Level up your communication skills

Have you ever experienced the need to give your co-worker or manager constructive feedback—or to receive it from others?  Situations like these are great opportunities to grow or help others grow professionally, and they likely require you to have good communication skills.  Top-notch communication skills may SEEM natural, but chances are they are the result of a conscious effort on the part of excellent communicators to improve their skills.

What do good communication skills look like?
When you are skilled in communicating, you are able to…

• give and receive feedback effectively;
• listen to others for understanding;
• persuade and inspire people to take action;
• deliver dynamic presentations;
• write clear and effective emails and reports;
• socialize and talk to people from all backgrounds;
• manage difficult people or stressful situations.

Why should I improve my communication skills?
Communication skills are highly sought-after by hiring managers and often applicants do not list communication as a “skill” on their resumes. Here are some other reasons you might want to level up your communication skills:

• Good communication skills can improve the way you give and receive feedback, helping you to become a good listener during a conversation, ask questions for clarification, and restate the information.  
• Good communications skills can boost your current role or your career goals by improving how you present your work and convey a viewpoint to your manager or other audiences.
• Good communication skills help move a difficult conversation along because you will know to provide your full attention to a speaker, maintain good eye contact, and be aware of how the receiver might be interpreting your message. Good communicators will observe when individuals have difficulty expressing how they feel, and will ask questions to help unpack a person’s feeling about a particular subject.  

To become a good communicator - Be deliberate about improving
Angela Duckworth, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of a book called “Grit,” talks about deliberate practice. She points out that Olympic swimmers set goals and subskills to practice with 100% focus and get feedback and reflect on where to improve. She states that thousands of hours, with no goals, and no feedback, results in a plateau of development.

You communicate everyday, of course, but are you improving?  Take deliberate steps to up your communication skills by setting goals, practicing with focus, and committing to continual improvement.

Tips to level up your communications skills
Practice Active Listening
All too often we don’t listen to what others are saying, we simply waiting to speak. One technique to becoming a more mindful listener is to develop active listening skills. Some benefits to active listening are:

• Establishes a connection between speaker and listener that allows for ease of interaction and ensures that messages are being related completely and properly.
• Helps develop better speaking skills and stronger groups and teams by trying to understand each other’s interests.

Use the active listening techniques below to improve your communication skills:

• Let people finish what they’re trying to say before you speak. If they hesitate, encourage them to continue instead of immediately starting your reply.
• Listen intently, even though you think you know what they are about to say.
• Question the person to clarify their ideas more fully.
• Restate/paraphrase what you think you heard and ask if you got it right.

To find out more about active listening or other communication skills, watch “Active Listening” and “Interpersonal Communication.”