Effective Communication Skills | Guy Harris: The Recovering Engineer

Archive for effective communication skills

Apr
3

Bad Boss Scenario: You Should Have Known Better #1

by Guy Harris

I’m experimenting a bit with video shorts to illustrate situations I have observed in my personal experience or heard about in my work with clients and workshop participants.

I’m hoping that short videos can help to convey ideas and illustrate concepts in a fun, humorous, and effective way that helps people to relate to both the scenario and the concept so that they can use it in real life.

This is my first effort at creating animated shorts using GoAnimate.com. I think I still have a lot to learn about how to do this well, but it seems promising at this point. Today, I’m just playing with the software and trying to figure it out.

I’d love to have your feedback on this type of content. Do you like the idea? Is it fun? Is it instructive? Can you learn from it?

Any input is welcome.

0 Categories : Leadership Skills

Mar
31

Using the DISC Model: Four Steps to Success with Others

by Guy Harris

The video pretty much says it all for this post. It quickly gives you four steps for applying the DISC model for success with others.

In a nutshell, the four steps are…

Understand the DISC model
Understand your style (where you fit in the model).
Understand the other person’s style (where they fit in the model).
Adjust your words, behaviors, and tone to best fit how they receive information.

The video is about 7 minutes long.

If you would like insights for how to apply these four steps better, you can check out my Connecting With People and DISC Model FAQ’s post series. For even deeper insights, check out my products. If you really want to master these four steps, take a look at The Ultimate Communicator Workshop.

2 Categories : Communication Skills, DISC Model, Video

Feb
2

Four Ways to Improve Your Communication

by Guy Harris

If you want to become more effective as a leader, more successful in meetings, or more confident while resolving conflicts, become a better communicator.

On the high end of the communication skill spectrum, you find that great leaders — like Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Jr — are often great communicators. On the low-end, research indicates that poor communication skills can contribute to family disputes escalating to domestic violence. (Check the discussion section of this article.)

Evidence from research, experience, and anecdotal observation points to higher levels of success and satisfaction and lower levels of stress and frustration as your communication skills improve.

With that backdrop, here are four ways you can improve almost all of your communications (presented roughly in the order I suggest you follow):

1. Learn how other people might hear, see, or interpret your messages

One concept that often surfaces in my communication workshops, is that communication comes from the Latin word that also gives us the English word common. This observation implies that communication makes ideas, thoughts, and concepts commonly understood — even if not agreed upon — between two or more people.

In order to make ideas common, it becomes important to understand both sides of the communication. You need to understand both how your idea sounds to the other person and what the other person means with the words they use. What you say might mean something other than what you intend to the other person. What the other person says might mean, to them, something other than what you hear.

Long-time readers of my blog know that I use and recommend the DISC model as one tool for accomplishing this step. There are factors to consider other than communication style (e.g. – culture, gender, age, etc.). Still, it’s a great place to start.

The goal of this “step” is to get a clear picture of how the differences between you and the other person might affect your communication efforts.

2. ”Observe” your perspective

In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I have not yet mastered this concept. It’s really hard to do, and I’m not sure that any of us will ever truly perfect it. It’s a good goal nonetheless.

Here’s the idea, learn to step back from your first interpretation of a statement or behavior and look for how your perspective, or filter, might be affecting your response. There’s more to this one step than I can effectively cover in this post, but David Rock shares exercises you can do to build your skill in this area in Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long.

As you develop this skill, the next two steps become easier to do.

3. Listen actively

If the goal is to make an idea common, you must work to understand the other person’s thinking before you can truly communicate. Active listening involves much more than just hearing the words. It involves total focus on what the other person is attempting to communicate. For more thoughts, you can check this post on listening skills.

4. Get and give feedback during the communication process

It’s easy to say something and assume that the other person heard what you meant. It’s also easy to hear something and to assume that you understood what the other person meant. Until you confirm mutual understanding, you will be operating on assumptions and interpretations rather than on facts.

Well phrased questions (combined with some active listening) form the basis for effective feedback, and a mis-communication could happen in either direction. A few weeks ago, I wrote a post with some ideas for confirming that the other person understands your words the way you intended them. To confirm that you understood the other person they way that they want to be understood, you can use the questions listed here.

Frankly, communication can be difficult. We do it virtually every day, and we often do not communicate as clearly as we think or intend. One of my favorite quotes on communication (I think I have quoted it before on this blog) is by George Bernard Shaw: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

I find that I have to frequently remind myself of key communication concepts in order to apply them with any consistency. For the next week, I encourage you to consciously focus on these four ways to improve your communication and watch the positive difference they will make in your communication effectiveness and the reduction they will make in your stress and frustration levels when you interact with others.

(I recently wrote a special report that amplifies these ideas a bit and presents a five step model for better communication. You can get a copy here.)

1 Categories : Communication Skills, Family Relationships, Leadership Skills, Resolving Conflict

Jan
24

Five Secrets for More Persuasive Writing

by Guy Harris

Have you ever read a dry, boring email, blog post, letter, or proposal? If you have, you know how dreadfully non-persuasive they can be. You also know how easy it is to miss the message the author attempted to convey.

