Effective communication skills are fundamental to success in many aspects of life. Many jobs require strong communication skills. People with good communication skills also usually enjoy better interpersonal relationships with friends and family. Show Effective communication is therefore a key interpersonal skill and learning how to improve your communication has many benefits. However, many people find it difficult to know where to start. This page sets out the most common ‘problem areas’ and suggests where you might focus your attention.
A Two-Way Process Communication is a two-way process. It involves both how we send and receive messages. Receiving includes both how we take in the message (reading or listening, for example), and the ‘decoding’ of the message. Improving communication may therefore also involve either or both elements. However, many of the most common issues actually lie in receiving rather than sending messages. Identifying ProblemsMany people appreciate that they have a problem with communication skills, but struggle to know where to start to improve. There are a number of ways that you can identify particular problem areas, including:
Four Key Areas for ImprovementThere are generally four main areas of communication skills that most of us would do well to improve. These are listening, non-verbal communication, emotional awareness and management, and questioning. 1. Learn to ListenOne of the most common areas to need improvement is listening. We all have a tendency to forget that communication is a two-way process. We fall into the trap of ‘broadcasting’, where we just issue a message, and fail to listen to the response. Quite a lot of the time, we are not really listening to others in conversation, but thinking about what we plan to say next. Improving your listening skills is likely to pay off in improvements in your relationships both at work and at home. What, however, is listening? Listening is not the same as hearing. Learning to listen means not only paying attention to the words being spoken but also how they are being spoken and the non-verbal messages sent with them. It means giving your full attention to the person speaking, and genuinely concentrating on what they are saying—and what they are not saying. Good listeners use the techniques of clarification and reflection to confirm what the other person has said and avoid any confusion. These techniques also demonstrate very clearly that you are listening, just like active listening.2. Studying and Understanding Non-Verbal CommunicationMuch of any message is communicated non-verbally. Some estimates suggest that this may be as much as 80% of communication. It is therefore important to consider and understand non-verbal communication—particularly when it is absent or reduced, such as when you are communicating in writing or by telephone. Non-verbal communication is often thought of as body language, but it actually covers far more. It includes, for example, tone and pitch of the voice, body movement, eye contact, posture, facial expression, and even physiological changes such as sweating. You can therefore understand other people better by paying close attention to their non-verbal communication. You can also ensure that your message is conveyed more clearly by ensuring that your words and body language are consistent. Find out more in our pages on non-verbal communication. 3. Emotional Awareness and ManagementThe third undersung area of communication is awareness of our own and other people’s emotions, and an ability to manage those emotions. At work it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that everything should be logical, and that emotion has no place. However, we are human and therefore messy and emotional. None of us can leave our emotions at home—and nor should we try to do so. That is not to say that we should ‘let it all hang out’. However, an awareness of emotions, both positive and negative, can definitely improve communication. This understanding of our own and others’ emotion is known as Emotional Intelligence. There is considerable evidence that it is far more important to success in life than what we might call ‘intellectual intelligence’. Emotional intelligence covers a wide range of skills, usually divided into personal skills and social skills. The personal skills include self-awareness, self-regulation and motivation. The social skills include empathy and social skills. Each one of these is broken down into more skills. For example:
Fundamentally, the principle behind the different skills that make up emotional intelligence is that you have to be aware of and understand your own emotions, and be able to master them, in order to understand and work well with others. 4. Questioning SkillsThe fourth area where many people struggle is questioning. Questioning is a crucial skill to ensure that you have understood someone’s message correctly. It is also a very good way of obtaining more information about a particular topic, or simply starting a conversation and keeping it going. Those with good questioning skills are often also seen as very good listeners, because they tend to spend far more time drawing information out from others than broadcasting their own opinions.
Further Reading from Skills You Need The Skills You Need Guide to Interpersonal Skills eBooks. Develop your interpersonal skills with our series of eBooks. Learn about and improve your communication skills, tackle conflict resolution, mediate in difficult situations, and develop your emotional intelligence. Transmitting MessagesThese four key areas of communication all share one common characteristic: they are all (or mostly) about receiving messages. There are, however, also important things that you can do to improve the likelihood of being able to ‘transmit’ a message effectively. For example:
Consider how your message might be received by the other person, and tailor your communication to fit. By communicating clearly, you can help avoid misunderstandings and potential conflict with others. You can, for example, check that they have understood by asking them to reflect or summarise what they have heard and understood. It can also be helpful to pay particular attention to differences in culture, past experiences, attitudes and abilities when conveying your message. Avoid jargon and over-complicated language, and explain things as simply as possible. Always avoid racist and sexist terms or any language that may cause offence. For more about this, see our pages on Intercultural Communication and Intercultural Awareness. Other Aspects That Can Affect CommunicationThere are a number of other elements and aspects that can affect how a message is both transmitted and received. They include the use of humour, the way that you treat people more generally, and your own attitude—both to life generally and to the other person and communicating.
A lifelong learning journeyFor most of us, improving our communication skills is an ongoing process. There is unlikely to ever come a point at which any of us could honestly say that we could learn no more about communication: that we were now experts, and never got it wrong. Just because we will never be ‘experts’, however, does not mean that we should not start the process of improvement. Improving your communication skills will almost certainly ease and improve all your interpersonal relationships, both at home and at work. It is an investment of time that will very definitely pay off. |