Communication - What, Where and Why?
Are we communicating properly with each other? With your family, friends, and the people around you? Communication skills are not only necessary in your workplace but also your everyday relationships. It opens us up to understanding what others are saying and enables us to express how we feel.
Importance of communication can’t be put aside in our day-to-day life. Humans are social beings. All of us share something called neurons that make us match each other’s emotions unconsciously and spontaneously. Sometimes, we do predict or anticipate each other’s actions when we are on the same side. That’s pretty awesome. Isn’t it?
When you learn the art of observing and listening, proper communication is inevitable. For most of us, poor communication breeds misunderstanding and resentment. Right speech is an essential part of humanity to create unity among people.
Importance of Communication Skills:
Considering what we have discussed earlier why communication is crucial in how we live. Let’s talk further about its roles in our personal and professional lives.
1) Helps Build Understanding In Personal Relationships
Genuine communication strengthens personal relationships. It allows your partners and family members to give or take time and space whenever needed. People who are comfortable communicating with each other enjoy anything that comes out of relationships. It enables more effortless connectivity with others and is key to building an appropriate social life.
2) You Get Exposure To Career Opportunities
You stay limited in your professional field if you are not a good communicator. Almost every career field needs people with communication skills, be it in marketing, teaching, or healthcare industries.
Communication skills are one of the key factors for job candidates because they can be known as better team players and show great communication skills for leadership roles.
3) Enhanced Work Culture And Productivity
Open communication promotes a healthy workplace where people find it comfortable to work. It fosters a sense of shared purpose among all the employees, resulting in high retention and a balanced work-life.
Also, it has been found that employees who communicate briefly yet specifically are more organized and have better overall engagement with the workforce around them. Poor communication creates improper schedules, disordered passing of information, and so on.
4) Enriches Decision-making Skills
There must be a proper flow of understanding of what’s happening for correct and spontaneous decisions. This, in turn, cancels out all the stress and anxiety you have been carrying.
Effective conveyance helps in the proper implementation of your plans and events.
5) Public Relations
In the corporate world, every business firm needs to maintain a well-known image in society. For this to happen, effective communication is fundamental that helps management to display a decent image to the outside world.
It helps sustain good relations with workers, customers, shareholders, and the community.
6) Healthy Social Life
Good communicators do much better in social situations. They are easily adaptable to unknown situations and get themselves involved with others at ease which is basically needed for social life.
Bad communication impacts your workplace in several ways:
1) Usage of improper and incorrect medium to pass on important messages
2) Blaming your co-workers and intimidating them
3) Meetings that require face-to-face communication for conveying information are ignored, leading to unorganized plans
4) Not listening, which results in low employee productivity
How To Improve Your Communication Skills
1) Listen With Your Heart:
The first and foremost part of good communication is listening to what the other person is saying. During an interaction, the person speaking to you has to be given your undivided attention so that you can listen from your heart, not just your ears.
People like to know that they are being heard. Not paying attention to what the other person is saying breeds ignorance, and that person would eventually lose interest in talking to you.
2) Be Specifically Brief:
When passing information to others, try not to over-explain yourself. Practice being brief so that you can provide sufficient information for others to understand.
Being brief enables you to know when to stop talking and start listening to the person you are speaking to. In this way, you also make sure that you are not giving away too much unnecessary information.
3) Express With Body Language:
Face-to-face meetings and video conferencing often require body language to convey your emotions regarding a particular topic. Make sure to keep eye contact and have a relaxed body so that you appear accessible while having a conversation.
4) Be Aware of Your Emotions:
For clear and easy communication, it’s important to be aware of your thoughts while talking. This promotes your personal well-being and also lets you express the message appropriately.
Never allow your strong emotions to get involved, as it can create unnecessary conflicts and lead to poor communication.
5) Write Things Down:
If you tend to forget what is mentioned during a conversation with somebody, write it down so that it’s easier to remember. It also subdues your anxious thoughts and lets you go with the flow.
6) Empathy:
Learn to understand what the other person is feeling instead of saying what your mind commands to you. This is an integral part of getting connected with one another. High emotional intelligence is often linked to better communication.