Improving Communication Skills in the Workplace

As a child you learned the saying, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me”, but more than likely, as an adult, you realized differently. Words are very powerful. They can motivate and heal people. They can tear down and build up, yet we take them for granted. When was the last time you really thought about what came out of your mouth and the impact it would have? When used responsibly and intentionally, words can revolutionize the workplace.

Establish companywide agreements as to when and how employees will handle communication. Be clear about how you will communicate with employees and when your communication style might be different and why. For example, routine communication may take place in once-a-week staff meetings in a give-and-take way with a lot of employee input. In a crisis situation, however, communication may be much more top-down and direct.

For more informal dialogue, an open door policy may well end up being more disruptive than productive. Come to a consensus as to how interruptions are to be handled. All staff should feel comfortable expressing that they are not available at all times. It may be because they are they are having a bad day or are busy doing other things and shouldn’t be involved in certain kinds of conversations.

If you have an important message to convey, choose words that you can use consistently and frequently. In order for information to be registered in long-term memory, it must be rehearsed. The more often a person hears information, the more likely the words will stick.

Here are some practice tips:

• Know your employees. If you want to be successful in communicating, you must know who your employees are and be able to draw upon their strong values, myths and symbols. Different people can say the same thing and carry completely different levels of impact. Stylistic differences, inconsistent messages, body language or a lack of integrity are all influences that impact how what you say is absorbed.
• Dialogue, not debate. We are conditioned in our society to debate, not converse. It’s much like a game in which we score points to determine winners and losers. This is competition, not communication.
• Stay focused. Put down the drinks and stop running food if someone wants to talk with you. If you’ve set the ground rules for communication, you can assume the information about to be presented is important to the speaker. You should be aware of how your actions and words convey meaning to the person in your presence. By staying aware of both non-verbal and verbal dynamics, the impact of your words and theirs will not be overshadowed by less important issues.
  

Through the power of words, carefully chosen and thoughtfully used, you can build trust and create the kind of workplace to which people want to contribute their very best.