Introduction
Effective communication skills are essential if you want to succeed at your work. As we know now, everyone is running for all other tech and non-tech skills as they think it is sufficient to achieve their goals. But the fact is, to become successful in any of these sectors you should be good at your communication skills. Moreover, your communication skills also play an important role in your non-professional life. To learn
Expressing yourself with clarity prevents lots of misunderstandings in relationships. And undoubtedly, if you can present yourself with clarity and confidence, then you can make a separate place for yourself at your workplace and among your family and friends. If you are not confident about your skills, you can also take up a free spoken English course that will help you improve your spoken communication skills.
What Is Effective Communication?
Effective communication is when a person can communicate or convey information to another individual or group effectively or efficiently. It is more than just communication. Communication skills are part of Interpersonal skills. The receiver of the information must understand the intention and the emotion behind the information. Effective communication is not only about the person trying to convey the message. The listener must also listen in a way that extracts the full meaning of what’s being said.
To understand more, check out this effective communication course.
Why Is Effective Communication Important?
Effective communication is important, especially in a workplace because it helps reduce misunderstandings and conflicts. It helps build strong relationships between different parties and also leads to increased productivity. For higher roles, effective communication also leads to better team building and hence the growth of the organisation. It helps create an environment that helps participants to pitch in their creative ideas more effectively and lead to innovations. It also ascertains transparency and helps build trust.
Effective Communication Skills:
The four important skills that are required for effective communication are:
- Listening Skills
- Non-verbal communication
- Empathy
- Stress Management
So, if you are struggling with your communication skills and somewhere in your mind, you always wonder how to improve your communication skills, you are at the right place. Through this blog, we’ll answer the questions – How to improve your communication skills?. Everyone knows that communication skills are a must to increase productivity. But, unfortunately, very few people can apply it in their business and improve their communication skills.
There are some proven tips and techniques that you can follow to improve your communication skills.
How to improve communication skills?
Check out the top 12 ways to improve your communication skills
- Start Listening
- By Improving Non-verbal Communication
- By improving Verbal Communication
- Know your audience
- Over-communication and the art of timing
- PIP Approach
- By Improving visual communication
- Body language matters
- Write things down
- Think before you speak
- Treat everyone equally
- Ask for feedback
1. Start Listening: The importance of listening!
Yes, you heard it right. First, you should start listening to others to understand everything. Because sometimes, people actually don’t say what they actually want to say, possibly due to some of their fear or hesitation. But, by listening to them carefully and observing their actions and body language, you can easily understand what they wish to convey. If you listen to someone carefully and possibly by making eye contact, this can leave a very positive effect on them. Don’t forget to avoid multitasking, over-thinking, and using mobile phones, if you’re listening to someone. And if you do so, surely you’ll be able to conquer the very first but effective stage of your communication skills. Remember, a good listener is always a good communicator.
2. By Improving Non-verbal Communication
People often underestimate non-verbal communication skills. But believe me, it is the most effective way to retain all the attention of your listener.
Some reports say that an effective speech usually contains nearly 80% of non-verbal communication. You can easily overcome this by observing yourself closely.
- Try making Eye Contact.
- While you’re speaking with people, take care of your position.
- Use actions that make the audience or listener comfortable.
- Be careful about your actions.
- Start observing every reaction to your actions.
You should not squirm. Try being in control when you’re using non-verbal communication. And don’t forget confidence is the key.
3. By improving Verbal Communication
The unnecessary pauses that occur while speaking feels awkward and give a bad impression to the audience. To get rid of it, organize your thoughts earlier. It’ll also help you relay your information concisely. At the same time, writing down your thoughts is not usually possible in extempore discussions. It’s nevertheless effective to take a minute to prepare your thoughts earlier than you begin to talk. Always try to add a few strong words in between your conversation, which can attract your listeners. Also, don’t forget that being tactful is also an essential aspect of being a good communicator. Sometimes, people will be open to hearing even unpleasant facts if you can phrase them well. Good communicators can easily sense how someone will react to your actions. Besides this, follow few points to improve your verbal communication skills:
- You don’t want to speak in a monotone manner; it will bore your audience. Rather, you should use a wide range of rhythm, style, and speed.
- Don’t use a lower pitch; it will make the experience difficult for your listeners.
- You can pause and hook the listener’s attention before dropping your pitch. It will create small suspense and work in retaining your listeners.
- Try speaking from your diaphragm to lower your voice.
4. Know your audience
Understanding your audience is another crucial thing to having strong communication skills. For example, how you interact with your supervisor has to be one of a kind rather than how you interact with your kids. A great way of thinking about it is to observe the equal choice of words and body language you use with your partner while interacting with your boss. That place matters in a photo light! You need to ensure you’re using the type of communique most applicable for your audience. But, irrespective of how excellent the speakers are, every listener has a limited period to listen. Therefore, a good communicator always tries to engage their audience. Put some questions during the session. Ask their thoughts and let others listen to them. This way, you will not let your audience’s attention go, making the discussion more interesting by bringing their interests.
