writter: Naveen Kulkarni
About the Author: Naveen Kulkarni writes about personal development and ideas about productivity at his own blog Winning Ideas.
Communication is always looked upon as key factor in a person’s overall growth whether in career, personal or professional relationships. Therefore to truly be successful, one of the major techniques that must be mastered is the art of communicating – understanding people and being understood by them.
What is effective communication?
Many people confuse communication with excessive talking. Effective communication is not excess talking. It’s actually talking less, saying more.
It is the art of conveying a message effortlessly which most of the crowd understands and grasps quickly.
I meet a lot of talented people who can deliver excellent results when it comes to their work but struggle when it comes to communication. They can’t express or explain what work they have done in a convincing manner. It’s true that work speaks for itself but we are in the modern world and one need to have minimum level of effective communication. You will get right answers if you ask right questions. Communication helps you to ask right questions. Communication helps you to bridge the gap between what you know and what you want to know.
Let me share a few tips that have helped me immensely:
Breaking the ice
To become an effective communicator, first thing you need to do is to learn to break the ice. You need to get started with something (even by asking a question) whether be it in a meeting or a general discussion. You also need to be a good listener if you want to ask right questions.
Once you break the ice, continue with your normal tone and speak few words about relevant matter. Don’t worry if it doesn’t sound effective at first attempt. Your mind if powerful and it knows how to better your speech next time. It’s important to get started.
Let the words flow
Deliver your words like a flow of water. Speak to the point, be clear and maintain continuity. However you can pause in between to get the feedback of audience if you’re giving a public speech. Try to make your public speech interactive by asking questions or launching an on spot quiz. People love quizzes.
Don’t repeat words
Next thing is enhancing your vocabulary of words. You shouldn’t use same words repeatedly in your speech. Learn new words and add quality to your speech. It also helps to improve your written communication as well. This wont happen overnight but with little effort and consistency, you can enhance your vocabulary.
Pictures speak a thousand words
Effective communication also plays very important when it comes to expressing your ideas if you work in a creative field. Feel free to use few tools to aid your communication (in this case, a presentation) such as a drawing, a flowchart or a PowerPoint presentation. Picture speak thousands words.
Learn time management
Effective communication needs time management. If you are presenting a research paper, learn to manage the time and set your internal benchmarks for completing certain portions of the paper. Aim to finish the presentation in allotted slot of time – and you won’t be rushed at the last minute, and unable to convey your arguments/points.
Participate
Try attending seminars where a seasoned speaker gives a speech about a topic. Observe his gestures and mannerisms. Observe his tone variations. Start putting your learning into practice. Soon, you will start noticing gradual changes in your communication pattern and an effective communication has positive effective in career and relationships.
Invest your time in learning effective communication. It gives you unbeatable rewards.
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