Why Communication Skills are Important (Including 9 Easy Ways to Improve Yours)
As human beings, we communicate all the time:
When you’re ordering your morning coffee
When a friend is sharing a story about their day
Right now, as you are reading this article
We communicate all the time, and yet, being an effective communicator can be so hard.
(Or at least it can seem that way!)
In this article, I’ll discuss 9 ways that you can use to improve your communication skills.
1. Observe and learn from people with effective communication skills
Do you have that one colleague who instantly catches your attention as soon as they start a meeting? What about the person whose emails are written so well that you don’t need to reread what they wrote?
Take a moment to recognize the people who are effective communicators in your day-to-day life. Once you have a couple in mind, you can observe them and learn from them. Observe how they speak, write, or converse. Notice how their communication style is influencing your thinking or emotions.
You can also ask to learn from them. You can ask them a couple of questions at the watercooler or even ask them to be a communication mentor for you. Just by telling someone that you believe they are a great communicator will leave a good impression.
2. Watch Great Speeches
Take some time to watch and listen to great speeches and notice how your thoughts and emotions change during the course of the speech.
Some speeches you can take a look at include presidential speeches, TED talks, engaging webinars, or famous historical speeches.
When studying speeches, I encourage you to pay attention both to their verbal and nonverbal communication. What are they saying? How are they saying the words in their speech? What are they doing with their body & how does that make you feel?
Here are a couple of my favorites: A life lesson from a volunteer firefighter, if I should have a daughter, and an admiral’s speech that will inspire you to make your bed. What can you learn from each speech?
3. Read Great Written Communications
While speeches are great, they are not the best for improving written communications.
Read carefully through a great written communication, such as a news column, engaging email, books, social media posts, blog posts, or webcopy. As you are reading, notice at what points you completely understand the writing, the writing style, when you start to skim, and when you dial into the details.
As with the speeches, pay attention to what you are thinking and feeling throughout the written communication and at what points those thoughts or feelings change.
4. Practice with Yourself in the Mirror
At the end of the day, what will ultimately make you a great communicator is taking action.
Practicing your verbal and nonverbal communication in a mirror will give you instant feedback on how you are communicating. In the mirror, you can practice eye contact or see what a certain gesture would look like. You can make tweaks on the spot in a judgment-free zone.
The only negative about practicing in the mirror is that you don’t get an audience perspective because you are focused on being the speaker. That’s where this next exercise comes into play!
5. Record Yourself and Then Watch Your Recording
To practice your verbal and nonverbal communication, record yourself giving a presentation, starting a meeting, or practicing an interview response, and then watch the recording.
When you watch your recording, do the same thing as you did with the speeches. Notice your verbal and nonverbal communication. How does your communication change the way you think or feel about the speaker?
I’d encourage you to record yourself experimenting with a couple of different communication styles. How does each style change the mood?
A little PSA here - It can be daunting to record yourself and watch yourself, especially if you are not confident in your communication skills. For this exercise, it may help to think that no one else will see these recordings except you. In addition, going about this exercise with a sense of curiosity, knowing that it won’t be perfect or polished, will help take the pressure off.
6. Practice with Trusted Colleagues
Once you feel comfortable with your communication, show it to a colleague that you trust. This colleague can be a supervisor, coworker, friend, or mentor who you know will tell you what they liked and what can be improved.
They should also have an idea of your audience. They can either (a) have an understanding of who you are communicating with or (b) be a person who you are targeting.
7. Get Feedback After Each Communication
Once you distribute your communication, it is important to get feedback. This way, you can learn from the experience.
Feedback can be received from two sources: Yourself and others.
Giving feedback to yourself after delivering your communication is different than practicing with yourself because the stakes are higher. We have all been in a situation where you rehearsed over and over again and suddenly blanked the day of.
When giving feedback to yourself, think about what went well, what did not go well, and what you can do next time to improve.
When receiving feedback from others, the sooner you can get it, the better because the experience will be fresh in your mind.
8. Practice Being More Open-Minded
When you are communicating, you must cater to what the audience knows and wants to hear. Being more open-minded will help you better tailor your communication to whoever is receiving your message.
Think about it this way: Stand-up comics have many jokes, stories, and bits that they can present. But, they seldom present the same set to every audience. They cater their set to who is in the audience that day: Are there more women or men? Married or single people? Younger people or older people? When a comic first opens the show, they will either present some beginner jokes or ask the audience to interact in a way that lets the comic know who is in the room. That way, they can edit their set to get more laughs from the crowd as the show goes on.
In your communication, think like a comic. Your communication may morph and change depending on who is in the audience.
9. Work on Increasing Your Self-Awareness
A great communicator knows how they communicate. They know how they take up space, what their natural voice sounds like, and understands how to change their tone or vocabulary to see different results.
Working on your self-awareness will give you a sense of how you naturally communicate, which directly results in developing your authentic voice. Authenticity is all about embracing and amplifying who you are, which makes you more relatable and true as a communicator. If you try to communicate as someone else or as someone who is not true to them, it can come off as having a hidden agenda or something to hide. Don’t be sneaky. Be self-aware and authentic.
