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Effective Communication
Improving Communication Skills in Business and
Relationships
Effective
communication helps us better understand a person or situation and enables
us to resolve differences, build trust and respect, and create environments
where creative ideas, problem solving, affection, and caring can flourish.
As simple as communication seems, much of what we try to communicate to
others—and what others try to communicate to us—gets misunderstood, which
can cause conflict and frustration in personal and professional
relationships. By learning these effective communication skills, you can
better connect with your spouse, kids, friends, and coworkers.
What is effective communication?
In
the information age, we have to send, receive, and process huge numbers of
messages every day. But effective communication is about more than just
exchanging information; it's also about understanding the emotion behind
the information. Effective communication can improve relationships at home,
work, and in social situations by deepening your connections to others and
improving teamwork, decision-making, and problem solving. It enables you to
communicate even negative or difficult messages without creating conflict
or destroying trust. Effective communication combines a set of skills
including nonverbal communication, attentive listening, the ability to
manage stress in the moment, and the capacity to recognize and understand
your own emotions and those of the person you’re communicating with.
While
effective communication is a learned skill, it is more effective when it’s
spontaneous rather than formulaic. A speech that is read, for example,
rarely has the same impact as a speech that’s delivered (or appears to be
delivered) spontaneously. Of course, it takes time and effort to develop
these skills and become an effective communicator. The more effort and
practice you put in, the more instinctive and spontaneous your
communication skills will become.
Effective communication skills
1: Listening
Listening
is one of the most important aspects of effective communication. Successful
listening means not just understanding the words or the information being
communicated, but also understanding how the speaker feels about what
they’re communicating.
Effective
listening can:
- Make the speaker feel heard
and understood, which can help build a stronger, deeper connection
between you.
- Create an environment where
everyone feels safe to express ideas, opinions, and feelings, or plan
and problem solve in creative ways.
- Save time by helping clarify
information, avoid conflicts and misunderstandings.
- Relieve negative emotions. When emotions are running
high, if the speaker feels that he or she has been truly heard, it can
help to calm them down, relieve negative feelings, and allow for real
understanding or problem solving to begin.
Tips for effective listening
If
your goal is to fully understand and connect with the other person, listening
effectively will often come naturally. If it doesn’t, you can remember the
following tips. The more you practice them, the more satisfying and
rewarding your interactions with others will become.
- Focus fully on the speaker, his or her body language,
and other nonverbal cues. If you’re daydreaming, checking text
messages, or doodling, you’re almost certain to miss nonverbal cues in
the conversation. If you find it hard to concentrate on some speakers,
try repeating their words over in your head—it’ll reinforce their
message and help you stay focused.
- Avoid interrupting or trying to redirect the
conversation to your concerns, by saying something like, “If you think
that’s bad, let me tell you what happened to me.” Listening is not the
same as waiting for your turn to talk. You can’t concentrate on what
someone’s saying if you’re forming what you’re going to say next.
Often, the speaker can read your facial expressions and know that your
mind’s elsewhere.
- Avoid seeming judgmental. In order to communicate
effectively with someone, you don’t have to like them or agree with
their ideas, values, or opinions. However, you do need to set aside
your judgment and withhold blame and criticism in order to fully
understand a person. The most difficult communication, when
successfully executed, can lead to the most unlikely and profound
connection with someone.
- Show your interest in what’s being said. Nod
occasionally, smile at the person, and make sure your posture is open
and inviting. Encourage the speaker to continue with small verbal
comments like “yes” or “uh huh.”
Effective communication skills
#2: Nonverbal communication
When
we communicate things that we care about, we do so mainly using nonverbal
signals. Wordless communication, or body language, includes facial
expressions, body movement and gestures, eye contact, posture, the tone of
your voice, and even your muscle tension and breathing. The way you look,
listen, move, and react to another person tells them more about how you’re
feeling than words alone ever can.
Developing
the ability to understand and use nonverbal communication can help you
connect with others, express what you really mean, navigate challenging
situations, and build better relationships at home and work.
- You can enhance effective
communication by using open body language—arms uncrossed, standing
with an open stance or sitting on the edge of your seat, and
maintaining eye contact with the person you’re talking to.
