There are four ways to overcome communication barriers and improve your effectiveness as a communicator.Effective communications with your boss, peers, employees, customers, suppliers and other interested parties is essential to your career.
1. Become a better listener,
2. Demonstrate concern,
3. Think, and
4. Admit mistakes.
These basic skills or behaviors are being widely ignored in business today,in part because of the speed and efficiency of technology related media like "twitter," faxes, pagers, email, "smart" phones, etc. Ignoring the basics is causing a decline in the effectiveness of communication in many organizations.
1. Become a better listener. In today's rapid-paced society and workplace, it is often difficult to take time to really listen to others. Not listening is creating major problems in relationships at all levels in organizations today. Employees feel that no one listens to their concerns. Middle managers feel that upper management doesn't listen and CEOs say their board of directors pays little attention. What can be done to improve the situation? Pay attention to your fellow employees, regardless of their position in the organization, and be a good listener.
Learn and practice the skills of "active listening." Active listening requires using eyes, ears and heart in the process. The eyes to observe body language of the other person, ears to hear the actual words, and the heart to feel the emotion are all involved in effective communications. It is easy to see where "electronic communication" can short-circuit the communication process.
Our language is a language of nuances. When we rely only on electronic methods such as texting, twitter, e-mail, etc. we can easily miss the most important parts of the process. As I often say in my leadership seminars, "How you say what you say is more important than what you say."
Remember, communication is a process that involves receiving information, processing information and providing feedback to others. With technology it is easy to read a message, process it and provide feedback. Unfortunately, the intended meaning of the message may be missed because body language and emotions are not present on the computer screen.
Active listening requires hard work to hear the total message, process it and finally respond to what the other person is saying. When people concentrate on listening, the effectiveness of communication goes up immensely.
2. Demonstrate concern. Our culture has seemingly moved towards more selfish interests in the past several decades. We have moved away from "traditional values" and dependence upon our neighbors. This societal trend has carried into the workplace. A highly competitive environment that inhibits the atmosphere of concern for fellow employees may exist among middle managers, employees and in the executive suite. Effective communication in this environment requires people to focus on helping others in the workplace.
A conscious effort is required to get out of the office and have a positive one on one encounter with co-workers and employees to build bridges of concern. How? Just do it! Make a conscious effort to spend a few minutes every day with as many employees and co-workers as possible. Take the time to find out about the needs of your fellow employees and help meet those needs.
3. Think. Imagine that you just received an e-mail or text message. You read the message and it makes you angry. While still angry,you dash off a response and send"copies" to several others in your company. Tomorrow, you arrive at work and find another message from the same person and get angry again. This can escalate into a "war" before you know what happened, and all because you failed to think before "sending."
Being a good communicator means you think before speaking; whether by computer, text, twitter, in a letter, on voice mail or face to face it is important to carefully think before speaking.
Relationships are often strained or broken by thoughtless words. Careers can be damaged by sending thoughtless messages around a company. When dealing one to one, people are usually more careful to think about what they're saying because of an immediate response to the message being sent.
4. Admit mistakes. Often the most difficult words to say are"I am sorry" and "I made a mistake."This is becoming even more difficult today because with technology more people may know about the mistakes and the highly competitive work place causes people to be more sensitive to career issues that can be involved when mistakes are made.
Admitting a mistake enhances credibility with coworkers and management, indicates a high level of security and confidence in one's abilities, and demonstrates strength as opposed to weakness.
Improving communications and relationships requires that folks quickly and clearly admit mistakes, "clean-up the mess" and move onward and upward.
Organizations and individuals that prosper in today's business environment will focus on improving communication skills and interpersonal relationships. Productivity will increase as a result of improved employee satisfaction.
1. Become a better listener,
2. Demonstrate concern,
3. Think, and
4. Admit mistakes.
These basic skills or behaviors are being widely ignored in business today,in part because of the speed and efficiency of technology related media like "twitter," faxes, pagers, email, "smart" phones, etc. Ignoring the basics is causing a decline in the effectiveness of communication in many organizations.
1. Become a better listener. In today's rapid-paced society and workplace, it is often difficult to take time to really listen to others. Not listening is creating major problems in relationships at all levels in organizations today. Employees feel that no one listens to their concerns. Middle managers feel that upper management doesn't listen and CEOs say their board of directors pays little attention. What can be done to improve the situation? Pay attention to your fellow employees, regardless of their position in the organization, and be a good listener.
Learn and practice the skills of "active listening." Active listening requires using eyes, ears and heart in the process. The eyes to observe body language of the other person, ears to hear the actual words, and the heart to feel the emotion are all involved in effective communications. It is easy to see where "electronic communication" can short-circuit the communication process.
Our language is a language of nuances. When we rely only on electronic methods such as texting, twitter, e-mail, etc. we can easily miss the most important parts of the process. As I often say in my leadership seminars, "How you say what you say is more important than what you say."
Remember, communication is a process that involves receiving information, processing information and providing feedback to others. With technology it is easy to read a message, process it and provide feedback. Unfortunately, the intended meaning of the message may be missed because body language and emotions are not present on the computer screen.
Active listening requires hard work to hear the total message, process it and finally respond to what the other person is saying. When people concentrate on listening, the effectiveness of communication goes up immensely.
2. Demonstrate concern. Our culture has seemingly moved towards more selfish interests in the past several decades. We have moved away from "traditional values" and dependence upon our neighbors. This societal trend has carried into the workplace. A highly competitive environment that inhibits the atmosphere of concern for fellow employees may exist among middle managers, employees and in the executive suite. Effective communication in this environment requires people to focus on helping others in the workplace.
A conscious effort is required to get out of the office and have a positive one on one encounter with co-workers and employees to build bridges of concern. How? Just do it! Make a conscious effort to spend a few minutes every day with as many employees and co-workers as possible. Take the time to find out about the needs of your fellow employees and help meet those needs.
3. Think. Imagine that you just received an e-mail or text message. You read the message and it makes you angry. While still angry,you dash off a response and send"copies" to several others in your company. Tomorrow, you arrive at work and find another message from the same person and get angry again. This can escalate into a "war" before you know what happened, and all because you failed to think before "sending."
Being a good communicator means you think before speaking; whether by computer, text, twitter, in a letter, on voice mail or face to face it is important to carefully think before speaking.
Relationships are often strained or broken by thoughtless words. Careers can be damaged by sending thoughtless messages around a company. When dealing one to one, people are usually more careful to think about what they're saying because of an immediate response to the message being sent.
4. Admit mistakes. Often the most difficult words to say are"I am sorry" and "I made a mistake."This is becoming even more difficult today because with technology more people may know about the mistakes and the highly competitive work place causes people to be more sensitive to career issues that can be involved when mistakes are made.
Admitting a mistake enhances credibility with coworkers and management, indicates a high level of security and confidence in one's abilities, and demonstrates strength as opposed to weakness.
Improving communications and relationships requires that folks quickly and clearly admit mistakes, "clean-up the mess" and move onward and upward.
Organizations and individuals that prosper in today's business environment will focus on improving communication skills and interpersonal relationships. Productivity will increase as a result of improved employee satisfaction.
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