Guide to improve Your Communication Skills

This blog serves as Guide to improve Your Communication Skills and with This Guide in your professional as well as personal life. With effective communication skills you can easily Identify ways to gain rapport with your audience, Learn techniques to reduce nervousness and fear, Recognize how visual aids can create impact and attention, Develop techniques to create a professional presence, Learn some different ways to prepare and organize information, Prepare, practice, and present a short presentation.

Communication

Why are communication skills so important for good interpersonal relationships?
When you are out with a gathering of friends do you find it easy to just chat away without thinking of what to say next?
How about when you get thrown in with a bunch of people you don’t know?

For most of us, this second kind of conversation is much more difficult.

Why?
What happens?
Where do you find topics of conversation that you can bring up at the next party or office get-together?
Where can you get some good conversational openers?
Wear a smile.
Don’t attempt to make a derogatory remark under the guise of humor.
Don’t try to shock.
Lengthy emotional debates will not contribute to the gathering.
Eventually even good conversations may come to an end.
Tell the other person how much you have enjoyed speaking with them, and go on to meet other people.
If you find yourself alone, look for others who look similarly disengaged or join a group with an odd number of people.
What does this have to do with speaking in public?
Self confidence is an important element of public speaking.

Edit Your Conversation

Volume
Clichés
Diction
Slang or Vulgarities
Gender References
Acronyms and Jargon
Tact
Green as grass
Mad as a wet hen
Smooth as an egg
Crooked as a snake’s back
What makes us tick
Like a lamb
Like a wet noodle
Quick as a wink
Talk through your hat
Good as gold

There are four easy rules to follow for any conversation.

Talk to yourself in positive terms.
When you speak to individuals, take the time to express yourself in an organized manner.
Ask for feedback.
When presenting to a group have a message worth communicating and know when to stop talking.

Appropriately Sharing Yourself with Others

Known to Others
Not Known to Others
Known to Oneself
Open
Partially Open
Not Known to
Partially Open
Hidden

Appropriately Sharing Yourself with Others

A turtle: low trust and low respect
An owl: high respect and low trust
A bull: high trust and low respect
A picture window: high trust and high respect

Trust

We earn trust as a trade off for self-disclosure.

Being visible, but not risking too much information too soon, promotes this type of trust.
Self-disclosure, in order to be most effective, must be well-timed and not too deep or too shallow.

Trust | Guide to improve Your Communication Skills

Think of the person you most admire.
Describe who the person is and what it is about them that has earned your admiration.
Think of the person you are most willing to trust.
Who is this person and why do you trust them?
Have they been willing to self-disclose?
Think about something you have not yet accomplished in life that you’d like to do.
What is it?
Why would you like to accomplish this?
How likely is it that you will accomplish it?

Positive Self-Talk

There is a factor that affects our ability to speak with or to others 100% of the time:

OUR THOUGHTS!

Listen to your inner voice and the self-talk you give yourself.
If you can hear the negative messages, start replacing them with new, objective, positive self-statements.

Positive Self-Talk

Emotion
Describe the Events that
Triggered this Emotion What Kind of Thoughts
Lead to this Emotion?
How to Replace the
Negative Thoughts
Sadness or depression
Guilt or shame
Frustration
Anger
Anxiety, worry, fear, panic
Loneliness
Hopelessness or discouragement

How would you change these self-messages?

I am so stupid. I’m always making mistakes!
Why can’t I remember things? I am always forgetting where I put my car keys!
Why can’t I be more like_____? He never does dumb things like that!
People don’t listen to me. I’m just not important enough for people to pay attention when I speak.
People will laugh at me. Probably somebody has already got a better idea.