- You can also use body
language to emphasize or enhance your verbal message—patting a friend
on the back while complimenting him on his success, for example, or
pounding your fists to underline your message.
Tips for improving how you read nonverbal communication
- Practice observing people in public places, such as
a shopping mall, bus, train, café, restaurant, or even on a television
talk show with the sound muted. Observing how others use body language
can teach you how to better receive and use nonverbal signals when
conversing with others. Notice how people act and react to each other.
Try to guess what their relationship is, what they’re talking about,
and how each feels about what is being said.
- Be aware of individual
differences.
People from different countries and cultures tend to use different
nonverbal communication gestures, so it’s important to take age,
culture, religion, gender, and emotional state into account when
reading body language signals. An American teen, a grieving widow, and
an Asian businessman, for example, are likely to use nonverbal signals
differently.
- Look at nonverbal
communication signals as a group. Don’t read too much into a
single gesture or nonverbal cue. Consider all of the nonverbal signals
you receive, from eye contact to tone of voice to body language.
Anyone can slip up occasionally and let eye contact slip, for example,
or briefly cross their arms without meaning to. Consider the signals
as a whole to get a better “read” on a person.
Tips for improving how to deliver nonverbal
communication
- Use nonverbal signals that
match up with your words. Nonverbal communication should reinforce what is
being said, not contradict it. If you say one thing, but your body
language says something else, your listener will likely feel you’re
being dishonest. For example, you can’t say “yes” while shaking your
head no.
- Adjust your nonverbal
signals according to the context. The tone of your voice,
for example, should be different when you’re addressing a child than
when you’re addressing a group of adults. Similarly, take into account
the emotional state and cultural background of the person you’re
interacting with.
- Use body language to convey
positive feelings even when you're not actually experiencing them.
If you’re nervous about a situation—a job interview, important
presentation, or first date, for example—you can use positive body
language to signal confidence, even though you’re not feeling it.
Instead of tentatively entering a room with your head down, eyes
averted, and sliding into a chair, try standing tall with your shoulders
back, smiling and maintaining eye contact, and delivering a firm
handshake. It will make you feel more self-confident and help to put
the other person at ease.
Effective communication skills
#3: Managing stress
In
small doses, stress can help you perform under pressure. However, when
stress becomes constant and overwhelming, it can hamper effective
communication by disrupting your capacity to think clearly and creatively,
and act appropriately. When you’re stressed, you’re more likely to misread other
people, send confusing or off-putting nonverbal signals, and lapse into
unhealthy knee-jerk patterns of behavior.
How
many times have you felt stressed during a disagreement with your spouse,
kids, boss, friends, or coworkers and then said or done something you later
regretted? If you can quickly relieve stress and return to a calm state,
you’ll not only avoid such regrets, but in many cases you’ll also help to
calm the other person as well. It’s only when you’re in a calm, relaxed
state that you'll be able to know whether the situation requires a
response, or whether the other person’s signals indicate it would be better
to remain silent.
Quick stress relief for effective communication
When
stress strikes, you can’t always temper it by taking time out to meditate
or go for a run, especially if you’re in the middle of a meeting with your
boss or an argument with your spouse, for example. By learning to quickly
reduce stress in the moment, though, you can safely face any strong
emotions you’re experiencing, regulate your feelings, and behave
appropriately. When you know how to maintain a relaxed, energized state of
awareness—even when something upsetting happens—you can remain emotionally
available and engaged.
To
deal with stress during communication:
- Recognize when you’re
becoming stressed. Your body will let you know if you’re stressed as
you communicate. Are your muscles or your stomach tight and/or sore?
Are your hands clenched? Is your breath shallow? Are you
"forgetting" to breathe?
- Take a moment to calm down before deciding to continue
a conversation or postpone it.
- Bring your senses to the
rescue
and quickly manage
stress by taking a few deep breaths, clenching and
relaxing muscles, or recalling a soothing, sensory-rich image, for
example. The best way to rapidly and reliably relieve stress is
through the senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. But each
person responds differently to sensory input, so you need to find
things that are soothing to you.
