by 3 years ago | 4 Min Read
Having great communication skills is absolutely crucial in business and life. It’s very hard to have cohesion throughout your whole team if everyone isn’t on the same page. It’s important to make sure that you are effectively communicating with each member of your team and anyone else that plays an integral role in the success of your company. I wanted to share 5 ways that you can improve your communication skills so that you can run your business more efficiently.
#1. Understand The 4 Levels Of Communication
There are 4 levels of communication:
- What you intend to say
- What you actually say
- What the other person hears
- What the other person thinks you meant
It’s important to be aware of how you’re communicating the point your’e trying to make. Are you conveying your point in a clear and understandable manner? It’s also important to understand the comprehension level of the person you’re communicating to.
#2. Make Your Communication Easy To Understand
It’s important to communicate your ideas in as simple a manner, as possible. If you can communicate your idea or instruction to a child in a way that they can clearly understand it, you will ensure that your communication will be effective, regardless of your audience.
It’s also important to consider who you’re communicating with. Everyone has a different level of intelligence and specific expertise in different fields. You might want to communicate the same thing to 2 different people. If one of them understands the subject you’re communicating about, you will likely tailor your content and communication style to their knowledge level. On the other hand, you will communicate in a more simple way to the other person with less knowledge of the subject at hand.
#3. Clarify And Verify
On your side of the communication, you always want to look for clarity. When you’re communicating something to someone, you want to make sure that they clearly understood what you tried to communicate to them. Ask them to repeat back to you, what you just told them. This will ensure that they fully understood your communication to them.
On the other side of things, if you’re being communicated to, by another person, you should try to repeat back to them what they jus told you, to ensure that you understood them and the message they tried to get across to you.
#4. Take A Moment
If you’re dealing with a particularly stressful situation, your emotions might be getting the best of you. This may come out while you’re trying to communicate with someone. Especially if you’re communicating with the person who is the cause of your stress.
In these situations, it’s best to take a moment and collect yourself. Do a breathing exercise, get some fresh air, go for a walk or do something else to soothe yourself. If it’s a particularly stressful situation, you might even want to sleep on it and wait until the next day to communicate with that person.
Try to be empathetic to that person. Put yourself in their shoes. They likely didn’t mean to upset you and stress you out so much. Give them the benefit of the doubt and keep an open mind when you confront them about the situation at hand.
#5. Communicate Like A Professional Speaker
Professional speakers are among the most effective communicators on the planet. Naturally, they are a great resource to study and analyze, in your pursuit to becoming a better communicator.
Use storytelling as much as you can. Stories are a powerful way to get a point across or to teach someone an important lesson. Telling someone a story is far more effective way to communicate something to them than if you simply told them the dry information you wanted to convey to them.
Whenever it’s appropriate and natural to do so, use people’s names when you communicate with them. This will make them more attentive to your message, as it will feel more personal to them.
Dr. Albert Mehrabian has the 7-38-55% Rule where he breaks down the different Elements of Personal Communication. He found that 7% of our communication is spoken words. 38% is our voice and tone. The remaining 55% is all body language. Make sure you consider your body language and your tone of voice when you speak. Use your hands to emphasize things and make sure your tone of voice is congruent with the message you’re trying to communicate.
If you put all of these techniques and concepts together, I’m very confident your communication will be far more effective. Better communication will unlock new levels for you to take your business or career to new heights. It’s time to communicate your way to newfound success.
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I hope that you’ve found value in this blog post! Feel free to share it with anyone that you think will benefit from it as well.
If you’d like to hear more of my thoughts on this subject, you can check out my video here:
If you’d like to be even more effective as an entrepreneur, check out my blog post on How To Delegate Effectively.
