4 Tips To Effectively Communicate in the Workplace
- Understand Your Environment. Identify personality behaviors at your workplace and how to best communicate with them. Conflicts often arise when people don’t understand the actions and motivations of others. Assessment tools such as DiSC can help teams uncover personality types in the workplace.
- Rapport Building: Establishing and sustaining rapport with people, especially with co-workers is critical. Learn conversation patterns designed to encourage constructive working relationships and to maximize the processes through which people learn (visual, auditory, kinesthetic).
- Listening Skills: “I know you believe that you understand what you think I said, but I’m sure you realize that what you heard is not what I intended.” – Anonymous
We misinterpret people when we don’t listen carefully or when we neglect to ask questions. Eighty percent of our waking hours are spent communicating in one form or another: reading, writing, speaking — and especially listening. In fact, one-half of all the communicating we do — or 40 percent of our day — involves just listening, a less formal but still effective approach to understanding others than formal assessments. - Organize Important Communications: Using organizational tools such as a mind map helps with advance planning for meetings and important communications.
What are your workplace communication tips?