No-one is listening to me! How to become a more effective communicator – Part 2

no one is listening

Clear communication makes for effective communication and great leaders

Since 90% of all business and personal relationships have to do with communication, learning how to be an effective communicator, clear about your message content will make life a lot easier to manage.

5 Quick Steps for clear verbal communication:

  1. Know what you want to say. Having a general idea is not good enough. You should have a point to make with supporting information.
  2. Don’t worry about length. Effective communication has nothing to do with the length of a message. Sometimes, the less said, the better a person understands your message.
  3. Avoid getting sidetracked. Write down your thoughts in bullet form to help you stay on topic.
  4. Observe your audience and pick up on signals so you can adjust your communications strategy accordingly. For example, if you see eyes darting away from you, then you should realize that you may have lost that person’s attention.
  5. Evaluate how you delivered your message or ask the person/people in front of you to be candid about your communication style and try to keep an open mind.

4 Quick steps to clear written communication

Since communication covers written, verbal and nonverbal means, it is important to examine what would constitute great written communication.

  1. Online posts and text messages are not the best ways to communicate because of the limitations so any serious material should be delivered personally or in formal emails or printed letters. A company I was working with recently shared with the meeting that one of their clients had banned them from sending emails and now all correspondence relating to a specific matter needed to be in writing and delivered by hand to the client. The reason for this being potential cyber crime.
  2. Always make sure the message is received and keep a personal copy of your message on file.
  3. Be concise and go straight to the point. Most people don’t have a lot of time to read long-winded letters so keeping it short and direct is a good strategy to ensure that your message gets across.
  4. If you are at the receiving end of written communications, make it a point to respond within a reasonable time frame even if only to acknowledge receipt of the letter.

Finally, I encourage you to be relatable. This means being real to the person you are speaking to or writing to. Although you may have the authority, you don’t want to intimidate others to listen to you. If you work on being relatable, you will not have a problem talking to anyone from the street level all the way up to the CEO’s boardroom. And if you be yourself and not attempt to mimic someone else’s style, you will be more endearing to your audience and tap into their brain’s receptive mode so they will want to listen and accept your message.

If you would like to develop your effective communication further through coaching, then please be in touch for an initial call to see how I might support you.

 

Related Posts