Communication Tips for Professionals

Most humans by nature have a fascination with their own voice - which often manifests itself in a desire to keep on speaking. However, there is a great deal of difference between speaking and communicating, with the latter requiring considerable application of effort. People with good communication skills know what to say at exactly the right time, at what place and to whom. More importantly, they know when not to talk at all, and just listen. There are certain key characteristics that depict whether a person is a good communicator or not - one of them is being a good listener. It might be possible that you are able to communicate your views and thoughts to another person in the best manner, but when it comes to listening to others, you happen to be a complete failure. In most people, the quality of listening is closely related to their grasp of information, and with the ever changing situation in business environments today, excellent listening skills have become an imperative for success.

Here are some tips that will help you to improve your listening skills:

1. Pay attention to what the other person is talking about. It’s quite important to pay attention to the speaker, and it is not only the matter of maintaining good eye contact, but the posture of your entire body is important as well.

2. Let the other person speak. Patience is the essence of any good communication ability. It’s important during the act of listening that you should allow the other person to put forward his/her opinions, while making a point to not interrupt in the middle of the discussion.

3. Do not impose your opinion. To avoid conflict, you should respect the opinions of others, and at the same time, try not to impose your opinions on others either, as it often happens that the opinions of any two people don’t even remotely come close to common ground.

4. Ask meaningful questions. It is important that during a discussion only meaningful questions pertaining to the discussion are asked or raised. These questions should always help guide the discussion trend towards a meaningful conclusion.

5. Help and support the other person. Good listening requires creating a supportive environment for anyone speaking in order to help them sense that all is going well. Encourage the other person, and let them feel that you are interested in listening his/her opinions or views.

6. Restate your thoughts. Listening is quite different from hearing, and it’s not the easiest of skills to master. Although listening alone will certainly enable you to gain some knowledge, or at the very least help you to reach an opinion, it is still quite important that at the end of any discussion you should be able to easily restate, in sequence, all of the previous thoughts from the conversation.

It is quite true that the more you listen, the more effective and efficient you become. Many of you might be well versed in speaking, but have you ever really given consideration to the value of listening? The tips given above may not guarantee that you suddenly transform into a good listener, but what they definitely will do is improve your listening skills to a great extent, automatically affecting a positive impact on your overall communication ability.

About the Author:

Alan Gillies is the Managing Director of the L2L Group, specializing in providing Executive Coaching, Training and Consultancy Services to Businesses across the Globe. Want to learn more about these business success strategies? Get Alan’s popular FREE ebook, available at http://www.L2LGroup.com.

Comments

[Charles Evans]

Very good article, covering the basics well. I think it is also important to emphasise the differences in how men and women communicate. Men are problem solvers and are likely to jump in and 'solve' the problem they are presented with. That may be ok if they are talking to another man, but it isn't much use when talking to women. Women talk to create intimacy and strengthen relationships, and the man has to acknowledge that before he can listen to a woman effectively. Women also tend to talk in 'indirect' rather than 'direct' speech, so something that sounds obvious to a woman will be totally lost on a man. Each sex has to realise how the other talks and listens before they are able to communicate.effectively.