Effective communication with others is something we all desire but seems to fall out of our grasp at times. We are bombarded by messages every day. How do we cut through the clutter of daily life and say what we mean in such a way that we are heard and that others will act upon it?
How does someone become an effective communicator? It requires developing new habits, attitudes, beliefs and expectations around self and then in interaction with others. The first step in becoming a more effective communicator is becoming goal oriented.
Are You Goal Oriented?
People with written goals that periodically review progress toward those goals and amend their goals are more effective communicators than people with no written goals or action plan. The kind of thinking required to set goals and take actions to make these goals a reality is the same kind of thinking that enables the sorting of what is important from what is not important but may seem urgent.
If you have never written out any goals, you can start now. This is an investment that needs to be made as part of improving your communication skills. The basic steps are described below:
1. Unclutter your mind. Find a time and place where you can reflect on life goals away from others, work, technology and visual reminders of urgent priorities. The output from this time away should be one or more written goals.
2. Take what you have written from your reflection into the format for a goal. A goal does not have a time orientation or a complete by deadline. For your first goal setting exercise, obtaining specific goals that you can visualize yourself achieving is important. Goals that are vague will be hard to implement.
3. Balance your life priorities. Are you trying to do too much? Once you have a sense of a specific goal or goal that you want to accomplish, it is important to try to balance your goal or goals with the different roles that you play (or want to play). Balancing your goals with those of others requires a continuing process of effective communication with self and others.
4. Start to organize what is important and start to delete what is obviously not important. In order to formulate an action plan to implement your goal and to communicate effectively, our environment needs to be ordered in a way that reflects those goals. Disorder is a reflection of mental clutter and of an imbalance in our lives. This disorder or clutter defeats us in implementing our plans and inhibits our ability to formulate effective messages.
Practice Effective Communications as Part of an Action Plan
Select one specific goal and develop an action plan to implement that goal while keeping a personal log or journal to record what you have done and what result you obtain. Select a goal that requires you to communicate with others in order to implement your action plan. As part of your action plan, experiment and practice your communication skills. Make a commitment to implementing the action plan as much as if you were being paid to do so by scheduling time for this action plan.
Everyone has differing skills and strengths in communications. Recognize your strengths and build strategies to support and develop your weak areas. Some points to consider about formulating and monitoring messages around implementing your action plan include:
1. Are you providing information on why it is important for others to provide support to you in implementing your action plan?
2. Are you attempting to send a message in a time frame when you will be heard?
3. Are you accurately monitoring the responses? For some kinds of messages, it is important to know that you have been heard but hearing the message and taking action on a message can be separated in time based on the other person’s priorities and focus.
4. Are you using a variety of message formats? Some people respond more effectively to specific formats due to their thinking styles. Some people require time to reflect, especially for complex messages or ones that require some action.
Review Your Progress
Consider yourself to be the CEO of your goal project where your success depends on your improvements in communications skills. Treat your action plans as the key part of being successful so that you create a sense of urgency for paying attention to them.
Review your action plan that you used to practice communications. A daily log will help you record what you did so that you could review and reflect on it weekly. As you practice, you will improve your skills in communications as well as make progress on implementing an action plan. Do not get discouraged. The hardest part is getting started and continuing with it. Action plan implementation goes in spurts. Progress is made and then at times, it seems we are going backwards and nothing is working. Put the action plan and your efforts into the context of learning a new skill like learning to play golf or to play a musical instrument. Persistence pays off.
Take the lessons that you learn from your practice and apply them to all of your communications. There are no ‘best practices’ since you will always need to monitor the response to your messages and adapt and correct based on your relationships with the recipients of your messages and your environment.
Personal effectiveness and communication skills can’t be separated. Individuals that wish to go beyond this first level action plan can work with our tools and process to improve their overall effectiveness. The tools and processes we use develop individuals in four areas—self development, relationship building, goal achievement, and time orientation.
Contact PB Tech for more information on assessment tools that can be start you on your journey of becoming more effective in communicating with others.
We look forward to serving you, contact PB Tech to discuss your specific program needs and to obtain program costs.
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