The idea that people need to have feedback, appreciation and information is a good basis for understanding how and why excellent business communication is important and compelling for success.
In your very best relationship - whether your spouse, best friend, sister, co-worker - you can easily communicate with them in a high value way. You telephone, email, write notes, make plans and generally stay in contact with them because you want a connection and a relationship with them.
In building very good relationships in business, it is absolutely the same. What is different in a business relationship is that you are communicating with colleagues and you don't always know them as well as a dear friend. However, they need the same attention that a good relationship needs.
*Returning a phone call
*Listening intently
*Appreciative communication
*Clear communication with details and directions
Our communication styles and methods are being stretched by email, technology, lack of time and resources that limit our ability to do so much in our day.
But there are rules of common courtesy that have NOT changed since the inception of humans dealing with each other in a high value way. If you want to be a remembered, trusted and respected leader, you will practice these courtesies with every business contact.
• Email - Not only should you be returning emails in a timely way, but you need to set the context each and every time of why the email is important and what information it is that you want to deliver. Spam filters help, but in order to more easily control your email load, you need to be in more control of what you generate yourself. In business, be brief, be informational and be gone.
• Cell phones - The ring tones that are available now are fun outside of the office, networking situations, client lunches etc. Put your cell phone on manner mode or shut it off. Take and make calls when you are with people sparingly. Most people are not interested in listening to your phone conversation no matter how stimulating you think they might be. If you need to take or make a call, excuse yourself and then make it brief.
• Returning phone calls - Whether you think you have time to return the call or not, find out what people need, make sure you are clear on whether you can help them or not and then get back to your own work. People who return phone calls are trusted and respected. You do not need to make the calls long.
• Practice your handshake - Ask a friend to shake hands with you and then give you feedback.
• Body language - 55% of our nonverbal communication is our body.
• Business cards - Get one and have them with you ALL of the time. You should include an address, email, telephone number, full name, what you do and your title. If your company does not provide a business card, get one for you anyway.
• Holding doors - Opening a door for someone is not just a guy thing anymore. Ladies, if you get to the door first, open it.
• Standing and greeting - If you are being introduced, stand, reach out your hand and shake their hand. Women in the workforce can show respect by standing and shaking hands.
7 Steps to Business Communication Success
What is success? The answer to that question is both personal and institutional for those of us who work in the business world. In essence, success is the ability to accomplish the task at hand. Technically, it is "to achieve one's aim to prosper".
You need thriving business relationships to prosper. In fact, we can measure much of our business success in terms of the viability of business relationships. Relationship health is directly affected by the quality of communication. Use the following steps to achieve communication success and to strengthen your critical business relationships.
Step 1: Identify a few communication weaknesses.
Can you think of any communication challenges that you face? It's time to brainstorm and quickly make a written list.
Here are a few questions to get you thinking about your own communication challenges:
* Are your employees happy and satisfied?
* Are your clients glad to provide referrals?
* Are your partners and stakeholders well-informed and confident?
* Do your conversations flow?
As you review the bulleted list above and consider your communication challenges, identify each challenge but don't get bogged down with other details.
Step 2: Decide to address the most bothersome communication weakness.
Many leadership or business management challenges are a result of busy-ness. Leaders don't realize that others need communication that is:
* Professional
* Complete
* Positive
* Concise, and
* Wholly relevant without any irrelevance
If you are a leader or a manager, communication is your job. People expect you to do it and do it well. It would be literally impossible for others to compensate for your poor attention to communication.
In spite of the advice of gurus world-wide, there seems to be a reluctance to buy into this idea. Communication may not come naturally, and you may need to work on it. Communication brings power to your professional and personal life. Critical relationships can thrive with your attention.
To gain an understanding of how to resolve the weakness, you need to look at your communication patterns. You will develop communication that is regular and has flow. Communication, however, is not just about giving out messages. Communication is listening and speaking, receiving messages and conveying messages.
Step 3: Listen to others for a week.
We're not just talking about passive listening either; you will ingeniously create opportunities for listening. Listening must be practiced, and acting on incomplete information may be more harmful than doing nothing.
Consider how long you have been without the power of listening, and realize that a week is a small price to pay. While you are listening, you are reserving judgment and allowing the answers to come to you. Others often already know where the problem lies. They may even have ideas as to how you can fix the problem. Active listening requires practice, so be patient.
