Companies are made up of individuals who form teams establishing relationships to achieve individual and common goals through communication. Through this, objectives are set, strategies are planned, roles and commitments are determined, tasks are delegated, and much more.
Social skills are abilities or skills that allow a person to interact appropriately with others. We tend to think that they are innate and immovable and that we cannot work on learning and / or improving them.
The reality is very different, and that is that effective communication is a skill like any other and, therefore, it can be learnt and trained in a way that plays in our favor and for our individual and team purposes when achieving success in the projects in which we embark.
In today’s article I want to talk about effective communication and its elements. The benefits of practicing it, the disadvantages of not applying it and how to carry it out in the best way to get you and your team to work focused on the objective as a seamless block.
Let’s begin….
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
Before detailing how to reach effective communication, I would like you to know in a schematic way the benefits that practicing it brings you and what disadvantages it has not to apply it in your work team.
BENEFITS OF APPLYING IT
- Focus the team on objectives
- Meet the objectives more easily and in less time
- Boost team morale knowing that everyone works on the same line
- Distribute resources effectively
- Encourage teamwork
- Encourage conflict resolution
- Avoid misunderstandings and possible cracks
DISADVANTAGES OF NOT APPLYING IT
- It leads to internal conflicts
- De-motivation
- Negative work climate
- Low performance
- Low probability of success in the objectives
CHARACTERISTICS / FACTORS AND ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
Now that you know what effective communication is for and that it can be developed through practice, it is time to detail how you can put it into practice with your team to achieve individual and common goals in the best way.
Define the purpose of the message
Once again, here we have the one who for me is the father of Personal Productivity. Before engaging in any communication, whatever the channel (face-to-face, phone, email, chat, …) spend some time identifying the purpose of it.
Once you define it, mark a communication strategy. This does not mean that you are looking for a way to cheat on the other person, nor that you have to deceive them in some way, but it does mean that you are looking for the correct order of the words to facilitate the understanding of the message and achieve the goal you have set for yourself.
With this you will avoid wandering with words or phrases that make your message much more difficult to decipher, and can divert the team’s attention.
An active listening:
Sometimes, once we hear a certain part (which we believe is essential) of another person’s message, we go directly to mentally elaborating our response before the other person has finished expressing themselves. Sometimes we are even in such a hurry to answer that we interrupt the message to give our answer without having grasped the essence of it.
In some cases, this can lead you to ignore relevant data that you may later need to solve a problem or conflict that the team is experiencing in a certain phase of the project.
We tend to think that, if we delay in responding to someone else’s presentation, it means that we have little knowledge of the subject we are dealing with or lose our reason in the face of an argument.
The reality is quite different and is that, if we take our time to listen to our interlocutor, we respond with serenity and, above all, with all the data in our possession, we will have greater control over the situation and our interlocutor will become aware of it.
On many occasions, if you pause at the end of the other person’s presentation, they will continue their explanation, providing information that could be relevant for the rest of the meeting.
Put yourself in the place of the other:
Identify why they think that way. What is your particular situation? What makes it have that definition so different from the situation you have?
Situations are not one way or another, nothing is black or white. It all depends on the perspective from which you look at it, the paradigm of each person, their previous learning or experiences.
Each of us can be in the same situation and experience it in very different ways, depending on our previous experiences and learning.
Think that if you do not understand another person’s point of view, you will hardly make them understand yours. The reason is very simple and is that your explanation will start from a wrong situation, from a point that the other person does not understand.
Develop Assertive Communication
That is, it is the ability to say what we think with respect to others. The most balanced and accepted option of communication and the one that will lead our team to focus on the objectives, leaving aside personal issues.
To practice assertive communication you must:
- Perform active listening
- Remind yourself that you are as important as others, expressing your feelings and opinions without restricting yourself
- Speak from respect
- Respect and not restrict the opinion of others
- Accept criticism by calmly reflecting on the point of view of others
- Express with your tone of voice and your body what your words say
How you convey a message is even more important than the words you use (an estimated 70-90%). If you use a negative tone of voice and your gestures do not accompany either, you may have already concocted the best phrase in the world that no one will believe in what you say.
