Communication has been one of my low key obsessions over many years, even before I got into Counselling and Coaching. It is a no-brainer that I should work on my communication skills with the type of work that I do. But I think we all can benefit from working on our communication skills because, think about it…our whole existence depends on effective communication from relationships, healthcare, education, commerce to politics. We need to be able to express our needs, wants & ideas with different entities in an effective way without leaving things to guess work.
I have seen where poor communication has ruined relationships and how effective communication has been able to mitigate and even prevent crisis situations both in my personal and professional life. Working on my communication skills also feels like a meditative practice, which helps me to get my thoughts in order instead of reacting to negative emotions and giving into habitual behaviours.
When it comes to people who are good at communicating effectively, most think of charismatic public speakers. But do you really need to put up a show, have a Cambridge level vocabulary or sound like a walking encyclopaedia to get your message across to someone or a group? I don’t think so. You can still be yourself and use your authentic voice to express yourself, educate others and exchange ideas.
So whether you are preparing for a keynote speech, presentation, job interview, consultation, salary negotiation, staff dismissal, project proposal, team meeting, article, blog post to just everyday emailing or a conversation, incorporate these 3 tips to communicate effectively and achieve your desired results.
My simple method of effective communication is to keep it clear, concise & compassionate.
Let’s break down this method.
1. Keep it clear
Or in other words gain clarity on what you want to say. Have you ever walked away from a conversation where you talked until your mouth ran dry but only to remember later that you missed out on some important points?
The easiest way to gain clarity is to give your communication piece a title. For example, If you think about the subject matter of communication it has no limits. If I’m to give a talk or write about it, I can talk about what communication is, different types of it, the dos and don’ts, analyse different styles of effective communicators and so on. It is quite easy to get carried away with so much information related to the subject.
We have all seen presenters and hosts at events and meetings get carried away with too many slides, notes and getting side tracked with their delivery. When you give your work a title it is easier to get clear on what to talk about and most importantly what not to talk about.
Try typing up an email without a subject line and with a subject line. Having made this mistake I have often changed the entire body of the email after writing the subject line. You can even use this tip when preparing for a conversation with someone; ask yourself what exactly am I going to talk about?
2. Keep it concise
Most feel hesitant to keep their presentations, emails and even conversations very concise thinking they will not come across as an expert or will not be able to achieve their objectives. We have this tendency to infuse as many stories and use as much jargon as possible to get attention and validation from the audience.
I have listened to people who are by conventional standards quite charismatic, confident and clever because they talk so well, but when you carefully examine the delivery and the content it is pretty much empty, has no flow and a desperate attempt to to be recognised as experts or authority on the subject.
Once you get clear on what to talk about and what not to talk about, let’s get even more focused on cleaning up the fluff and the faff. The rule of three is the best way to keep things concise. Write down all the points you think are important. Then pick the top 3 important points to discuss. Such as what are the top three objectives or goals you would like to achieve from this conversation, email, presentation or meeting? And then, If you need to, give an example or a relevant story to further explain or support each point.
3. Keep it compassionate
This is the last but not the least important tip. It is so much easier to get caught up emotionally and give in to habitual reactions. Our emotional reactions usually compel us to prove who’s right or wrong, gain attention, achieve justice, just get it done with, procrastinate because it is so daunting or not do it at all! Most often than not we regret giving into our emotions and wish we could have responded differently.
I find the best way to deal with negative emotions such as fear, anger, frustration, condemnation and anxiety related to communication is to adopt a compassionate attitude towards ourselves and the others involved. A compassionate attitude helps to achieve that win-win situation we all talk about but find hard to achieve. Having a compassionate attitude will guide you to focus on the solution, harmony and mutual benefit.
Feeling compassion for yourself and others involved helps reduce the resistance you feel about the interaction ( treat your article or the blog as an interaction too!). When you prepare your mindset with a positive emotion your awareness of the experience will change, helping you to stay focused on your objective without going back and forth with the mental chatter. I find a compassionate state of mind also helps me to get into flow mode and receive intuitive guidance.
Here are some things you can tell yourself to adopt a compassionate outlook:
- My purpose of this (conversation, presentation, meeting, email etc) is to achieve a solution, harmony and mutual benefit.
- I am going to give the other person the benefit of the doubt.
- I don’t know the full story, so let me try my best to understand from their point of view.
- I am going to do my very best and if it doesn’t work out there’s always next time to do better.
- This is a great learning opportunity to work on my communication skills.
You will find out that the more you gain clarity on your subject matter, stick to the three most important points and have a compassionate attitude, the more confident you will become in your communication. It is much easier than trying to look confident and wasting your energy on assuming a persona. People you communicate with will find you confident but not in a cocky way but in a warm and trustworthy way.
