I have always believed that to get ahead in life, you need to be an effective communicator, regardless of what your field of work is. You need to be able to communicate to:
- your peers
- your boss
- your clients
- your prospective clients
- your service-providers
- your subordinates
- your partner
- your children
- your parents
- your …
There is an interesting article by Dustin Wax on Lifehack, "How to be an expert", in which he speaks to this.
Dustin says that
"expertise without the ability to communicate is practically pointless",
and you need to
"learn to use whatever technologies you need to present your expertise in the best possible way",
and
"an expert should be able to explain to you exactly what they?re doing and why".
It all boils down to the ability to communicate. No matter how knowledgeable you are, your knowledge is worthless if you cannot communicate. Here are a few ways to improve your communication:
- Practise
- Get coaching
- Watch and listen to great communicators
- Join Toastmasters
- Get to the point
- Listen to others
Good luck
Craig,
You are absolutely right: without good communication skills, expertise is wasted.
Here is one of my tips for improving communication skills; to dramatically enhance your listening skills and increase your retention when communicating, try this technique: rephrase what others say, mimicking their emotional intensity. We call this Empathic Paraphrasing.
Use Empathic Paraphrasing practice when:
1. You need to make sure you understand the other party. If there is any doubt about their meaning, Use Empathic Paraphrasing. I find the act of paraphrasing can help me to piece together seemingly disparate chunks of content into a coherent concept. Often, the speaker?s meaning will only become clear to me when I attempt to Use Empathic Paraphrasing.
2. You want to prove to the other party that you truly DO understand what they are saying. An interchangeable is the only technique that I know of that will do this.
3. You want to build rapport. Most people enjoy knowing that others really ?get? their ideas and messages.
4. If the speaker repeats the same point over and over. They may feel that you are not hearing that point.
5. You need to listen more closely. When your mind drifts, remind yourself to ?get ready to practice Empathic Paraphrasing.? If I know I will be paraphrasing, I listen very closely because doing a bad paraphrase can be embarrassing.
6. You want to reflect back to the speaker what they just said. This is helpful if what they?ve said makes no sense or seems absurd. Once they hear it, they might rephrase it to a more coherent message.
7. The situation is emotionally charged. This helps to defuse conflict. When the other party feels that you have heard and understood them, they tend to feel more calm and open to your point of view.
8. When the speaker uses emotional language or touches on hot buttons. The speaker mentions these points because they feel they are important to communicate. When you practice Interchangable Empathy, the speaker will feel gratified that you ?got it?. For example:
? We are excited about ?
? We struggle with ?
? I am concerned about ?
? This is a bad situation ?
? I put my butt on the line and now ?
—
Thanks for the post Craig!
Thanks – listening is not when you are waiting for the other person to keep quite so that you can speak – it is when you are actively hearing what the other people have to say.
Remember the quote from “White men can’t jump”. White people listen to Jimmy [Henderix], but black people hear Jimmy”.
Are you listening to or hearing the other person?