- Look for humor in the
situation. When
used appropriately, humor is a great way to relieve stress when
communicating. When you or those around you start taking things too
seriously, find a way to lighten the mood by sharing a joke or amusing
story.
- Be willing to compromise. Sometimes, if you can both
bend a little, you’ll be able to find a happy middle ground that
reduces the stress levels for everyone concerned. If you realize that
the other person cares much more about something than you do,
compromise may be easier for you and a good investment in the future
of the relationship.
- Agree to disagree, if necessary, and take
time away from the situation so everyone can calm down. Take a quick
break and move away from the situation. Go for a stroll outside if
possible, or spend a few minutes meditating. Physical movement or
finding a quiet place to regain your balance can quickly reduce
stress.
Effective communication skills
#4: Emotional awareness
Emotions
play an important role in the way we communicate at home and work. It’s the
way you feel, more than the way you think, that motivates you to
communicate or to make decisions. The way you react to emotionally driven,
nonverbal cues affects both how you understand other people and how they
understand you. If you are out of touch with your feelings, and don’t
understand how you feel or why you feel that way, you’ll have a hard time
communicating your feelings and needs to others. This can result in
frustration, misunderstandings, and conflict. When you don’t address what’s
really bothering you, you often become embroiled in petty squabbles
instead—arguing with your spouse about how the towels should be hung, for
example, or with a coworker about whose turn it is to restock the copier.
Emotional
awareness provides you the tools needed for understanding both yourself and
other people, and the real messages they are communicating to you. Although
knowing your own feelings may seem simple, many people ignore or try to
sedate strong emotions like anger, sadness, and fear. But your ability to
communicate depends on being connected to these feelings. If you’re afraid
of strong emotions or if you insist on communicating only on a rational
level, it will impair your ability to fully understand others, creatively
problem solve, resolve conflicts, or build an affectionate connection with
someone.
How emotional awareness can improve effective
communication
Emotional
awareness—the consciousness of your moment-to-moment emotional
experience—and the ability to manage all of your feelings appropriately is
the basis for effective communication.
Emotional
awareness helps you:
- Understand and empathize
with what is really troubling other people
- Understand yourself,
including what’s really troubling you and what you really want
- Stay motivated to
understand and empathize with the person you’re interacting with, even
if you don’t like them or their message
- Communicate clearly and
effectively, even when delivering negative messages
- Build strong, trusting, and
rewarding relationships, think creatively, solve problems, and resolve
conflicts
Effective communication requires both thinking and
feeling
When
emotional awareness is strongly developed, you’ll know what you’re feeling
without having to think about it—and you’ll be able to use these emotional
cues to understand what someone is really communicating to you and act
accordingly. The goal of effective communication is to find a healthy
balance between your intellect and your emotions, between thinking and
feeling.
Emotional awareness is a skill you can learn
Emotional
awareness is a skill that, with patience and practice, can be learned at
any time of life. You can develop emotional awareness by learning how to
get in touch with difficult emotions and manage uncomfortable feelings,
including anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise, and joy. When you know
how to do this, you can remain in control of your emotions and behavior,
even in very challenging situations, and communicate more clearly and
effectively.
Next step...
Improve
Emotional Awareness.
Emotions are the foundation of your ability to understand yourself and
communicate effectively with others. Emotional awareness allows you to
understand what others are feeling and to empathize with them.
Relationship Help – By understanding the
principles of a healthy romantic relationship, you can help make your
relationship more fulfilling, exciting, and meaningful.
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How to Make Friends – Whatever your age or
circumstances, you can learn to make new friends and build friendships
that will provide comfort and joy in life.
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Nonverbal
Communication – As the majority of the messages we send are
nonverbal, it’s important to understand and use body language in a way
that builds better relationships at home and work.
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Conflict Resolution
Skills
- When
handled positively, conflict can provide an opportunity to strengthen the
bond between two people.
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Emotional Intelligence Toolkit
5-Steps to Reduce Stress and Bring Your Life Into
Balance
The
FREE Emotional Intelligence
Toolkit
can help you confidently meet relationship challenges, communicate better,
and make stronger, more satisfying connections.
Authors:
Lawrence Robinson, Jeanne Segal, Ph. D., and Robert Segal, M.A. Last
updated: November 2013.
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