This gives others the freedom to develop their thoughts and express them without disagreeing with you. Be sure to take notes on potential solutions.
Step 4: Define success and the benefits in this area.
First, take a moment to define your ideal outcome. This is your defined target. Your attitude affects your motivation and your outcome.
In addition, think about what benefits you hope to achieve. For example, "Our clients know that we value their relationship as well as their business. Every call is answered in a polite manner. Each concern is personally addressed. We listen when they speak. We thank them for their input. We keep them informed of new products and company news. We are considerate in our pricing. We thank them for each purchase. In return, they have no interest in checking out other providers, and they remain loyal in spite of the efforts of our strong competitors. We have steady growth in our revenue."
Step 5: Make your proactive communication plan, being sure to establish checkpoints.
This plan will come out of your definition of success and your listening activities. Some examples of proactive communication would be providing customer service seminars for your employees, taking on a visible role that reaffirms your commitment to personal service, starting a service blog discussing best practices, scheduling individual meetings to check in with employees, or establishing standards of excellence and rewarding employees who excel or improve. Notice that these items are not remedial. You are not resolving past problems, but establishing a firm foundation for the future.
Also notice that you would choose one activity to plan. For example, if you choose to focus on a customer service seminar, you will define the necessary tasks and place those tasks in your planner. Choose your communication activity based upon whether you need a long-term or short-term effort. Also, consider the availability of resources and plan accordingly.
You may have to practice needed skills. For instance, if you are planning to present a customer service seminar yourself instead of outsourcing, you may need to schedule time to develop your presentation skills. If you are nervous about your skills in an area, practice those skills until you become calmly confident.
Step 6: Implement your plan.
Implement your plan, keeping your ideal outcome in mind as you go. Review checkpoints frequently to ensure that you are on track. Once your activity is complete or the communication fix is in place, it's time to take a realistic look at what you've accomplished.
Step 7: Evaluate the results.
Congratulations! If you look at your definition from Step 4, you will be reminded of the gains have you have achieved. You may also note unforeseen obstacles that you overcame. Now you've seen the power of communication at work. Communicating will become easy (or easier) as you go through the 7 Steps to Business Communication Success again. Communication is the key to your success.
In your very best relationship - whether your spouse, best friend, sister, co-worker - you can easily communicate with them in a high value way. You telephone, email, write notes, make plans and generally stay in contact with them because you want a connection and a relationship with them.
In building very good relationships in business, it is absolutely the same. What is different in a business relationship is that you are communicating with colleagues and you don't always know them as well as a dear friend. However, they need the same attention that a good relationship needs.
*Returning a phone call
*Listening intently
*Appreciative communication
*Clear communication with details and directions
Our communication styles and methods are being stretched by email, technology, lack of time and resources that limit our ability to do so much in our day.
But there are rules of common courtesy that have NOT changed since the inception of humans dealing with each other in a high value way. If you want to be a remembered, trusted and respected leader, you will practice these courtesies with every business contact.
• Email - Not only should you be returning emails in a timely way, but you need to set the context each and every time of why the email is important and what information it is that you want to deliver. Spam filters help, but in order to more easily control your email load, you need to be in more control of what you generate yourself. In business, be brief, be informational and be gone.
• Cell phones - The ring tones that are available now are fun outside of the office, networking situations, client lunches etc. Put your cell phone on manner mode or shut it off. Take and make calls when you are with people sparingly. Most people are not interested in listening to your phone conversation no matter how stimulating you think they might be. If you need to take or make a call, excuse yourself and then make it brief.
• Returning phone calls - Whether you think you have time to return the call or not, find out what people need, make sure you are clear on whether you can help them or not and then get back to your own work. People who return phone calls are trusted and respected. You do not need to make the calls long.
• Practice your handshake - Ask a friend to shake hands with you and then give you feedback.
• Body language - 55% of our nonverbal communication is our body.
• Business cards - Get one and have them with you ALL of the time. You should include an address, email, telephone number, full name, what you do and your title. If your company does not provide a business card, get one for you anyway.
• Holding doors - Opening a door for someone is not just a guy thing anymore. Ladies, if you get to the door first, open it.
• Standing and greeting - If you are being introduced, stand, reach out your hand and shake their hand. Women in the workforce can show respect by standing and shaking hands.
