How To Develop Communication Skill At Workplace
Communication Skills are an integral part of our lives, be it in our workplaces or otherwise. For success in career, only knowledge of job is not sufficient. Communication skills play a major role in making or breaking careers as effective and efficient communication is required in everyday lives when dealing with bosses, clients or colleagues. It plays a pivotal role in planning, implementing, administrating and strategize at work so that operations are effective and smooth, then there is no room for misunderstandings, misrepresentations and miscommunications. Lack of communication skills can cause a lot of unwanted problems and tensions for everyone involved.
Few Pointers On How To Improve Communication Skills At The Workplace
Developing A Pleasant And Charming Persona: ‘Actions speak louder than words’, this saying turns out to be true in the case of a pleasant and charming personality. This kind of nonverbal communication is a very powerful and effective tool as people get attracted, inspired and motivated by such personalities.
Establish efficient, effective communication with employers: Emphasis should be laid on how to become a better communicator at work. As communication plays a vital role in our lives, there is a need to have clear and effective communications with your employers. Ask questions to clear any doubts if required. Talk about unclear concepts if needed so that later on there are no confusions.
Establish efficient, effective communication with colleagues: To be able to communicate transparently, correctly and efficiently is paramount. Else misunderstandings, envy and jealousy can crop up leading to problems within the organizations. This could impact very negatively resulting in low productivity, unpleasantness and distrust amongst employees.
Maintain Good Relations With Clients: It is necessary to have good customer relations so that the customers can trust and remain lifelong clients. Listening to and understanding the needs of clients, delivering the best possible deals, assisting and following up, taking feedback, helping and guiding if required all come under maintaining good client relations. And all these go a long way in customer satisfaction.
Develop Empathy: Empathy is a noble quality which should be embodied in our attitude. To be able to put oneself in the other shoes and understand things from their perspective is something which makes us human. So, even at workplace adopting this humane attitude of empathy eases things out and creates harmonious relations with everyone, whether it is with employers, colleagues or clients.
Adaptability: Being adaptable and flexible to suit the audience is advised as it makes your audience comfortable. Young crowd should be spoken to differently than a group of elderly people. If you are dealing with friends and peers, you can address them in a friendly, casual tone, but if it is a business meeting, the tone should be formal.
Maintain Good Body Language: A good, erect posture speaks volumes about your personality. The message received is that the person is alert, in charge and knows what he is saying and doing. Avoid slouching, use natural hand gestures while you speak. Display pleasant mannerisms. Moving around the room can also be helpful if there is enough space. This helps listeners feel more included.
Improve Emotional IQ: Managing emotions while communicating is crucial. So it is advisable to wait, take a few deep breaths and then do the needful instead of taking rash decisions when you are upset. Taking a small break. From work, or talking to a friend helps in soothing and calming things down. And then one should work with poise and balance.
Show Respect: To earn respect one must show respect. Patiently listening to and understanding others wants and needs is a way of giving respect and showing concern. If the employer, a colleague or a client is upset and cranky, one must calm them down, understand the reason for their behavior, give them the best possible solution and put an end to their grievances.
Have A Relaxed Attitude: Stress and anxiety can create mess and ruin your communication skills. It makes you nervous causing you to fumble, stammer and falter when you speak. It also makes a person confused, hyper, irritable and so the person sometimes behaves in an unreasonable way. Thus to be able to keep a peaceful and calm mindset at all times is mandatory.
Take Notes: So many times it is difficult to grasp and absorb all the information which is poured out. In such cases, it is sensible to take down notes so as to not miss out on important points. Written notes can also help us and be used as further reference.
Think Twice Before Speaking: People are sensitive to the words spoken by others, hence it’s important that we think twice before uttering anything. Words once spoken cannot be taken back, so speaking effectively without hurting each others sentiments becomes all the more necessary. These things may look or sound insignificant but they play a huge role in communication. There are a lot of skill development courses which can help enhancing communication skills.