If you want to have your message read and acted upon, here are five tips – secrets – for more persuasive writing…

1. Write from your reader’s perspective

Before you start, consider the viewpoint that your readers will likely use as they interpret what you have written. In another post, I wrote about this consideration based on their DISC style, and it is only one of the factors to consider.

Some of the other factors you could consider are:

Your relationship with them
Their position in the organization
Pressures they might be facing
Anything in their role or relationships that might limit their ability to act on what you propose
Their past experiences

The list above is not a complete or exhaustive list. It does highlight some of the main items to factor into how you deliver your message and what might affect your persuasive power.

2. Write the way that people read

Consider these two ideas:

Most business and personal communications are intended to quickly communicate an idea.
Many people do not like to read long paragraphs and sentences (especially on computer screens).

Unless you are writing a novel or an academic research paper, use short sentences, short paragraphs, and lots of white space.

3. Anticipate and address your reader’s greatest objections

If the purpose of your communication is persuasion, your reader will likely object to something in it. When you write, attempt to anticipate these objections and include information to address them.

4. Use comparisons

For a number of reasons, new ideas tend to bounce off the human brain the way tennis balls bounce off a concrete wall. Comparisons act like glue to link new ideas or difficult concepts to simpler or already accepted ones so that they stick.

A comparison of any kind – metaphor, simile, or analogy – can help your reader to both understand and remember your message so that they take action on it.

5. Tell stories

People tend to experience life as a chronological story and to think about new ideas based on how the new idea fits into the story in their mind. Presenting an idea in a story makes the idea easier to receive. Like comparisons, stories help ideas stick in the mind of your reader.

When my children were young, my wife and I read stories to them. We chose some of the stories for the express intent of teaching them a new idea. For example, we used Green Eggs and Ham to teach the concept of trying new foods before rejecting them. Thinking of the character Sam while we were at the dinner table helped them to visualize what we wanted them to do – try the food before saying “I don’t like it.”

If you can find a way to present your idea with a story, do it. Your writing will be more persuasive.

The danger of writing about how to write better is that, well, it’s in writing. As a result, I run the risk of violating the very secrets that I propose. From your perspective, I may have done just that. If I did, I would welcome constructive comments to help me – and my readers – improve.

If you would like other suggestions, here’s a post over at Copyblogger that also tackles the idea of more persuasive writing.

1 Categories : Communication Skills, Persuasion, Writing

Nov
21

Three Things to Consider Before You Start Writing

by Guy Harris

Ignore these critical considerations when you write, and you could invite a communication disaster.

Written messages just might be the most dangerous form of communication. There are so many ways that they can go wrong and lead to miscommunication. If you have ever written a message that someone else misunderstood, then you know what I mean.

While, the general rules of effective communication apply equally to both spoken and written forms, there are some special factors to remember when you communicate in writing.

I covered some general, big-picture communication ideas a few weeks ago when I wrote about Three Critical Factors to Consider Before You Choose a Communication Technique. Today, I’m expanding the ideas in that post to add these special considerations for you to remember when you write.

When you write a message of any kind, keep in mind…

The idea of greatest interest to the reader

Most people skim written messages more than they read them – especially when people “read” on a computer screen. If you want to grab the reader’s attention so that they get your main idea, make it easy to see.

Make the main idea stand out in some way.

Use bullet points
Put the main point as early as possible in the text
Use formatting that makes the main point(s) easy to find

If people have to work too hard to find something that pertains to them in your message, they will likely miss it altogether.

How it will likely “sound” to the reader

In written form, people only have the voice in their own head to interpret the words you write. The reader chooses the tone that your words carry, and, in my experience, people sitting alone with your words tend to read them more negatively and more aggressively than you intended them. As a result, communicating sensitive issues in writing will likely take more time and more words than communicating the same message in spoken form.

Since you will not be present when they read what you wrote so that you can adjust your delivery or clarify your message, it is doubly important to consider the reader’s DISC style (if you know it) when you communicate in writing. If you are task-oriented, remember to work on “softening” your words for people-oriented readers. If you are people-oriented, remember to get to the point faster for task-oriented readers.

Where (and in what medium) the reader will read it

If you write messages of any kind – letters, emails, texts, or social media updates – remember that the person reading your words will likely not read your words in the same environment where you wrote them. You might be dashing through an airport quickly responding on your phone while your colleague reads the message quietly in his office. Or, you could compose it in your office while he reads the message on his phone dashing through an airport.

Always consider the reader’s environment in your message. Will they read it on paper or on a computer screen, on a wide-screen monitor or on a smart phone? Every context is different. Every context creates a different communication challenge for your reader.

Here’s a bonus thought – pay attention to punctuation.

I don’t suggest that you have to know all punctuation rules and apply them perfectly. I do suggest that you should at least give it some consideration. I see many emails and text messages that look to me like the writer made no effort to follow good punctuation rules. Punctuation helps the reader know where to pause and how to better interpret your intent. Do your readers a favor with good punctuation. (If you find punctuation errors in this post, sorry. I’m not perfect in this area. I do think about it and try to catch my mistakes before publishing.)

If you have thoughts or ideas to expand these ideas, I’d love to see them. Please let me know your insights for better written communication in the comments section below.