Healthy communication is essential to any structure and project. Professional and casual communication in your workplace can destroy or enhance happiness and productivity.
At an individual scale, it’s very important that you communicate to your best ability so that you ensure that the desired message reaches the other person effectively.
Leading a life with bad communication habits can ruin your life quite easily and lead to stress and other health complications. There are broken careers, marriages and families due to bad communication habits that many have. But you too can become a charismatic leader, as it’s something you can learn. Check this article to learn how.
So, we choose to have a look at the most important ones which you should avoid at all costs to make your workplace a better place.
BASIS OF COMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE
Before trying to improve communication in the workplace, we may start by learning some handful bases about communication.
In this speech, Julian Treasure speak about many strategies and simple habits we can implement to become a better communicator.
SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF SPEAKING:
1. Gossip
2. Judging
3. Negativity
4. Complaining
5. Blame-throwing (Excuses)
6. Embroidery, exaggeration (Lying)
7. Dogmatism (Mixing facts and opinions)
In the video you will learn more about the communication best practices. You will also learn how to speak with a voice that captivate people.
No good communication in the workplace is possible without some basics of communication.
COMMUNICATION MISTAKES TO AVOID
REDUCE INTERRUPTION
The interrupting part comes as the first one as there are many people who make this grave mistake.
This not only insults the person who is trying to communicate but also breaks down the flow of information which needs to be passed on. It is always better if you choose to wait until they finish speaking before you choose to raise your questions, concerns or opinions.
So, avoid interrupting a person when they try to communicate to you either in a professional or private environment. If you have too much ideas and you need to say them before forgetting them, take a notebook and write them down.
On an other hand, one of the way you can deal with someone always interrupting you is to ask politely to let you finish your sentence.
As a listener, don’t let people trying to get your attention by interrupting the person you are listening to. On the long term your coworkers will understand that you are focused and you protect your conversations flows.
AVOID MULTITASKING WHILE COMMUNICATING
Science recently proved that multitasking doesn’t work.
There is no expectation for communicating. This is also quite a common mistake that people make while they are on either ends of communication. Always remember that total attention is required by the person trying to communicate as well as the person trying to listen for a communication channel to be successful. In case you try and multitask while you communicate or while someone tries to communicate then there are chances that most of the important messages can be missed out.
Finally remember that multitasking while speaking can be interpreted by a lack of respect. You may also appear much less professional.
ENHANCE COMMUNICATION AT WORK
PSYCHOLOGY OF GOOD COMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE
First step to improve the communication in your workplace is to understand how people are made and what and how they react to.
In this legendary management speech, Simon Sinek explains brilliantly how we interact inside a group and how you can create a cohesive team with simple habits.
ENCOURAGE DIRECT CONTACT
You can directly blame this towards the technology as people choose to send lengthy messages when they can actually walk across to convey a message in a simple manner. In case you have an option to convey the message directly it is advised that you do so rather than avoid direct contact with the person.
There is two main benefits to encourage direct contact:
– Ideas go faster when you talk. They go also deeper. Instead of sending 10 emails it could be more productive to have a 5 min discussion face to face.
– You increase social interactions (as explained by Simon Sinek, electronic contact is not liberating any positive neurotransmitters).
– You create the opportunity to take a little break in the work session. This break will refresh the mind and reveal some mistakes due to intense focusing for too much time.
If you are the shy type, don’t worry, you can learn to be more confident here.
HEARING RATHER THAN LISTENING
A lot of people do not understand the differences between actually listening and hearing.
In case you are hearing a person speak rather than listen then you are not actively listening to the person speaking. This means the active listening part has gone through the roof which is standing testimony for bad communication habits.
Avoid this to ensure that your listening skills are in place and you completely get the message that is being communicated to you.
Here is a short video to introduce you to the concept of active listening.
DO NOT SUGAR COAT YOUR MESSAGE:
Sugar coating messages are quite common both in professional and personal conversations which is quite a bad idea. You might not want to offend a person and try to sugar coat your message which is a very bad thing to do. You might as well directly get to the point rather than trying to use qualifiers and assuming sentences between the message to make it sound much more polished.
Remember that by not telling an harsh truth, or transforming it you risk two bad reactions:
– Making the person feel treated like a child (you assume he is not able to receive a difficult information)
– Creating anxiety (the person will start wondering if you are fully telling the truth or if some parts are missing)
Of course it depends on your management politic. But in most situation being transparent with people you work for create stronger links and much more loyalty
AVOID FILLERS:
Although using fillers might be quite common among people it can also become an irritant to others. Words that come in as fillers generally take up time and gets the other person a lot irritated than you can think. So, avoiding fillers is something you should try and do as much as you can while having a conversation with anyone.
COMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE: TAKE AWAY
Efficient communication in the workplace rely on simple habits.
First, you eradicate common bad habits of communication in the workplace. The information and ideas would travel much quicker and deeper.
Second, charismatic leaders are often people who communicate best because they understand people. Some basic of psychology and communication tell us to prioritize direct contact, avoid to sugar coat our message, avoid multitasking or intertupting and finally being able to listen actively.
This way communication becomes clearer for coworkers and members of the team.Training, workshop, small tips can be a good way to improve communication in the workplace by bringing awareness in the work environment.
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