The best thing you can do to make your gestures and tone of voice convey the words you want to express is to identify with the message. If you do not believe what you are going to say, you will hardly get others to do the same.
My personal advice is that your message always be consistent with your principles and values. Then you will always have the appropriate gesture and tone to what you are expressing.
Be brief and clear in your presentation:
If you spread your messages with ornaments, and ramblings, the essence of it will be lost along the way and the impact you want to have on the other person will be diluted as you add empty words. You can even irritate the other person.
Get to the point, but don’t send a telegram either, remember that whoever is in front of you must clearly understand the message.
Avoid Prejudices:
One of the keys to avoid prejudice is to ask, whenever you have a doubt about any message. Ask, even the dumbest question, but do not be left with the doubt of what the other person meant, because when you need that information you will make guesses that with great probability will be erratic.
Tip: I advise you that, if you want to obtain more information about a topic, avoid questions with answers of the YES / NO type. A good way to do this is to use the phrase, “tell me about…” or the question what else?
Give and ask for feedback:
Undoubtedly one of the keys to networking . It is one of the strategies that gives the best results, as it uses the vision and experience of the rest of the team to improve the work of each individual , multiplying the knowledge of the group and helping to achieve the objectives more easily.
It is convenient that the feedback is received from more than one person to confirm the level of success of the same.
When giving feedback it is important to highlight what has been done well (without reaching the rally) as well as what needs to be improved or changed. In addition, I recommend that you explain what exactly you think is wrong, why you think this is the case, and also provide at least one solution.
With this, you will send the message to your team that, not only do you take care of seeing the errors, but that you work on providing solutions to improve the operation of the group.
Confirm that your message has been received and vice versa:
This is another type of feedback, and if we do not worry that the message has reached the other person correctly, there are many possibilities that parts of it have been lost along the way.
If you think any part of your message is important, highlight it. Never assume that the other person has made the same mental map that you have in your head before explaining it. Remember that you have given the subject a thousand laps before explaining it, so be patient and confirm that your message has reached the team correctly.
On the other hand, when you are the receiver, make sure that whoever transmits the message provides you with all the necessary data and that the message you have received is the one they intended to transmit.
Use feedback to your advantage:
When you receive a criticism of your way of doing a task, take it as an opportunity for improvement and not as a personal attack. The first will make you improve your way of executing the task next time and the second will only lead to conflicts that in no way will bring you a benefit.
Communicate progress in time:
Establish progress communication stages or checkpoints with your team to verify deadlines are met and avoid distractions from unnecessary calls, emails or contacts such as hallway meetings or instant messaging.
Define the communication channel and environment:
Make it clear which communications should be made by chats ( Evernote Work Chat type ), email, calls, video calls ( Skype type ) and which ones can wait until the next progress review meeting.
Sometimes what you think a visit to the office needs you can solve with a video call or a simple video explaining how a tool works. One tool that I use a lot for these cases is Loom .
Communicate important changes at right time:
If there is an important change in the project, you must communicate it to the rest of the team as soon as possible. There is nothing more annoying than realizing that you have been working in vain.
CONCLUSION
Whatever your type of organization or company, effective communication is a very important factor to be successful in each project , so it should be one of your great objectives to achieve from this moment, if it was not already.
Develop and disseminate a protocol with the elements of effective communication in your company that contains these maxims:
- Set a purpose
- Do an active listening
- Put yourself in the place of the other.
- Develop assertive communication
- Express with your tone of voice and your body what you say with your words
- Be brief and clear in your presentation
- Forget prejudices
- Give and ask for feedback
- Confirm that your message has been received and vice versa
- Use feedback to your advantage
- Communicate progress in time
- Define the communication channel and environment
- Communicate important changes in time
Happy Success!
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