7 Steps to Business Communication Success
What is success? The answer to that question is both personal and institutional for those of us who work in the business world. In essence, success is the ability to accomplish the task at hand. Technically, it is "to achieve one's aim to prosper".
You need thriving business relationships to prosper. In fact, we can measure much of our business success in terms of the viability of business relationships. Relationship health is directly affected by the quality of communication. Use the following steps to achieve communication success and to strengthen your critical business relationships.
Step 1: Identify a few communication weaknesses.
Can you think of any communication challenges that you face? It's time to brainstorm and quickly make a written list.
Here are a few questions to get you thinking about your own communication challenges:
* Are your employees happy and satisfied?
* Are your clients glad to provide referrals?
* Are your partners and stakeholders well-informed and confident?
* Do your conversations flow?
As you review the bulleted list above and consider your communication challenges, identify each challenge but don't get bogged down with other details.
Step 2: Decide to address the most bothersome communication weakness.
Many leadership or business management challenges are a result of busy-ness. Leaders don't realize that others need communication that is:
* Professional
* Complete
* Positive
* Concise, and
* Wholly relevant without any irrelevance
If you are a leader or a manager, communication is your job. People expect you to do it and do it well. It would be literally impossible for others to compensate for your poor attention to communication.
In spite of the advice of gurus world-wide, there seems to be a reluctance to buy into this idea. Communication may not come naturally, and you may need to work on it. Communication brings power to your professional and personal life. Critical relationships can thrive with your attention.
To gain an understanding of how to resolve the weakness, you need to look at your communication patterns. You will develop communication that is regular and has flow. Communication, however, is not just about giving out messages. Communication is listening and speaking, receiving messages and conveying messages.
Step 3: Listen to others for a week.
We're not just talking about passive listening either; you will ingeniously create opportunities for listening. Listening must be practiced, and acting on incomplete information may be more harmful than doing nothing.
Consider how long you have been without the power of listening, and realize that a week is a small price to pay. While you are listening, you are reserving judgment and allowing the answers to come to you. Others often already know where the problem lies. They may even have ideas as to how you can fix the problem. Active listening requires practice, so be patient.
This gives others the freedom to develop their thoughts and express them without disagreeing with you. Be sure to take notes on potential solutions.
Step 4: Define success and the benefits in this area.
First, take a moment to define your ideal outcome. This is your defined target. Your attitude affects your motivation and your outcome.
In addition, think about what benefits you hope to achieve. For example, "Our clients know that we value their relationship as well as their business. Every call is answered in a polite manner. Each concern is personally addressed. We listen when they speak. We thank them for their input. We keep them informed of new products and company news. We are considerate in our pricing. We thank them for each purchase. In return, they have no interest in checking out other providers, and they remain loyal in spite of the efforts of our strong competitors. We have steady growth in our revenue."
Step 5: Make your proactive communication plan, being sure to establish checkpoints.
This plan will come out of your definition of success and your listening activities. Some examples of proactive communication would be providing customer service seminars for your employees, taking on a visible role that reaffirms your commitment to personal service, starting a service blog discussing best practices, scheduling individual meetings to check in with employees, or establishing standards of excellence and rewarding employees who excel or improve. Notice that these items are not remedial. You are not resolving past problems, but establishing a firm foundation for the future.
Also notice that you would choose one activity to plan. For example, if you choose to focus on a customer service seminar, you will define the necessary tasks and place those tasks in your planner. Choose your communication activity based upon whether you need a long-term or short-term effort. Also, consider the availability of resources and plan accordingly.
You may have to practice needed skills. For instance, if you are planning to present a customer service seminar yourself instead of outsourcing, you may need to schedule time to develop your presentation skills. If you are nervous about your skills in an area, practice those skills until you become calmly confident.
Step 6: Implement your plan.
Implement your plan, keeping your ideal outcome in mind as you go. Review checkpoints frequently to ensure that you are on track. Once your activity is complete or the communication fix is in place, it's time to take a realistic look at what you've accomplished.
Step 7: Evaluate the results.
Congratulations! If you look at your definition from Step 4, you will be reminded of the gains have you have achieved. You may also note unforeseen obstacles that you overcame. Now you've seen the power of communication at work. Communicating will become easy (or easier) as you go through the 7 Steps to Business Communication Success again. Communication is the key to your success.
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