Everyone is using tweeting, texting and emailing as their major form of communications today. But is it an effective form of communications? It is a known fact that poor communication in a business can create relationship conflicts and problems which can lead to poor productivity and low morale. And this is especially a problem for most Millennials because they must have a keyboard to communicate at all. The problem with electronic communications is that you never can determine the emotion behind the message, to add to this “miscommunications” is the lack of the use of grammar. Not only that, Emails can be lost, delayed or sent to the spam bucket. This can be a real problem if the communication is timely or critical. If your customer has a serious problem and you have sent them a possible fix, you want to know as soon as possible if it worked. The solution to these communications nightmares is simple, pick up the phone and call of or if possible see the other party in person. By having a conversation in real time and being able to hear and/or see, we will be able to get around the problems of electronic keyboarding. When you SEE the person talking, you can also “read” and feel their body language. This will help you understand the complete message. Here are some additional guidelines to improving your “real time” communications: * Remove all distractions and just listen. Never be distracted because as soon as you lose your “concentration” you will miss something important. * Concentrate on what is being said while tuning in to the emotions of the speaker. This will allow you to get the total meaning behind what is being said. * Do not start talking or interrupt the other person UNTIL they are finished and you understand what was said. Never interrupt! When you interrupt, the other person loses their train of thought and it breaks the communications link. * If you do not understand a word or acronym ask for a definition. Wait until the speaker has finished their thought and signal that you have a question. Ask the speaker to repeat or re-phrase it until you understand it. Do not continue until you understand what is being said. * Avoid “filtering” out what you don’t want to hear or do not understand. Listen to everything and even if you do not agree, hear them out! * Do not mentally rehearse what you are going to say while listening. You will miss part of the conversation. If you are busy thinking about what you are going to say you will NOT be listening effectively and may miss important information. So bottom line, when having communications problems, put the keyboard aside and go see or call the other party! Improve this communications soft skill and improve your career. Jim Stedt is a partner at The Business SoftSkills Company (GetSoftSkillsNow.Com) located in Santa Ana, California. They provide job readiness and workforce success videos for education, business, prisons and individual use. Training is available online, on DVD, or through an affiliate program. These products are the most complete and concise soft skills training packages now available for the price of an average college textbook.
Related Articles -
Communications, soft skills, verbal,
|