What is communication?
Simply transmitting facts, thoughts, ideas, interpretations, desires, and emotions to create greater understanding. Communication – verbal, non-verbal, and visual, are different means by which this transference can be made possible. Moreover, good communication skills are always related to all areas of soft skill training. Thus acquiring the skill of efficiently conveying your messages is requisite for a successful career.
From personal life to professional life having good communication potential always helps us. In addition to the skill we have in our area of expertise, we should also be good communicators. No sort of management a profession necessitates cannot be fulfilled without the required communication skills.
Methods to improve –
Active listening.
Always pay close attention to the things being said. This will make others feel comfortable being heard and considered. Alongside, we could get a clear idea about the items. This will help us reproduce our ideas in medium and language comfortable for us.
Being concise in articulation.
The aim is to convey the meaning without its essence being missed. Getting directly to the point intended to be said will help us to prevent the essence of the meaning from being spilled. The listener could lose concentration and confidence in the communicator if the message is not concise.
Focus on non-verbal communication.
A large share of the idea being conveyed will be in non-verbal communication. Practicing good body language, maintaining eye contact, and effectively utilizing hand gestures improve communication skills. The tone of the voice is also important. It should also be regulated. All of these things have a whole meaning for the listeners. A proper body stance should also be practiced to become impressive and effective communicators.
Cultivate confidence in yourself.
The communication interaction with others should always be confident. Then only will people be prompted to listen to us. Confidence can be expressed by focusing on body language and gaining conceptual clarity of the things going to be said.
Maintain decorum.
Statements should not hurt anyone around. Avoid questioning others directly. Clarifications should be made politely. Aggressive tones or offensive words must be entirely avoided. Effective management of emotion is also significant in maintaining decorum. Allowing strong emotions to manifest in unwanted circumstances will have negative impacts.
Give and take respect.
Even if you disagree with the things said by others, try to sympathize with their point of view and respect it. The disagreements should be expressed only politely. Everyone should be given a chance to have their say. Don’t be distracted when someone else is making the conversation. Respect should be maintained even in salutation. This will help in the creation of cordial bonding between people and would facilitate effective further communications.
Usage of appropriate medium.
Ideas and information can be transferred using any medium of communication. The most important thing is to be mindful of the appropriate medium suiting each particular contexts. For example, communication of serious matters is more appropriate in-person than using calls or text messages.
Listening to feedback.
You may not be able to identify the mistakes you make while communicating. However, sincere feedback from friends or counterparts will have significant influences to wield in improving our conveying power. Inculcating in ourselves a willingness to seek out feedback is thus essential.
Try practicing public speaking.
There is no other better way to improve your verbal part of conveying your messages than public speaking. It will increase our confidence and help us overcome our weaknesses.
Thus having been gone through some ways of improving your communication skills, let us see some bad tendencies that could affect our proper communications. This includes a lack of specificity, usage of ineffective medium, lack of introspection and consideration, failure in listening, etc. Trying to avoid them is also necessary to become good communicators.