In addition, self-awareness expands beyond your communication skills. Becoming more self-aware of your natural charisma, self-esteem, assertiveness, empathy, and stress management can shed light on how you communicate in various situations with different people.
Do’s and Don’ts of Using Communication Skills
As you are on your way to effective communication, keep in mind these do’s and don’ts.
Do treat communication as a two-way street
Communication never happens in a void. In every communication, there is a sender and a receiver. Period. So when you are communicating, keep in mind who is on the other side. It is important to make sure that both the sender and receiver have an understanding of what the message is.
This is why those conversational skills are important. It’s not just about saying your bit then leaving. It is always about seeking a shared understanding of the message. So before thinking of a response, employ those conversation skills - listen, ask questions, clarify and reflect.
Treating communication as a two-way street starts with respect. You likely won’t listen to someone whose opinion you don’t respect. So if you are going to engage in a conversation or distribute a communication of any form, start by developing that respect for the reader, listener, or audience.
Don’t copy other communicators exactly
You may look up to a certain communicator and want to communicate exactly as they do.
You are absolutely welcome to experiment. However, beyond mastering other people’s communication styles, it is much more valuable to enhance your own authentic voice. If the communication style from others doesn’t compliment your own style, you may come off as someone who is trying too hard or has something to hide.
Do use the correct medium to communicate your message
Using the right channel to communicate your message can increase the chances of your audience receiving your intended message. For example, the times that you would send an email, send a ping, or call a meeting are all different (hopefully!). In the same vein, creating a slide presentation versus a video will also be different.
Thinking about how your audience would best digest the information you have to share will help you determine what medium will be the best.
Don’t Communicate Passive-Aggressively
When was the last time a passive-aggressive email actually made you change your behavior or thinking? I’m positive the answer is never.
When you are communicating, direct and respectful is the way to go. It may be difficult at first. But the person receiving your message will better understand you if you replace the passive-aggressiveness with direct and respectful.
Do Double Check and Triple Check for Accuracy
The last thing you want is to communicate something wrong, incorrectly, or obsolete. So do a quick fact check before looking like you are behind on the times or like you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Don’t Blame or Intimate Others
If your tactic for getting people to listen to you is to blame or intimidate them, they would end up resenting you, which is not ideal for developing a genuine relationship.
Instead, treat the audience like a partner. After all, in our two-way street mentality, the audience can help you reach a shared understanding of a situation, problem, or goal.
Do Take into Account Any Language or Cultural Differences
In today’s workplace, diversity is huge! So we can’t always assume that someone’s first language is your first language or that your audience grew up in a similar culture as you.
As you are developing your communication, ask yourself if you make any cultural references or use any figurative language. You can test out your language or cultural references by asking a colleague with a different background than you to give you some feedback. What they say might just surprise you.
Don’t Lack Follow Through
If you say that you will do something, stick to your word and do it. If you make a verbal commitment that either falls through or you don’t follow through on it, it could show your audience that you are not credible, trustworthy, or dependable. In this case, communication can only get you so far.
If there was some reason why you couldn’t follow through, tell someone as soon as possible. By letting someone in, you open up to a two-way conversation. That someone may have a suggestion that can help you follow through.
Do be Mindful of the Time of Day
While these may seem like small details, they can quickly add up.
Time of day relates directly to the attention your audience has. People may be more attentive first thing in the morning after their coffee. But, they may be less attentive during their lunch food coma.
If your audience is national or international, then you have to think about timezones! The hope is that you get people when they are at the very least awake and at the very most attentive and engaged.
Don’t Under Communicate
In the marketing world, you have to communicate the same message at least 7 times for it to really sink in. Keep this in mind as you are creating a communication, because you’ll likely have to communicate it again down the road!
You can make this more authentic (and not like a broken record) by communicating your message in slightly different ways, such as using stories, statistics, anecdotes, or examples, and explaining your message over a period of time.
Do Remove to Physical Barriers
Physical barriers can come in all forms. If you are giving a presentation, make sure you can see everyone in the room. If your communication is written, make your communication easier to read by using a light text font on top of a dark background or vice versa.
At the end of the day, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to hear what you are saying. Being mindful of the time of the day and any physical barriers may be the kick your communication needs.
Don’t Need to be Confident to Start
Here’s the thing about confidence. People tend to think that in order to start, you need to be confident. But that’s not true.
Are babies confident in their ability to walk before they start trying? No! Babies try over and over again until they have mastered walking, at which point they become confident.
The same approach can be taken with developing your communication skills. You may fall many times. But that is why you start with practicing, observing others, and giving it a try. Over time, you will have a better understanding of how you communicate and how you can become a great communicator.
Do Treat Having Great Communication Skills as a Lifelong Project
Last but certainly not least, developing your communication skills takes time. There will always be a new tool, exercise, technology, or mindset to help you become a better communicator. All the best communicators have never stopped working on their communication skills.
So it doesn’t stop here. Continue learning, growing, experimenting, and communicating. With each time you communicate, you get closer to being an effective communicator with stellar communication skills.
