Better Business Communication Day
January 28th is Better Business Communication Day, an opportunity for professionals in any and all industries to think about how they communicate, and how they can improve their communication skills. In case you need some help, consider the following tips:
1. Listening skills: Effective listening isn't done only with our ears, but involves our eyes, our ears, and our hearts. To listen to the ‘whole message' that someone sends means taking into consideration the intent of their message. To do that, we need to consider the larger context, and gain understanding not just from the words, but from the speaker's body language, their cultural and educational background, and their tone of voice. Our awareness of our personal prejudices, feelings, and expectations about the messages we hear and the people who give those messages will help us become more objective and empathic listeners.
2. Voice skills: Our voices can draw others to us or turn them off. A pleasant voice is clear, has varying intonation, and projects as needed. Our emotions are communicated in our voices, often unconsciously, and by our being aware of the emotional tone of our voice, we can realize the impact that our voice is having on our listeners. Professionals who use their voices constantly through out the day are at risk for vocal fatigue. Specific strategies for troubleshooting -- such as, drinking lots of water, using a microphone -- can go far towards alleviating that condition.
3. Speech skills: How well we are able to pronounce our 's, r, l's and other sounds, and sequence these sounds into words will obviously impact how easily we're understood! Speech skills require an ease and fluency in coordinating the movements of our lips, tongue, teeth, jaw, and of the velum at the back of the throat. We are constantly -- and for most of us, automatically -- integrating our speech with our breathing and swallowing too, so that we don’t sound breathy at the end of a sentence or slushy and slurpy.
4. Body Language: Albert Mehrabian, a UCLA psychology professor in the 1960’s, determined that we communicate 55% of our message with body language, 38% with our voice, and only 7% with our words! By maintaining eye contact with our communicative partner, standing close enough to hear comfortably but far enough away to not crowd them (about an arm’s distance), and realizing that our facial expression and gestures actively enhance our message, we can improve our total communication package!
5. Verbal competence: Our ability to convey our messages succinctly is made possible by our use of precise vocabulary and appropriate grammar. Speaking at a slow, comfortable speech rate, and pausing between phrases and sentences can help us have the time to organize our thoughts so that we say what we mean and mean what we say.
6. Social savvy: Most of us find that some people are easier to speak to than others, and similarly, there are some people we enjoy listening to more than others. And typically, most of us are most comfortable with others who are like us – in cultural backgrounds, styles, educational levels etc. But, it doesn’t have to be that way, and by being open and by learning about other people’s cultures, we can ease our way into unfamiliar communicative territory. Choosing neutral topics of conversation and steering away from controversial and emotional ones (like politics!) usually allows us to converse with others who have experiences and outlooks that may be very different than our own. Each communicative interaction is an opportunity – for learning about others, as well as about ourselves!
7. Negotiating: Business Communication is all about negotiating, right? That give and take and continual reach across differences to find a shared space. By being knowledgeable about a topic, by remaining inquisitive, by having a positive attitude, and by feeling confident enough to voice but not insist upon our opinions, we put our best foot forward in negotiations. With a dedication to being aware of our partner’s as well as our own needs and wants, we can work towards deriving a ‘win win’ situation for all involved.
1. Listening skills: Effective listening isn't done only with our ears, but involves our eyes, our ears, and our hearts. To listen to the ‘whole message' that someone sends means taking into consideration the intent of their message. To do that, we need to consider the larger context, and gain understanding not just from the words, but from the speaker's body language, their cultural and educational background, and their tone of voice. Our awareness of our personal prejudices, feelings, and expectations about the messages we hear and the people who give those messages will help us become more objective and empathic listeners.
2. Voice skills: Our voices can draw others to us or turn them off. A pleasant voice is clear, has varying intonation, and projects as needed. Our emotions are communicated in our voices, often unconsciously, and by our being aware of the emotional tone of our voice, we can realize the impact that our voice is having on our listeners. Professionals who use their voices constantly through out the day are at risk for vocal fatigue. Specific strategies for troubleshooting -- such as, drinking lots of water, using a microphone -- can go far towards alleviating that condition.
3. Speech skills: How well we are able to pronounce our 's, r, l's and other sounds, and sequence these sounds into words will obviously impact how easily we're understood! Speech skills require an ease and fluency in coordinating the movements of our lips, tongue, teeth, jaw, and of the velum at the back of the throat. We are constantly -- and for most of us, automatically -- integrating our speech with our breathing and swallowing too, so that we don’t sound breathy at the end of a sentence or slushy and slurpy.
4. Body Language: Albert Mehrabian, a UCLA psychology professor in the 1960’s, determined that we communicate 55% of our message with body language, 38% with our voice, and only 7% with our words! By maintaining eye contact with our communicative partner, standing close enough to hear comfortably but far enough away to not crowd them (about an arm’s distance), and realizing that our facial expression and gestures actively enhance our message, we can improve our total communication package!
5. Verbal competence: Our ability to convey our messages succinctly is made possible by our use of precise vocabulary and appropriate grammar. Speaking at a slow, comfortable speech rate, and pausing between phrases and sentences can help us have the time to organize our thoughts so that we say what we mean and mean what we say.
6. Social savvy: Most of us find that some people are easier to speak to than others, and similarly, there are some people we enjoy listening to more than others. And typically, most of us are most comfortable with others who are like us – in cultural backgrounds, styles, educational levels etc. But, it doesn’t have to be that way, and by being open and by learning about other people’s cultures, we can ease our way into unfamiliar communicative territory. Choosing neutral topics of conversation and steering away from controversial and emotional ones (like politics!) usually allows us to converse with others who have experiences and outlooks that may be very different than our own. Each communicative interaction is an opportunity – for learning about others, as well as about ourselves!
7. Negotiating: Business Communication is all about negotiating, right? That give and take and continual reach across differences to find a shared space. By being knowledgeable about a topic, by remaining inquisitive, by having a positive attitude, and by feeling confident enough to voice but not insist upon our opinions, we put our best foot forward in negotiations. With a dedication to being aware of our partner’s as well as our own needs and wants, we can work towards deriving a ‘win win’ situation for all involved.
Labels: Business Communication, communication, communication improvement, executive communication, global communication, international communication
posted by Sharon Rosen Lopez at
6:07 AM
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