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- 1. 856-258-9022 www.starleadership.us service@starleadership.us Achieving Optimal Workplace Success through Effective Communication By Peter Adebi Preview
Editor's Notes
- Effective workplace communication skills are among the skills we assume every worker picked up along the way. The problem is that not all the communication skills and habits we picked up at home, in school or social circles are appropriate in the workplace. Some people would be fired immediately if they communicated in the workplace the way they do at home or among friends. Understanding how to speak, write and manage your nonverbal messages is critical to your success at work. As you will discover from a few surveys we will review, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, Human Resource Managers, and other business leaders rate communication skills highest among the skills needed to advance in the workplace. Written by Peter Adebi, organization development expert, leadership coach, and human resource consultant, this seminar, Achieving Optimal Workplace Success through Effective Communication, is designed to help you acquire the skills you need to be an effective communicator.
- What We Will Cover We will cover the following topics in this seminar: Parts of communication and the significance of each part; Effective communication skills; Principles of interpersonal communication; Effective approaches to giving and receiving feedback; How to manage difficult conversations; Presentation skills; Meeting facilitation skills; and Barriers to communication and how to overcome them. At the end of this seminar, you will be able to: To understand how effective your workplace communication has been; Identify the areas where you need to improve and determine necessary corrective steps; Develop greater self-confidence in giving and receiving feedback and managing difficult conversations; Strengthen your interpersonal relations and collaborate better with others; and Understand what it takes to become a better presenter and facilitator. If you are ready, let’s begin.
- What is communication? Communication is often defined as a process of transferring information from one entity to another. The problem with this definition, which is a major issue in workplace communication, is that the recipient of the information does not need to confirm receipt for communication to have occurred. When people say things like, “But I sent you the information last week”, or “I gave you the answer in our meeting this morning. Weren’t you listening?” They highlight the fact that one-sided communication is not communication, or at best, is incomplete communication. We define communication as an exchange of information between one entity and another. This definition implies that the information sent or transferred from one entity has to be received by the other entity in the communication process for communication to have occurred. As we will learn, effective communication involves not only confirming receipt of information, but also checking for understanding. Workplace communication involves speaking, listening, observing and the ability to understand verbal and nonverbal meanings in the communication process. According to the National Communication Association, the largest national organization dedicated to advancing all forms of communication, 75% of a person’s day is spent communicating in some way. This is one of the reasons that effective communication skills are critical as the outcome of our communications affects all aspects of our lives. Our success, professional and personal, depends on it. Let’s examine a few more reasons we should communicate effectively.
- Why is Effective Communication Important? We already know that communication is a big part of our daily existence. Even when we don’t want to communicate, the very actions we take not to communicate such as being quiet in meetings, avoiding people, declining to respond to emails or give feedback, communicate something about us. In a survey of 480 companies and organizations conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers and published in the Wall Street Journal, effective communication ability ranked first among the desirable personal qualities of future employees. ( don’t read reference: December 29, 1998. Wall Street Journal, Work Week, p. A1.) In a national survey of 1000 human resource managers, oral communication skills are identified as valuable for both obtaining employment and successful job performance ( don’t read reference: Winsor, et al., 1997). In yet another survey, executives in Fortune 500 companies indicate that college students need better communication skills, as well as the ability to work in teams and with people from diverse backgrounds (Association Trends, 1997). The point of these examples is that honing your communication skills should be a priority for you as you seek to advance in the workplace.
- Communication: Clarity Clarity is a critical aspect of any communication. Daily, thousands of employees spend time, energy and other resources on the wrong tasks and assignments, costing their organizations millions of dollars, simply because they did not receive clear directions or goals. There are many talented people who have excellent command of their language of commerce. However, unless you’re a novelist or some other writer whose job it is to romanticize language, workplace communication is primarily meant to convey actionable information. Use it as intended. Avoid a scenario such as the one on this slide. The way the story goes, a college professor called the fire department to report that his house was on fire. Instead of stating that his house was on fire, he articulated that “A magnanimous conflagration is consuming my domiciliary edifice.” “Say what?!” the fire man reacted. The professor proceeded to repeat himself, “A magnanimous conflagration is consuming my domiciliary edifice.” Frustrated, the fireman hung up. A few minutes later, the professor called back crying, “My house is on fire. My house is on fire. Please help.” By the time the fire truck got to his house, it was too late. The house was completely razed. What would have happened had he set aside his professorial panache and declared that his house was on fire the first time? To help yourself and your coworkers, apply the KISS principle, keep all your communications simple and straightforward. Another important step in ensuring that your communication is clear is tailoring it to your audience. If you are an accountant in a meeting with other accountants, it might be ok to stick with technical terms that everyone in the room is expected to understand. However, you run the risk of losing your audience if you do not take the time to explain those terminologies or use terms that everyone would understand in a meeting with non-accountants. One other way to ensure you are being clear is to check for understanding. Ask your audience to tell you their understanding of the message you communicated. If you have ever listened in on the all important conversation between a pilot and air traffic control, you would have noticed that the pilot repeats every instruction he or she receives from the controller. It is a very effective way to ensure that both speaker and listener are on the same wavelength. If a message is critical, encourage your listener to put it in writing or send a written summary after the verbal communication. This is one way to ensure the essence of the message is not lost with the passage of time. As listeners in any communication, we have a responsibility to ensure we understand the message being shared with us. We can ask questions or repeat the message back to the speaker to ensure clarity.
- Here are the four principles of Interpersonal Communication Interpersonal communication is inescapable. Interpersonal communication is irreversible. Interpersonal communication is complicated. Interpersonal communication is contextual – Communication does not happen in isolation. Let’s shed more light on each of these principles.