Making the Most of Meetings

Three keys to making the most of meetings:

Anticipate
Prepare
Participate

Fifteen Ways to Master a Meeting

Know everybody’s name.
Know what everybody does.
Be careful about personal comments.
Don’t create subconscious barriers to communication.
Sit erect and square your shoulders. Look alert and lean forward slightly.
Discuss but don’t argue.
Sit at a power perch or corner position.
If you are seated and an important person enters the room, stand up to shake hands.
If you are holding the meeting, reserve the most impressive, appropriately appointed conference room, when the meeting warrants it.
If it is your meeting, lead it!
If it is your meeting, have an agenda and let people know why they are attending the meeting.
Start and end on time. See if you can meet with each person in the room before time is up.
If it is someone else’s meeting, take responsibility and participate.
Demonstrate high energy and involvement.

Remembering Names

Repeat the person’s name right after you hear it and then use it several times in conversation.
Write it down or ask the other person to give them a business card.
Once you have someone’s card, take the time to really look at the name on it and notice how it is spelled.
Word association is another technique people may use.

Shaking Hands

Degree of firmness
Dryness of hand
Depth of grip
Duration of grip
Eye contact
Web to web
Gentle, firm pressure
Look the person in the eye and shake briefly

Body Language

We get 65-75% of our sense of what other people are saying from their body language.
Make your face look friendly.
Closing your arms sends a negative message to others.
Learn to pick up cues from people that you are making them uncomfortable.

Signs that someone is becoming uncomfortable:

Rocking
Leg swinging
Tapping

If it escalates, these signals are often followed by:

Intermittent closing of the eyes
Slight tucking of the chin into the chest
Shoulder hunching Learn to watch for these and adjust your approach.

Sticky Situations

What types of situations make you feel uncomfortable?
Have you ever had to deal with a situation where people were feeling uncomfortable?
Who took charge?
What did that person do?
How can we put others at ease?
Sometimes we are the one responsible for a difficult situation. How can we face the music ourselves?
Do you have examples of some negative situations that could be viewed positively if you reframed the situation?
How do we stop seeing the glass as half empty?
In order to stop thinking about ourselves, it does help to be wearing clothes we feel good in.
- – Do these clothes suit you?
- – Do they feel comfortable on you?
- – Do they fit?

Tips for looking professional:

Dress the way you want to be perceived.
Dress comfortably and be proud of who you are.
Always appear as neat and clean as possible.
Look trim.
Be sure clothing fits properly.
Don’t appear too fashion conscious.
Know the colors and styles that suit you, and stick to them.

Why Talk?

Oral presentations are generally more persuasive than written ones.
Spoken word engages both the right (creative, intuitive) and left (analytical, logical) sides of the brain.
Gives you more possibilities for building a relationship with your audience.
Spoken language has an immediate, magical quality that written language usually lacks.
You must be able to evaluate the depth of the audience’s understanding and degree of acceptance as you go along.
As a speaker, you can get valuable feedback during the presentation itself.
When dealing with a controversial subject, it is usually better to bring participants together in one room.
Confronting issues directly, and in person, is generally preferable to circulating paper.

Planning your Presentation

P=Purpose
A=Audience
F=Format
E =Evidence
O=Organization
Chronological order
Problem and solution
Current and proposed situation
Inductive or deductive reasoning
Pros and cons or compare and contrast
Decision-making pattern
Bad-news pattern

Which pattern would you use in each of the following presentation situations?

A presentation on the benefits of exercise
An argument in favor of starting your own small business
A presentation that suggests North Americans are too wasteful
The story of your life to this point
How to deal with procrastination

Overcoming Nervousness

Sources of Nervousness

Constant stream of internal negative comments
Hyper-responsibility

Tips

Make sure the room is prepared
Start on time.
Greet people as they come in
Eliminate physical barriers

Use Nonverbal Communication

Leave the appropriate distance between you and the audience
Stand erect
Consider your appearance
Move about and use gestures
Control your facial expressions and mannerisms
Maintain eye contact

Using Notes

Don’t ever consider memorizing.
Instead, learn to use notes unobtrusively and effectively.
Many presenters use their visuals as notes.
Never use full sentences.
Write simple key words or phrases on index cards or on the frames of your transparencies.
You can also add notes in PowerPoint.