In a conversation with my sister about effective communication, she shared said that someone had recently said to her, “Sorry, I don’t communicate like you”. What she said after that was brilliant – “it wasn’t about adapting to my style; it was about learning an effective style”.
I heard 3 critical points:
1. Learn – We aren’t born knowing how to communicate. We’ve all experienced saying one thing only to find out the other person heard something else. Communication is about more than just an exchange of information. It’s also important to understand the emotion and intention behind it – it’s nuanced. We also need to learn to listen with the genuine intention of fully understanding the meaning of a message.
2. Effective – Confusing, careless, or incoherent messages not only don’t help, but they actually cause harm to personal and professional relationships. We have to factor in tone, body language, focus, timing, and even engaged listening if we hope to achieve effectiveness. Compelling communication requires intention.
3. Style – Our communication style is how we relate to others; it can build strong relationships or cause conflict and undermine trust and confidence. It’s important that our nonverbal signals don’t contradict our words, that we consider and respect our audience, and that we even keep our own emotions in check while we’re delivering our message. A positive message delivered in a negative or apathetic way can kill a vision and lead to failure.
Communication is how we convey meaning, value, and priorities. It’s how we teach, train, and share new information. It’s how we relate our feelings and what we believe. Communication is important enough that it warrants our full effort in learning to do it well.
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