It also makes your mind actively involved in what you hear. Furthermore, note-taking will also allow you to think, make connections between point discussions, process information and ask practical questions.
Taking notes is also helpful as it brings more structure and organisation to your life, giving you more clarity along your path.
Also Read: Top 10 Communication Skills in the Workplace and How You Can Master Them
3. Be Brief But Specific
Brevity is another way to improve your communication skills. Based on the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of brevity is “The quality of using few words when speaking or writing”.
William Shakespeare wrote, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” It would help if you made every effort to communicate the compelling, essential points very concisely yet clearly.
Brevity will save you time, and few people will question you when you don’t mince words. This point applies both to verbal and written communication. For instance, if you are replying to an email, do not ramble with words. Read and understand the entire email, then craft a brief and specific response. The more you practice, the better you will become.
4. Don’t Be Accusatory
Life will constantly throw us challenges. It could be a marital disagreement that calls you to a discussion. However, you need to maintain your cool even when you feel the other person is in the wrong.
Accusations can hinder effective communication. When conversations begin with accusations, the other party often receives it as an invitation for a fight. Human beings’ reactions to accusations are often defensive, and usually, nothing constructive comes from such a conversation.
5. Plan and Practice What You Will Say
Practising what you say at a particular place can work wonders as far as developing your communication skills is concerned. There is absolutely nothing wrong with practising what you will say in a planned conversation. However, there are impromptu conversations where you don’t have the opportunity to prepare, so practice what you will say if you get a chance.
Practising will also instil great confidence and help you perform at your best. Besides, it will help you make necessary adjustments before the actual conversation and minimise apprehension.
6. Maintain Eye Contact
Maintaining eye contact is not always easy. Nevertheless, it plays a fundamental role in communication. Eye contact makes the other person feel that you are paying attention and also makes them feel important. It helps the communicating parties bond and improves understanding between people.
Additionally, eye contact helps maintain focus and concentration. Failing to make eye contact makes you look less authoritative and less believable. If you fail to maintain eye contact, the other party is less likely to look at you.
7. Have Good Posture
Maintaining good posture aids in communication. Posture passes on information about personal traits such as assertiveness, confidence, and openness. Someone sitting down is more likely to take in information and respond effectively than someone standing up. Maintaining good posture will make you feel calm and confident inside, whether speaking on stage or during a call.
If you are in a leadership position, posture is even more essential, as it shows assertiveness. Ron Malhorta shares “5 Tips for Powerful Leadership Communication” in this video.
8. Be Simple
Simplicity can help you improve your communication skills. Learn to use simple sentences and words. Do not overcomplicate with jargon that people do not understand. It helps if you keep your sentences no longer than two sentences.
Choose words that will effectively relay your ideas and clarify your message. Simple sentences or phrases will help convey or express your message clearly to the readers. Short sentences are also easier to read and result in easier processing.
9. Understand Your Audience
Understanding your audience can help you better craft your message so that they can receive it the way you intended. How you communicate with your friend is not the same way you will communicate with your boss. You can use informal language when writing with your friend, for instance, unlike when writing to your boss.
The use of acronyms, for example, may not be understood by the other person because different acronyms are understood differently by different people.
10. Think Before You Speak
Thinking before you speak can be another game-changer when communicating. It will help you become more tactful and understand how to balance positivity and negativity.
Also, you might say something out of pure emotion that might cause you to regret it later. However, if you think before speaking, you are unlikely to hurt anyone.
What happens when you speak without thinking? You may give off the wrong impression, resulting in the reader apprehending incorrectly and taking inappropriate action. The result could be troublesome where there is a misunderstanding.
11. Practice Self-Awareness
Specific conversations can be challenging where emotions are involved. It would help if you had a solid grasp of your feelings. Self-awareness can help you take over the conversation effectively when you are upset or over-excited.
Self-awareness will help you to admit when you are wrong. For a moment, it might feel like a big blow to your ego, but you will build integrity and respect.
To conclude
Effective communication is a learnable skill. By following the tips outlined above, you will become a better and more effective communicator. Proper communication will elevate you above the crowd as a leader. Always remember to communicate using verbal and nonverbal cues.
Also, learn to listen carefully to what other people have to say. Lastly, ensure your conversation content sticks with the audience.
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