Effective Communication

Better to be looked over than it is to be overlooked

Communication is not just what you’ve got to say, but also how you package it. In other words, effective communicator delivers his message in a tactful manner. In this article, I’d like to share some tips I am learning during the journey of becoming an effective communicator. It’s certain that you could do the same given enough patience, learning and practice.

Tip 1: Know what you want to say

Good communicator often plan what they way to say before actually saying it. They start with writing an outline. They ask themselves “Does this get across whatever I’m trying to say”. And they continue refine the message until it does.

Tip 2: Know your audience 

WISDOM strategy is associated with six questions that would help to better understand your audience.

• What do you want the audience to learn ?
• What is their Interest in what you’ve got to say ?
• How Sophisticated are they ?
• How much Details do they want ?
• Whom do you want to Own the information ?
• How can you Motivate them to listen to you ?

Tip 3: Choose your movement 

Before communicate to someone, especially if you are asking for a favor or the person you communicate to is a powerful and busy person, you should take time to workout what their priorities are.

Then following by timing it properly. Please avoid ‘confronting approach’ by stopping someone while they are rushing. Instead,  you should come when he or she is relax and less busy.

Remember,  you should always start by asking “is it a good time to talk about … “.

Tip 5: Involve your audience

Engaging the audience in early draft would enable building good working relationship that often produce a better outcome.

Imaging if you are preparing a presentation or business proposal and you know that the audiences would like to make some decision during your presentation. You certainly don’t want to surprise them. Instead, you want their agreement and approval event before the meeting start. You can achieve your desired outcome by proactively building a good working relationship with your audience in the beginning.

Tip 6: Be active listener 

If you don’t listen to them, they don’t listen to you. So, it’s wisely to choose to listen to people first and stay engaging and actively listening.

Tip 7: Get back to people 

During the discussion, if there is any thing you are unsure or not knowing, you can say “I will get back to you later”. And you must, right after the meeting, find out exactly what it was and email or arrange a short discussion with the audiences.

I hope you find those tips be helpful for you. Until we meet again, keep learning and growing.