I'm sure everyone will agree that good communication skills are very important, and not just in professional life but in every aspect of life. But rarely do I see someone describing what it actually means by good, or even great, communication skills. Often I feel people misunderstand the true meaning of good communication skills.
So I thought maybe I'll share my take on this with you folks. Feel free to share your views in the comments, make corrections in the article, and add what you think I might have missed.
The myth!
Good grammar/vocabulary: Many people I've had the pleasure of dealing with or even work with think that people who have good grammar knowledge or who often use fancy multi-syllable words in their sentences are really good communicators. I always struggle to understand big words until I hear them quite a few times and do multiple google searches for meanings and usage examples. Sure, it's always good to have impeccable grammar and vocabulary if you're in a spelling bee, but not everyone can digest them easily. And to be honest, it's not even that important, as long as people get the point you're trying to make.
Quick responses: Let me say this straightaway - it is important to respond quickly to emails, messages, even if it is just an acknowledgement saying you'll get back to them with an answer. But the belief that people who respond quickly are good at communication is definitely not true. Some even try to show off this skill and enforce it on others around them. Such replies, in most cases, end up being educated guesses at best and don't tend to be very well informed.
Incorrect communication platform: This bothers me the most out of all the points mentioned here. People follow and endorse such bad practices of calling an in-person meeting for the most trivial tasks which could have easily been communicated in a written format. Or sometimes when people talk about a mission critical thing over a phone call, which should definitely have been an email to the whole team, or possibly even a meeting. Imagine going to JSConf and one of the presenters just refuses to talk and has big blocks of text on every slide, not very likeable, right?
I did many mistakes in the past, but I continuously had this feeling bothering me that even the simplest of my conversations (both written and verbal) were missing something. Somehow, I was repeating myself too many times, not getting my point across, or having too many calls to clear up little work items.
I slowly realised what I was doing wrong.
The truth!
While I agree not all points I mentioned above are bad to have if you want to improve your communication skills, but those points alone can never be sufficient. I'll share some points, habits, I think are super important if you want to be a good communicator. This is most definitely not an exhaustive list so feel free to add more points in the comments.
Simplify things. This should be the top priority if you want to convey your message effectively and avoid any misunderstandings or even worse, conflicts. If you can break down a complex concept into simpler terms then you're much more likely to convince make your message easy to understand and remember.
Consider this, if you can't convince a toddler to not put the lego man's head into their mouth for the millionth time, then you need to work on your communication skills. Okay, I get it, your task will not always be so close to impossible because in a professional setting you're not always talking to toddlers, so it's equally important to identify your audience and try to talk on their level, and make it easy for them to understand. Which brings me to the next skill...
Have Empathy. Many times I got frustrated at people for not getting what I was trying to tell or ask them, until I realised that not everyone has the same context as me, or is on the same level of intellect/experience as me. You can try to put yourself in their shoes to better understand why your point is not getting through to them. Who knows, you might even learn a thing or two by doing so. (has happened to me on multiple occasions)
Plus people are more likely to listen closely and be more willing to indulge once they feel you understand their side of things as well.
Being polite is one of those habits that's not easy to cultivate but goes a long way once you do so. If you're impolite or rude as a communicator then all the knowledge and skill in the world won't help your cause, because people won't even listen to you. On the flip side, one way of showing politeness is to listen and not interrupt when others are talking. Listening is a huge part of being a good communicator that many people miss.
Be transparent and proactive. This holds true mostly when you're dealing with someone in a more formal setting. The other person will always appreciate you more if you're transparent with them and let them know of any unforeseen circumstances without them reaching out to you and specifically asking you about it. For example, if you're working with a client on a project and due to some newfound information or an unanticipated issue you have to bump up the story points on a ticket. The clients will be much happier if you proactively inform them about the situation at hand.
These habits and tips have proved very valuable to me in my daily life. People find me easy to trust whenever I commit to something, and I no longer face the problems I mentioned earlier. So that's a win-win for everyone.
Would love to hear your take on this.
Cheers! 🤘
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