How to Communicate Effectively

An Overview

Communication it’s one of those things we all do. It is essential to human interaction. If you want an idea to gain acceptance, you must communicate it. If you are leading a team, you need to communicate effectively to them. If you want to build a relationship, you must communicate. Effective communication in the workplace is imperative in a leadership role. Effective communication is about more than just exchanging information. It’s about understanding the emotion and intentions behind the information. An age-old aphorism goes, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.” Good communication is what separates a poor leader from an exceptional one. Having effective communication skills is the key to good leadership. When you communicate well with your team, it helps eliminate misunderstandings and can encourage a healthy and peaceful work environment. If you want to build a relationship, you must communicate. It’s a large part of what makes us human. Yet so many people struggle with communication, especially at work or in high-profile settings.

This same approach holds true in our individual work and customized programs. In every workshop, every one-on-one coaching session or corporate retreat, we want you to step into the experience first. Then you will practice and make it your own, moving it from the idea into execution and setting you up to be successful as you apply it in your daily life. The second saying relates to you as a leader – You can communicate without leading, but you can’t lead without communicating. If you want to be an effective leader, you need to be a powerful communicator. Join in the practice.

Here are 16 Tips to communicate Effectively

1. Open Meeting:

It is easier to communicate your passion and how you feel to your team via open meetings. In this kind of forum, they will not only hear what you are saying, they will also see and feel it. This approach still remains one of the best approaches to communicate effectively with a team.

2. Stress and out-of-control emotion:

When you’re stressed or emotionally overwhelmed, you’re more likely to misread other people, send confusing or off-putting nonverbal signals, and lapse into unhealthy knee-jerk patterns of behavior. To avoid conflict and misunderstandings, you can learn how to quickly calm down before continuing a conversation.

3. Emails:

In official settings, communication via email remains potent. It will enable you to pass messages to members of your team without pulling them out of their workstations.

4. Lack of focus:

You can’t communicate effectively when you’re multitasking. If you’re checking your phone, planning what you’re going to say next, or daydreaming, you’re almost certain to miss nonverbal cues in the conversation. To communicate effectively, you need to avoid distractions and stay focused. You need to stay focused on the moment-to-moment experience in order to pick up the subtle nuances and important nonverbal cues in a conversation.

5. One to One:

Experts have been able to prove that some people understand better when you take them aside and talk to them on a one-on-one basis. Ensure that you maintain eye contact with them to enable the message to sink in.

6. Inconsistent body language:

Nonverbal communication should reinforce what is being said, not contradict it. If you say one thing, but your body language says something else, your listener will likely feel that you’re being dishonest. For example, you can’t say “yes” while shaking your head no.

7. Create a Receptive Atmosphere:

To effectively communicate with your team, you must create a receptive atmosphere. Avoid a tense environment at all costs because when you communicate in an overly intense manner, the message you are trying to share might not be well understood or retained.

8. Try to set aside judgment:

In order to communicate effectively with someone, you don’t have to like them or agree with their ideas, values, or opinions. However, you do need to set aside your judgment and withhold blame and criticism in order to fully understand them. The most difficult communication, when successfully executed, can often lead to an unlikely connection with someone.

9. Communication via Training:

Your training should be tailored towards communicating certain information to your team members. Most employees take training serious, especially when it’s part of their appraisal.

10. Use Simple Words:

The truth is that everybody cannot be on same page when it comes to vocabulary. Therefore, to be effective in your communications with your team members, use words that can be easily understood. When ambiguous words are used, you can be misunderstood and/or waste precious time having to explain yourself.

11. Listen to Your Team Members:

Communication is intended to be a two way street. Don’t just talk because you are the leader without listening to anyone else. Encourage them to open up so you can be well guided when communicating in the future with them. You have two ears and one mouth so you must listen more than you speak.

12. Show your interest in what’s being said:

Nod occasionally, smile at the person, and make sure your posture is open and inviting. Encourage the speaker to continue with small verbal comments like “yes” or “uh huh.”.

13. Use Body Language:

Your body language will pass your message faster and better. Master the art of using body language when communicating with your team. Stand/sit up straight, use smiles, handshakes and eye contact. You don’t have to agree with or even like what’s being said, but to communicate effectively and not put the other person on the defensive, it’s important to avoid sending negative signals.

14. Avoid Unnecessary Repetition:

If you want your team members to take you serious, never sound like a broken record and don’t beat a dead horse. Tell your team members what you want them to know or do and ask them if they are clear about it. If they are not, only then do you repeat what you have said.

15. Use Presentations:

Some people grasp messages easily when pictures and sounds are involved. Using presentations like Microsoft PowerPoint to communicate with your team will give them the opportunity to refer back to it if they aren’t clear about certain things.

16. Avoid Negative Body Language:

You can enhance effective communication by using open body language arms uncrossed, standing with an open stance or sitting on the edge of your seat, and maintaining eye contact with the person you’re talking to.

Learn to say “no.” Know your limits and don’t let others take advantage of you. Look for alternatives so everyone feels good about the outcome. When effective communication in the workplace is hampered, it can sidetrack the entire effort.