by Diane M. Hoffmann, ph.d./th.
Just as multi-faceted communication itself is, the barriers to effective communication can be just as wide and deep. They can be physical or psychological, individual or social.
Some people have problems communicating which in turn brings the worse in others. If you have two people with good communication skills relating to each other, the conversation or the relation can be just as effective, wonderful and enjoyable as it can be. But the moment you pair one good communicator together with one bad, you create barriers to effective communication.
Some of the barriers are tangled into a problem of individual attitude. This can be the result of rebelling against poor communication coming from management in a work place environment, or parents at home, or a spouse, or friends in other personal areas.
Some people may have psychological problems from personal health or struggles. Communication barriers can come from language misunderstandings stemming from cultural differences, etc. They can be linguistics which is the use or misuse of uncommon or difficult words. They can be from types of personality which is a major player in creating barriers to effective communication.
All these can be found within personal, interpersonal, social, organizational, etc., making for a myriad of barriers to effective communication that one can avoid only through learning and training.
Some of the difficulties might be from a lack of sensitivity either from a sender or a receiver’s point of view, or a lack of basic communication skills, or a lack of knowledge on a subject matter that one might be too proud to admit.
Other communication difficulties may be from emotional instabilities such as anger, hostility, resentfulness, fear, mood swings. All of these create conflicts and barriers to effective communication. As you can see, there is no limit to this subject list.
But the good news in all of it is that something can be done about overcoming these barriers. There is room for improving our communication skills, no matter at what level we are. Even a professor in communication can have problems communicating, because of one or another of the areas listed above.
The barriers to effective communication could be called just as well, the problems to effective communication. So we need to ask ourselves, what are the problems that I’m finding in communicating with others? As we list the problems, it is important to recognize which side those problems belong to. You might have a problem communicating with someone at work because he/she can’t communicate.
Communication is a two-way street. If you are the only one communicating, it will be pretty difficult to resolve the problems. Then what do you do? Send the individual to a communication course? Teach them how to communicate every time there is a misunderstanding, a conflict or no communication at all? They may not be too receptive to the idea.
Sometimes, the only thing we can do in such cases is to ignore, give understanding, forgive and work around it. But with the problems or barriers to effective communication that fall squarely on us, the thing to do is to start working on them through taking courses and seminars, reading books, etc. Then the next most important factor is to put what we learn into relentless practice – one problem or barrier at a time./dmh
Article Copyright(c)Diane M. Hoffmann. You may print this article making sure to include the following bio without any changes.
Diane M. Hoffmann is the founder of Hoffmann-Rondeau Communications and author of the 296-page printed book "Contextual Communication, Organization and Training". Diane also provides a 2-part e-book version of her printed book, "Improve Communication, Verbal and Nonverbal" and "Improve Communication, Organization and Training" as well as many free articles which can be seen at her blog at http://contextual-communication-hrd.blogspot.com/.
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Showing posts with label effective communication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label effective communication. Show all posts
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Three Ways to Enhance Effective Business Communication
by Diane M. Hoffmann, ph.d./th.
Effective business communication, for the business professional, is already above average. However you and I know that business communication needs to be constantly added, improved and enhanced in order to keep us growing and to stay in the race of effective leadership.
Three important areas of communication in business are found in meetings, writings and presentations. Two of these require verbal activities and one written. Effective business communication means that meetings need to be lead (not let to happen). Writing needs to be clear, and presenting needs to be credible.
Here are three ways to enhance your effective business communication:
#1 – Effective business communication – Meetings need to be lead (not let to happen):
Let’s face it, most business colleagues hate meetings. Why? Because they are usually too long, unfocused, un-lead, boring, and too frequent.
So how does one undo this image of meetings?
For one thing, don’t call meetings on a moment’s notice, as too many do, and drag your people on for hours, taking away from their already overloaded work schedules. That’s one sure way to discourage them from coming to your meetings -- let alone liking them.
It is good to realize that meetings cost a company a lot of money. If you have 5 people in your meeting who make twenty dollars an hour and you keep them for three hours, that’s three hundred dollars direct financial loss right there.
Then you have the actual time and productivity loss that each of the people is responsible for within each their department. While they are in the meeting, they are not working at their job function. If these are sales people the value lost is even multiplied.
So, one way to enhance your effective business communication within your meeting activities is to think of the cost of the meeting, then decide if it can wait for another day, then plan ahead, organize and edit it for maximum impact, giving it a definite shortest possible time-frame to get to the result that is expected of the meeting.
#2 – Effective business communication – Writing needs to be clear:
From what I hear people tell me, not many business folks like putting letters and memos together. It is a very happy person who enjoys this task. How efficient is your writing? Do you have a process that you go through before you begin writing?
If not, here’s some help: First, know the purpose you are writing about. Write directly to your reader. Write a draft first and don’t worry about mistakes.
Then re-arrange your draft into 1) a summary of your idea or purpose. 2) a summary of the actions you require of your reader as to who will do what (I, we, you, or personal name).
