How to be more Effective through Better Communication skills

If you want to be successful in business, in relationships and with kids you need to learn how to communicate well. Make sure that when you speak with family and friends, work colleagues and customers that everybody understands what you’re saying. This post will help you improve your communication skills by showing you the basics of good communication.

Basic communication skills

These basic communication skills are speaking, writing, listening and reading. They are the building blocks of all successful communication.

Speaking

Speak clearly and face-to-face. It’s a good idea to speak slowly and express yourself clearly and to make sure you include any information people want or need to know when you’re talking to them. You also want to speak clearly as a person so that people understand you when they hear what you have to say.

Listening

When you’re speaking, listen carefully and with an open mind so that everything your audience is saying is clear and taken in by your brain. Listen carefully before speaking again too so that your message is crystal clear in your head.

Writing

Just as you should speak clearly, you should write clearly so that your audience can read what you’re saying. Make sure your writing is easy to understand and not complicated. If the people who read it don’t understand what you’re saying, then they won’t get a message across either.

Reading

Read things out loud before you send them off to be printed or put them on the internet too so that they can be read easily by everyone. This means that if important information is missed when it’s sent off for printing or put on the internet, then it won’t reach its full effectiveness in communicating with people. All these elements will help with your communication skills if you use them effectively for both written and spoken communications.

 

How to Communicate: There are many techniques for presenting information to others. If the information is important, then it should be based on research and make sure it’s written in a clear way. If you’ve called in sick at work, then you should tell your boss how long you’ve been out of bed with a clear case for why you’re being absent.

Getting started with better communication skills

Have a clear understanding of the message you want to get across right from the start. This means that if the message is important or urgent, then spend time thinking about all the parts of it and think about everything people will need to know before they decide whether they want to pass it on or not.

Be clear

If it’s difficult for you to get your point across, then ask someone else if they understand what you’re saying. If the message is too complicated then try and simplify it until your audience understands.

Speak clearly

Make sure that people can understand what you’re saying without having to ask them to repeat the message for them. Proper communication requires clarity, this means that any information needs to be clear so there’s no misunderstanding on anybody’s part.

Think before speaking

Make sure that what you say is clear and that your audience understands when you’re speaking. There are many reasons why people don’t understand what others say, they might not know the full meaning of the message.

Speak slowly

If you’re talking too quickly nobody will understand what you’re saying and this will result in missed information and broken communication. Speak slowly so that everything you say gets taken in.

Make good eye contact

Eye contact is essential when communicating with other people. It helps to express your meaning clearly when you look at somebody’s eyes and to communicate that you’re paying attention to them. Another thing is if you look down, then other people will wonder why and this could be seen as rude so it’s best not to do that as it breaks communication.

Listen carefully

When you’re speaking and somebody else is speaking to you, listen closely so that when they’ve finished what they have to say or you’ve finished talking, then it’s easy for both of you to talk to each other.

Think before disagreeing

It’s important that when you speak with other people that they understand exactly what it is that you’re saying. If someone disagrees with your point of view, then it’s best if they can tell you why without having to ask them to repeat their point of view.

Use I-messages

Everybody will be more understanding about what the message is all about when the message itself is universal rather than just one-sided. Try and use I-messages like “I feel sad that you’re not happy with what I’m saying”, “I realise it’ll be difficult to work together but I hope we can try”, or “I understand why you’re angry but do you feel that it’s the right thing to do?”

Use personal pronouns

When communicating with other people it’s better to ask them personal pronouns rather than make statements like, “You don’t know how to write a good business report”, this will make them feel as if they are just dealing with another person.

Use more than one level of communication

It’s better to use more than one level of communication when communicating. This means that you try and talk to someone in a friendly way, before you speak to them about the message, and then if necessary you can use another level of communication if needed.

As well as using these skills for better communications with other people, there are many other ways to improve your communications too. One way is through the internet. You can become better at communicating by using social media websites like Twitter and Facebook a lot, this will help you get ideas for new messages that people need to hear or things that people need from you.

Join Toastmasters.org

Another way you can get better at communicating is by joining Toastmasters. This is a friendly organisation that helps people to get better at business communication, public speaking and leadership skills too. They also run meetings that help people to improve their communications skills with others. In these meetings they use techniques to help them communicate with each other more successfully and they even have awards they can receive when they become more effective at communicating with others.

As well as being good for business communications and leadership skills, Toastmasters is also good for personal relationships too such as managing a family or helping out in the community groups around you such as a club or charity organisation. The techniques they use in meetings can also be used to help people communicate more effectively with their friends and family too.

 

These are just some of the ways you can improve your communication skills; there are many others. Your communications is what you say to other people and how they say it back to you. Others may not speak as much as you do but still need to be heard and understood, for this reason it’s important that your words are clear, understandable and that you’re a good listener too.