Top tips for effective communications
Over the past year, the majority of my work meetings have been conducted via Zoom or Microsoft Teams, and as such my ability to communicate effectively in order to manage my team, nurture, as well as forge new relationships, has been well and truly been put to the test.
Perhaps subconsciously, I’ve been observing how others communicate in online meetings to see what communication styles and techniques cut the mustard, and here’s what I’ve picked up:
· Be prepared - effective communicators prepare for meetings. They are familiar with the agenda and have a clear idea of what they want to get out of it – whether that’s identifying a problem that requires a collective solution, seeking some form of help or providing an opportunity for others to provide updates or feedback. Good communicators always summarise, very well, what the point of the conversation is, or the problem is that the meeting is trying to solve.
· Be concise. Good communicators seem to be able to get across what they need to say without being too long-winded or waffling. If you keep your points succinct, people are more likely to remember what you have to say.
· Don’t rush to reply / respond to others – good confident communicators don’t rush to respond or reply to what others have just said. By waiting it shows that you are digesting everything that they have said.
· Don’t talk about yourself or steal the limelight – we all know those people who just love to talk about themselves! This can be a real turn off in any situation, but especially so in a work meeting where you can’t get away!. It’s in my nature to be curious and ask questions, and I think this is really important for effective communications and building relationships. Nothing good comes from a meeting where everyone is just waiting for a chance to speak, rather than listening to and engaging with what other people are saying.
· Demonstrate active listening – following on from above … people feel good when you’re interested in them, and you’ll get more out of the conversation (and ultimately the relationship) if you’re actively listening, asking questions and checking your understanding as you go along. A technique I picked up through learning some counselling skills, is to paraphrase what people have said to you, so you can check your understanding and so they know you’ve really been listening and understanding them.
· Know who you’re communicating with – if you’re meeting somebody or a group of people for the first time. Try to find out a little bit about them or their area of work. In my line of work, I might be meeting with somebody in the council one minute and then speaking to a group of charity volunteers the next, so I’m conscious I might need be more or less formal depending on whom I’m communicating with. It’s always important to strip back jargon and to not assume that everyone is starting from the same point of knowledge. Although I’m not particularly comfortable with a literal interpretation of using someone else’s language – as I think you run the risk of coming across as false.
· Don’t be afraid to ask the stupid question! – It can sometimes be a bit daunting when you don’t always under the full history or context of an issue, but as the ‘newbie’ at Community Chesterfield I’ve used this to my advantage to ask naïve questions. Quite often I’ve found that it’s the question that lots of other people in the room wanted to ask and are grateful that someone else did!
If you work for the charity or voluntary sector in Chesterfield, or if you are a student or staff member at University of Derby, and this post has prompted you to think about how you could communicate better, then why not take advantage of our FREE training session on effective communications on Wednesday 17th March with our expert trainer Andrew Deighton of AWD Development Solutions? The 45-minute session is set to be jam-packed full of practical tips on how to communicate better, covering effective questioning, active listening, assertiveness techniques and an engagement checklist. Visit Eventbrite to book onto any of our upcoming training sessions.
Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay