How to Improve Your Communications Skills

Some of the information in this topic is adapted from the books Field Guide to Leadership and Supervision in Business
and Field Guide to Leadership and Supervision for Nonprofit Staff.

Sections of This Topic Include

Test – What is Your Preferred Style of Communications?
What’s Your Communication IQ?
Communications Tools to Use With Employees
Additional Perspectives on Communications Skills

Also consider
Appreciative
Inquiry
Communications (Organizational)

Communications (Writing)

Feedback
Interpersonal Skills

Interviews
(exit interviews, by media, for a job, selecting job candidate and research
method)
Listening
Non-Verbal
Communications
Presenting
Questioning
Storytelling

Test – What is Your Preferred Style of Communications?

Before you read more about how to communicate better, you might get an impression
of your naturally preferred style of communications. Take this online test.

Communication
Style

What’s Your Communication IQ?

Communication, which occupies approximately 70% of our waking hours, is what
many leaders find the most frustrating.

Many of us were never taught to communicate in ways that lead to positive outcomes.
Rather, we tend to experience annoyance, anger or just give up on the person
or the situation. Here’s how to communicate better to get better outcomes.

Take a Quick Communication Quiz.

Think of a recent important conversation How many of these questions can you
answer YES to?

Did I prepare ahead of time for this conversation?
Did I think about what’s the best way to approach this person?
Was I aware of the other person’s communication style and spoke to it?
Did I pay full attention, without multitasking, to what the other person
was saying?
Was the intent of my communication to discuss and understand rather than
be right?
Did I listen, without interruption, to the other person’s point of view
even if I didn’t agree?
If I was asking the person to take a specific action, did I make my request
clear and concise?
Did I summarize what I thought I heard the other person say before expressing
my point of view?
Did I follow-up to see if the conversation was successful – it led to a
positive outcome for the other?
If the outcome did not meet my expectations, did I reflect on how to better
communicate with that particular person?

What’s Your Communication IQ?

8-10 Yeses indicate you’re the tops. Keep up the good work.

4-7 Yeses is OK. Brush up in certain areas.

0-3 Yeses. You have work to do.

To Raise Your Communication IQ:

1. Talk less, hear more.

We want to be heard and listened to but we don’t always concentrate on listening
to others. We focus more on our agenda than on the other person’s concerns or
issues.

2. Don’t shoot the messenger.

We want to understand but our ability is tainted by our perceptions of the
person speaking or the outcome we are looking for. So, we often pass judgment
on the speaker and disregard the message. Concentrate on the message not the
messenger.

3. Avoid mind reading.

We want some kind of action or response from another person. However, we don’t
let them know what we really want or how to achieve it. Before assuming the
other knows what you want, first inform and then ask for feedback.

4. Stop pushing.

We want agreement from others, so much so, that we often become consumed with
being right or proving our point. Rather, look for areas of mutual agreement.
Then work from there to create a greater outcome.

Career Success Tip

Steven Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, says; “Seek
first to understand, then to be understood.” Therefore, in your communication,
make sure to understand others before you start trying to be understood.

Are there situations in which you need to raise your communication IQ? What
do you need to do to get better outcomes? How will you know that you have been
successful?

Communications Tools to Use With Employees

Effective communication is the “life’s blood” of an organization. Organizations
that are highly successful have strong systems of communication. One of the
first signs that an organization is struggling is that communications have broken
down. The following guidelines are basic in nature, but comprise the critical
fundamentals for ensuring strong ongoing, internal communications.

1. Each employee writes a one-page weekly status report to his/her supervisor.

These reports may seem a tedious task, but they are precious in ensuring that
the employee and supervisor have mutual understanding of what is going on. The
reports also come in very handy for planning purposes. They make otherwise harried
employees stand back and reflect on what they are doing. In the dated report,
include a description of:

What tasks were done last week.
What tasks are planned next week.
Any current highlights, trends or issues regarding your activities.

2. Chief Executive Officer conducts employee-wide meetings.

Employees greatly appreciate that the CEO finds time to talk to them, and the
opportunity to meet their CEO in person.

For clarity, focus and morale, be sure to use agendas and ensure follow-up
minutes.
Mention any significant events for employees, for example, birthdays.
Review the overall condition of the organization.
Consider conducting “in service” training about the organization where employees
take turns describing their roles to the rest of the employees.
Consider bringing in a customer to tell his/her story of how the organization
helped them.

3. Each supervisor conducts meetings with all employees together.

Have these meetings even if there is not a specific problem to solve – just
make them shorter. Holding meetings only when there are problems to solve cultivates
a crisis-oriented environment where managers believe their only job is to solve
problems.

Prepare for these meetings by reviewing the employee’s weekly status report.
For clarity, focus and morale, be sure to use agendas, take minutes and
ensure follow-up minutes.
Facilitate the meetings to support exchange of ideas and questions.
Use these meetings for each person to briefly give an overview of what they
are
doing that week. If the meeting includes 10 people or less, then have each
person
give a one-minute description of what they did last week and plan to do next
week.
Have each person bring his/her calendar to ensure the scheduling of future
meetings accommodates everyone’s calendar.

Each supervisor conducts one-on-one, monthly meetings with each employee.

This ultimately produces more efficient time management and supervision.

Review overall status of work activities.
Hear status from both the supervisor and the employee.
Exchange feedback and answer any questions about current products and services.
Discuss career planning, training plans, performance review plans, etc.

4. Use memos.

It is much more effective if important day-to-day information is written to
people rather than said to people. Use of memos, or even e-mail messages, is
ideal in these situations. In your memos or e-mail messages, include:

“Subject” line, with a phrase describing the topic of the memo.
“To” and “From” lines.
“Date.”
“Summary” describing the highlights in a paragraph near the top of the memo.
“Action” specifying what you want the recipients to do with the information
in the memo, for example: to respond, to take note, to starting doing something
or to stop doing something.
“Signature” line, that includes the signature of who wrote the memo.

5. Every employee gets an Employee Manual.

The Employee Manual includes all of the up-to-date personnel policies of the
organization.

Additional Perspectives on Communications Skills

Managing By Walking
Around
Big
Dog on Communicating

Coaching Tip – The Art of Being Succinct
What’s Your Communication IQ?
Your Communications May Not Be Communicating
Best Practices: Your Approach to Great Communication
Five Keys to Clear Communication
When Facts Are Not Enough – 10 Tips for Communicating to a Non-Technical Audience
Dialing for Dollars: Telephone Skills that Matter

8 Coaching Tips to Enhance Interpersonal Communication
10 Question Quiz – How Do You Communicate Messages?
10 Tips to Communicate Messages Effectively
Can You See Me Now? How to Speak When Your Audience Is Remote
Introducing…You!
You Can Catch More Flies with Honey…Using Positive Communication Skills for Better Results
Fighting the Dreaded Upward Inflection, Right?
Useful Communications Skills — How to Paraphrase and Summarize
Online Communications for Change Presentations

Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to Communication Skills

In addition to the articles on this current page, see the following blogs which
have posts related to Improving Your Communication Skills. Scan down the blog’s
page to see various posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog Posts”
in the sidebar of the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a
post in the blog.

Library’s
Coaching Blog
Library’s
Communications Blog
Library’s
Leadership Blog
Library’s
Supervision Blog

For the Category of Communications:

To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may want to review some related topics, available from the link below. Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.

Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.