5. Over-communication and the art of timing
The speaker or presenter often overestimates how much listeners understand. This was proven by a graduate student at Stanford University in 1990 in a study known as “the tappers and the listeners.” Two sets of participants were made. The first set of people were asked to tap the melody of 120 famous songs while the other set was asked to recognize the song. The tappers estimated that
the listeners might identify 50 per cent of songs correctly. But, only 2.5 per cent of songs were identified correctly. This study clearly shows that the audience may not absorb as much as you expect. You have to communicate further with clarity and more ideas that contain illustrations.
A good communicator always feels out to their listeners to figure out when to reiterate their idea or move on to a new topic. Like all the great comedians, they have mastered their timing so that they can easily pass through non-scripted scenarios during live shows. And they all are very effective communicators.
6. PIP Approach
And don’t forget to use the PIP approach. It is a common framework that business experts usually use. You can use it whenever you need to deliver a speech. It means a preview approach to presentation introduction. Using this approach, speakers first elaborate on the purpose of the introduction and then why it is important by discussing possible outcomes. This approach helps the speaker attract the audience for a long time, and don’t forget to pick a bonus point at the end. Yeah! I also told you about this one above. And if you’re reading this till now, then congratulations, you’re just a few lines away from bonus tips.
7. By Improving visual communication
People usually don’t think about it. But I want my reader to understand it very well. You don’t need to use visual communication until and unless you don’t need it. I think visual communication will be clear to you through this small example. Let’s consider that you have to serve food to someone and there are 5-6 dishes you have prepared. But if you just put all dishes along with one another without providing any space on the plate, then it’ll look messy. You have to serve it as clean as you want others to serve it to you. I hope it may clear you a bit about visual communication. It would help if you were very clear about what you are going to speak, and everything should be well-managed.
Through this way, you can not just retain the focus of listeners for a long time, but also it can help to share your message directly with your audience.
8. Body language matters
This is important for face-to-face meetings and video conferencing. Make sure that you appear accessible, so have open body language. This means that you should not cross your arms. And keep eye contact so that the other person knows that you are paying attention.
9. Write things down
Take notes while you are talking to another person or when you are in a meeting and do not rely on your memory
10. Think before you speak
Take a moment and pay close attention to what you say.
11. Treat everyone equally
Do not talk down to anyone, treat everyone with respect. Treat others as your equal.
12. Ask for feedback
There’s no harm in asking for honest feedback on your communication skills from colleagues. Cultivate a willingness to take critics and forge better relationships with your coworkers.
Why is good communication so important at work?
At work, Communication is not only about how well you work with your colleagues. It’s about building relationships, working as productively as possible and leaving no room for errors. In a survey, it was found that barriers in communication cost an estimated $37 billion per year in lost productivity. Hence, It is essential that you practice good communication habits at your workplace. Good communication leads to understanding a “shared meaning”. In a workplace, you cannot afford to miscommunicate as it might lead to losses in time and resources.
How to improve communication skills in the workplace?
Here are a few ways you can improve workplace communication:
- Learn how to listen effectively: The importance of listening is sometimes overlooked when it comes to effective communication. It is very important that you listen carefully in a workplace environment to better understand what is being conveyed by your colleagues or team leader. It will only help you to work efficiently and not make mistakes.
- Write effective emails: This is another important method. Most of the workplace communication occurs in email threads. Hence, it is important that those emails convey a clear message.
- Adjust to the atmosphere: To be able to communicate effectively, it is important to get adjusted to the workplace atmosphere you are in. Only when you are comfortable with the peers around you, you will be able to convey your thoughts and feedback effectively. Also, you must practice adaptive communication. You don’t want to be formal in a lunchroom.
- Display confidence: Your peers are more likely to respond positively if what you say involves confidence. Building confidence might take some practice but with a clear purpose and self-belief, it gets easier. You must know your strengths, accept compliments, motivate others and take constructive criticism.
- Accept feedbacks: Accepting feedbacks positively would lead to effective communication in a work environment. It can also help you improve and lead to increased productivity.
Bonus Tip:
Generally, most people find difficulty in public speaking. Moreover, they can speak very well alone at home. Most people suffer from this problem. But how do we overcome the same? There is no hard and fast rule for this. Follow the 21-day rule! Give yourself one hour a day to improve your communication skills.
During this hour, stand in front of the mirror and try speaking like an audience sitting in front of you. Make short videos of yourself speaking in front of the phone camera and start observing it. This will help you understand the tone you are talking in and learn more about yourself. If you are reading this, we hope you got the answers to the question – how to improve your communication skills. Don’t forget this golden statement: practice makes a man perfect!
You can also head over to Great Learning Academy and take up the several free online courses that will help you improve your skills! Upskill today and power ahead of your career. You can also take up the Smart English Basics for Professionals free course and improve your business communication in a professional environment.
