How to Improve Communication Skills?
Well, learning effective communication skills is a very simple process that allows you to express yourself. In this way, you can improve both your personal and professional relationships.
When you learn How to improve your communication skills then you will be able to listen well and communicate more clearly. It will also help you to express yourself in Job interviews, business meetings, and your personal life too.
In this article, we have listed the 11 best methods that show how to improve communication skills at work:
1: Listening Skills:
Do you know that clear communication starts with active listening? So, if you are just focusing on how, you can express yourself then there are chances that you are not listening or reacting to the things that others bring. An effective communicator uses a variety of listening styles and pays close attention to what is being said to them.
You need to listen to what others are saying instead of formulating your response. Also, you need to ask for clarifications and avoid misunderstandings. The person who is speaking to you is the most important in your life and you should listen to them. Remember, that Your attention should not be get divided whenever you are talking to another person.
2: Empathy:
When you start being able to understand the feelings of the people who are around you is an integral part of an effective communicator. Here the term Empathy means understanding and relating to someone’s else feelings. While having emotional intelligence and the ability to understand the other person’s feelings increases your ability to communicate.
3: Body Language matters:
This one is most important for doing face-to-face or video conferencing meetings. Try to make sure that your appearance should be accessible and you have open body language. By this, we mean that you should not cross your arms and keep eye contact so that the other person knows that you are paying attention towards them.
4: Be Brief:
Either for written and verbal communication, you need to practice being brief but specific enough. You should provide enough information for the other person so that they can understand what you are trying to say.
So, if you are responding to an e-mail then you need to make sure that read the entire e-mail before crafting your response. In this way, the other person will be able to understand things properly.
5: Maintain a positive attitude and smile:
Even when you are speaking on the phone, try to smile always because it brings a positive attitude to you. When you start talking to other people having a smile on your face then it often shows a positive attitude in you. Also, the people will start responding to you positively.
6: Straight talking:
As we all know that Conversation is a base of communication and one should not neglect its importance. Sometimes, even a simple friendly conversation with either your colleagues or friends can build trust and even detect the problems before they become serious.
A healthy dose of chatting with some unknown person can lead you towards a business opportunity. Thus, you need to be accessible and friendly and only then you will be able to talk to almost anyone.
7: Non-verbal communication:
The non-verbal signals are usually wordless communication and it mainly includes your body position, facial expression, hand movements, gestures, eye contact, attitude and tone of your voice, etc. The way that you look, listen, react, and speaks shows your feelings towards the other person.
Today, 93% of communication is being non-verbal, and developing the ability to understand others and using non-verbal signals will help you to connect with others. It also expresses what you think, and thus you will meet challenging situations and one can build better relationships either at home or work.
8: Emotion control:
In communication, feelings play an important role and thus it helps in making the decision easier than you think. Also, it is guided by emotions and your non-verbal behaviour sometimes affects the understanding of other people and how others understand and perceive you.
However, if you are not aware of your feelings then it’s true that you will not be able to express your needs and experience. So, this can result in frustration, misunderstanding, and conflict.
When you try to control your emotions then it helps you to understand others. Although recognizing feelings will make it very simple and most people feel strong in controlling their anger, sorrow, or fear.
9: Speak up:
Communication indeed begins with you so you need to take full responsibility and then start communication. So, you don’t need to wait and expect another person to do so, and also you don’t hide the various forms of your online communication. Especially, the important topics require more what we express in a written message.
Sometimes we often misunderstand the kind of communication as we are not been able to see the other person’s face. So, we called it non-verbal communication.
10: Prepare what you are going to say:
You need to think before you speak. We start working best whenever we have the time to process our thoughts before we share them with the other person. If you think that the conversation or meeting is worth your precious time then you need to take few minutes so that you can prepare your speech.
For a very important conversation, you need to try to mock up your conversation first with a trusted person in order to get of any potential mistakes.
11: Be ready to get the different answers:
Once you end up with your speech part then you need to put yourself in the position of a person who has the skills of listening. Hence, this will ensure a balanced approach and you will be prepared to learn and defend the potential disagreements. So, it will be easier for you to defend your standpoint.
It’s quite obvious that no one can predict that how other people will going to react your talks. So, there is a need to improve the chances of a successful conversation by listening to both negative answers and queries.
Ending words: So, these are the best ways of How to improve written communication skills. So, you can learn these methods and started improving your communication skills either at the workplace or at your home. These tips really help in enhancing your communication skills.
Also read this blog: Non-Verbal Communication and KOPPACT