3 Key Communication Skills For Workplace Success
Communication skills are needed to speak competently within a wide variety of people. An outstanding communicator practices good eye contact, the ability to tailor ones’ vocabulary to a set audience, and, most importantly, having the capability to listen adequately.
Workplace communication is especially essential to a company’s productivity because if done correctly, employees can experience an increase in morale and commitment in an organization.
The three fundamental communication skills in a workplace setting require concise communication, transparency, and listening skills.
Business communication is an art, and like art, several techniques underlie effective communication. The methods to form concise communication include thinking before you speak, staying on topic with the main idea, ensuring that all details within the conversation are relevant to the primary purpose of the discussion, and lastly, tailoring both the style and the essence of your communication to an audience. These methods sound pretty familiar, as it is the same techniques used in writing when forming a paragraph.
Cultivating business communication in the workplace is difficult without building a culture of transparency and accountability. Businesses must remove any potential for confusion from all workplace communication, which includes company guidelines, roles, responsibilities, and processes. Accountability only begins when there is a clear understanding of who is responsible for which parts of the business. Businesses need to understand that employees struggle when management leaves important information open for interpretation.
Conflicts can emerge from misunderstandings within a business despite practicing transparency. When these issues arise, companies must use active listening techniques to ensure that every employee within the organization feels both heard and valued.
There is a massive misconception between the act of listening and actively listening. Listening is not something that happens (that is hearing); listening is an active process that requires the conscious decision to listen and understand the messages of the speaker.
There are two key components to master the art of being an active listener, and they include both non-verbal and verbal signs.
First, active listeners use body language to signal that they are actively listening; this includes eye contact, maintaining posture, mirroring the speaker, and eliminating distractions.
Second, an active listener can demonstrate that they have been paying attention by asking relevant questions, reflecting by paraphrasing what the speaker said, and clarifying that the correct message was received.
Business communication is not a skill that can be mastered overnight, but by consciously practicing these essential skills during every conversation, habits will develop, making communication easy.