Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.
–Paul J. Meyer—
Communication skills are vital to link people together and enables you to understand and be understood by others. It is an ability that helps you to be an effective communicator and success throughout your career. In this digital age, it is a must for you to convey and receive messages using mobile phone, emails, and other social platforms. You may impress others by good communication skills which may lead you to a higher status in your career and achieve success in interpersonal relationships.
What Are The Criteria of Good Communication Skill?
Active listening.
An effective communicator will pay attention and comprehend what others are talking. It is important to be a good listener and care about what others are trying to convey because nobody likes to speak to a person who never concerns about their feelings and words. As an active listener, you must focus on what the person’s saying and respect them when they’re speaking. Speakers will know you’re paying attention if you ask questions or rephrase their sentence to clarify their messages. Never underestimate the powerfulness of active listening as you can respond appropriately and gain confidence from others.
Empathy.
Put yourself into others’ shoes by thinking from others’ perspective, and reduce bias and judgments based on your own beliefs. Having empathy is very useful in communication as it helps you to feel others’ emotions and keep in tune with them.
Use different communication styles in different situations. Adapting your communication style to your audience and situations are vital key to good communication skills. Nowadays, different communication mediums are available (e.g. emails, phone call, voice messaging, face to face interaction etc.) and it requires you to be adaptive to different communication styles. During face to face interaction, you need to be aware of your body languages and words used. You’ll find it easier to communicate complex information through communicating in person rather than in a lengthy email.
Friendliness.
Characteristics of honesty and openness are important to form a stronger relationship with your colleagues, supervisors or/and clients. Keep positive attitudes and be polite to colleagues and/ or supervisors often foster trust and respect among each other. If they feel welcomed and needed, morale and appreciation in the workplace will be heightened.
Give constructive feedbacks.
Simple words such as “good job” or “thanks for your contribution” to your coworkers can highly increase motivation and encouragement among colleagues. Constructive evaluations are useful to improve collaboration and form a friendly working environment. However, aggressive feedbacks are harmful to interpersonal relationships and break the bonds. Be aware of your words and attitudes when giving feedbacks and be open to accept others’ feedbacks to improve yourselves at the same time.
Be relatable.
As an effective communicator, you must pay efforts to understand your team as individuals. Make a habit to walk around offices to engage in informal chats with your colleagues. They will be willing to share their stories with you when you show interest in them. The lower your pedestal, the more they’ll rally behind you.
Repeat the main points for emphasis.
It is a smart way to repeat the key points through repetition because your audiences will notice about the importance and take in note better. It also useful for you as repetition will prevent you from getting lost in your argument.
Keep a good sense of humor.
People will tend to open to conversations when you have a good sense of humor. If you are good at relate people together and make people laugh-you’re a person with a good sense of humor. Be careful with using humor, don’t go overboard or offend others. Good use of humor helps you to loosen up the mood and help to clearly convey the tone of your message.
Respond in a timely manner.
People will appreciate you for your responsiveness to their problems. Make sure to reply to them as soon as possible and they will love you and open a door for referrals and introductions.
Be prepared.
Remember that people are watching you and you should always prepare yourself in all situations. Effective communicator always prepares themselves for unknown no matter where they are.
Use analogies.
Be smart to use analogy as it can help you to put everyone on the same page and resolve conflict. Analogies can help you to clarify questions as everyone’s perspectives are different.
Ask before speaking.
Don’t make assumptions or misinterpreting what your client or colleagues think as people always think differently. When comes to a complex situation, ask. It may help you to clarify the speaker’s meaning and lead to better communication.
To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.
Tony Robbins
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