If the content is long, it is better to use two easy-to-read pages than one page stuffed with too much information and data that’s hard to follow. Break it down with the summary of your idea or purpose then refer to the actions to be taken which you outline clearly on the second page.
Revise and correct for sentence construction and grammar. Read as if you were receiving the letter. Then edit out unnecessary wordings. Add summary headings to paragraphs to make for easy scanning and reading.
#3 – Effective business communication – Presentations need to be credible:
You’ve all heard that the first impression counts. Well the last does too, and everything in between. The first impression captures the attention, the last leaves a feeling (bad or good) on your audience and the content in-between gives you credibility.
To make the introduction positive, point out the benefits to the audience of listening to what you have to say. Show the relevance to the concern or purpose. The idea is to answer the question: “Why should we listen to you?” before they even ask silently or outloud.
Organize your presentation as you do your writing, first on a draft. Then break it down into point-form items, which you each write up on 3x5 or 4x6 cards to keep you on track or use transparencies or power-point.
Effective business communication is a continuous effort that is not drudgery but that is fun and interesting and required for continuous business success and leadership./dmh
Article Copyright(c)Diane M. Hoffmann. You may print this article making sure to include the following bio without any changes.
Diane M. Hoffmann is the founder of Hoffmann-Rondeau Communications and author of the 296-page printed book "Contextual Communication, Organization and Training". Diane also provides a 2-part e-book version of her printed book, "Improve Communication, Verbal and Nonverbal" and "Improve Communication, Organization and Training" as well as many free articles which can be seen at her blog at http://contextual-communication-hrd.blogspot.com/.
Effective business communication, for the business professional, is already above average. However you and I know that business communication needs to be constantly added, improved and enhanced in order to keep us growing and to stay in the race of effective leadership.
Three important areas of communication in business are found in meetings, writings and presentations. Two of these require verbal activities and one written. Effective business communication means that meetings need to be lead (not let to happen). Writing needs to be clear, and presenting needs to be credible.
Here are three ways to enhance your effective business communication:
#1 – Effective business communication – Meetings need to be lead (not let to happen):
Let’s face it, most business colleagues hate meetings. Why? Because they are usually too long, unfocused, un-lead, boring, and too frequent.
So how does one undo this image of meetings?
For one thing, don’t call meetings on a moment’s notice, as too many do, and drag your people on for hours, taking away from their already overloaded work schedules. That’s one sure way to discourage them from coming to your meetings -- let alone liking them.
It is good to realize that meetings cost a company a lot of money. If you have 5 people in your meeting who make twenty dollars an hour and you keep them for three hours, that’s three hundred dollars direct financial loss right there.
Then you have the actual time and productivity loss that each of the people is responsible for within each their department. While they are in the meeting, they are not working at their job function. If these are sales people the value lost is even multiplied.
So, one way to enhance your effective business communication within your meeting activities is to think of the cost of the meeting, then decide if it can wait for another day, then plan ahead, organize and edit it for maximum impact, giving it a definite shortest possible time-frame to get to the result that is expected of the meeting.
#2 – Effective business communication – Writing needs to be clear:
From what I hear people tell me, not many business folks like putting letters and memos together. It is a very happy person who enjoys this task. How efficient is your writing? Do you have a process that you go through before you begin writing?
If not, here’s some help: First, know the purpose you are writing about. Write directly to your reader. Write a draft first and don’t worry about mistakes.
Then re-arrange your draft into 1) a summary of your idea or purpose. 2) a summary of the actions you require of your reader as to who will do what (I, we, you, or personal name).
If the content is long, it is better to use two easy-to-read pages than one page stuffed with too much information and data that’s hard to follow. Break it down with the summary of your idea or purpose then refer to the actions to be taken which you outline clearly on the second page.
Revise and correct for sentence construction and grammar. Read as if you were receiving the letter. Then edit out unnecessary wordings. Add summary headings to paragraphs to make for easy scanning and reading.
#3 – Effective business communication – Presentations need to be credible:
You’ve all heard that the first impression counts. Well the last does too, and everything in between. The first impression captures the attention, the last leaves a feeling (bad or good) on your audience and the content in-between gives you credibility.
To make the introduction positive, point out the benefits to the audience of listening to what you have to say. Show the relevance to the concern or purpose. The idea is to answer the question: “Why should we listen to you?” before they even ask silently or outloud.
Organize your presentation as you do your writing, first on a draft. Then break it down into point-form items, which you each write up on 3x5 or 4x6 cards to keep you on track or use transparencies or power-point.
Effective business communication is a continuous effort that is not drudgery but that is fun and interesting and required for continuous business success and leadership./dmh
Article Copyright(c)Diane M. Hoffmann. You may print this article making sure to include the following bio without any changes.
Diane M. Hoffmann is the founder of Hoffmann-Rondeau Communications and author of the 296-page printed book "Contextual Communication, Organization and Training". Diane also provides a 2-part e-book version of her printed book, "Improve Communication, Verbal and Nonverbal" and "Improve Communication, Organization and Training" as well as many free articles which can be seen at her blog at http://contextual-communication-hrd.blogspot.com/.
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