Record For Better Presentation: For making good presentations recording becomes useful as we can hear and understand where we falter while speaking. After doing the needed correction we can be sure and confident of our presentation. Then our presentations will sound powerful and effective.
Listen actively: Listening actively is a skill which is absent in most people. People are not listening actively most of the times, either they are preoccupied, or they are distracted with their mobile phones, and this way they lose the essence of good, active listening. To be able to listen actively one must be alert and give their undivided attention. Also to be able to ask appropriate and relevant questions shows that one is listening and understanding clearly.
Get Feedback: Good or bad Feedback helps in understanding and knowing the needs of clients and customers. Good suggestions helps in improving services.
Make Communication Interesting With Stories: Stories and examples always make communication interesting and easy to understand. Use simple language and imagery to create a mental picture for your audience. It will help you to engage their senses and emotions in making your story memorable and communication effective.
Watch Movies/Read Books: Watching movies and reading books and newspapers can help you improve your communication skills. First of all, it lets you hear how other people talk and react. Pronunciation also becomes better. Secondly with the help of books vocabulary increases and you get to learn new words. All these helps in improving your language skills.
Join workshops: Joining skill learning workshops like Business Communication Course, Business Communication Skill Course, Skill Development Course is always recommended .It is a good method to improve and sharpen skills. Also institutions/companies should organize workshops and hold seminars regularly for their employees. Also it reflects positively on the company and makes the employees feel cared for.
Assertive Communication: Communication if need be should be assertive, firm and respectful. Assertiveness should not be misunderstood as aggressiveness or bossiness. One should not shy away from standing up for what one believes in and at the same time it should not sound or look threatening to others. Even though assertive communication may involve some disagreements or arguments, care should be taken that things are done gracefully.
Conflict Resolution: The art of resolving conflicts, disagreements is an invaluable skill. It is but natural that disputes and disagreements happen, but to tactfully solve them is not easy. Learning to agree to disagree is also an art. It requires talent, tactics and skills to handle such difficult situations and make everyone happy and satisfied.
Avoid Distractions: Nowadays everyone of us are always busy with our phones and tablets whether we are eating food or sitting together in discussions or meetings. Televisions and laptops also contribute in distracting attention. All these distractions can be disastrous, so it’s better to avoid this for better communication.
Cultural Sensitivity: Being mindful of and respecting the cultural norms and values of others comes under the purview of cultural sensitivity. One should educate oneself about the different cultures and customs. Investing time in learning about the history, traditions, and beliefs of diverse groups can come handy in dealing with cultural sensitivity.
Face to face Communication: One of the best and oldest ways to communicate is face to face communication. Even though times have changed and technology has evolved so much, still face to face communication has not lost its charm, it’s evergreen. Body language and gestures speak volumes about a person and this is why so much emphasis is laid on face to face communication.
Be Clear & Concise: Whether it is verbal communication or written communication, communication should be clear, transparent and concise. In such cases there is no scope for confusions, misunderstandings and things run effectively and smoothly.
Effective Emails: Written communication in the form of emails is also an important communication skill. If the emails are improper, and grammatically incorrect then it could lead to confusions and misunderstandings. So, emails should be clear, precise and effective.
Use Right Technology: Right Technology can be a boon and at the same time improper or wrong technology can be disastrous. So, to be able to decipher and choose the correct technology is the right way. Video conferencing platforms, Collaboration Tools, Speech Recognition, Language Translation etc can help if right choices are made.
Learn To Make Phone calls With Confidence: So many times the best of us fumble and falter while talking over the phone becomes all the more essential to learn to talk confidently and smartly over phone. One must know when to speak, when to pause, follow proper phone etiquette, use effective tones etc. while conversing on phones. Recording phone conversations is also recommended to understand and learn from the mistakes. Also one should consider calling when written communication is unclear or complex.
All these above factors and pointers are the various ways one can develop and improve their communication skills at workplaces. These can help in escalating your career to a different level. altogether, making you feel confident and in control at the same time.
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