Being an effective communicator is perhaps the most important tool the business person can have in his or her toolbox. As a technical and business writer across a wide range of industries for the past 20 plus years, I have developed a keen interest in the subject of communication both verbally and in the form of the written word. I have had the opportunity to observe people at all levels from the least educated manual laborer to the corporate CEO and I have seen what works and what does not work when it comes to business communication. As a result I have compiled a few tips that anyone should keep in mind when speaking with or writing to co-workers.
Avoid repeating what has already been said, or stating the obvious.
Football coaches are famous for this. How many times has a coach been interviewed on TV going into the locker room at halftime and the reporter will ask, “Coach what do you have to do to get back in this game? And the coach answers, “We have to score more points.” Well, thank you Captain Obvious. To be fair, it’s not entirely the coach’s fault. The reporters should be fired for not coming up with more original or insightful questions, such as, “What do you intend to say to the players at half time to get them more focused and motivated?” In fact, how delightful would it be to see a coach come back at a reporter who asks and insipid question like that and say, “Well, Bob, why don’t you ask me an intelligent question like, ‘Do you plan to make any offensive of defensive scheme changes to counter State’s up-tempo game plan?'” It’s no different in business. Instead of saying, “we need to increase sales,” perhaps it’s better to pose a question to get people’s brains in motion. Asking something like, “what kind of game plan can we formulate to improve our sales strategy?”
Keep people focused and on-topic.
People like talking about what they are passionate about. A woman I used to know was a big evangelical Christian. She was really into her faith. She was so moved by her conversion to Christ that she looked for any opportunity to slip it into her conversations. So one day I told her, “Look, Jenny, I know you had a really positive experience, but you tend to turn people off because you turn every conversation to the subject of your faith. You must start your interactions with the understanding that what you experienced is necessarily an article of faith, and as such, most people are not going to be as inspired as you are by your personal story. People are going to believe what they want to believe and no matter how fervent you are, you won’t convert them by telling them your story. It will only bore them to the point of tuning you out.” Likewise, I have often been subjected to long-winded technical discussions which really added nothing of value to the conversation, especially considering that much of the time I had no idea what they were talking about. Discussing the relative merits of a Linux operating system over a Windows system is not particularly relevant when we are trying to fix a problem for a customer who has problem with their applications that run on a Windows platform.
Whet people’s enthusiasm by explaining how what you are discussing is going to help them.
We had some business guru who was going to give a talk about why businesses have so much difficulty introducing change into an organization and how to overcome resistance. Well, after working with people at all levels of an organization for 20-plus years, I can tell you it was pretty much all B-school claptrap. This guy was working on the principle of telling managers what they want to hear. “Oh, it’s not about the change you plan to make, it’s all your employees fault because they’re too stupid to see how great this will be for the organization as a whole.” Of course, I’m paraphrasing here, but you get the idea. I wanted to tell the genius that if he approached the problem from an employee standpoint he would be more likely to give the managers some advice they could actually use. People are generally in it for themselves and most couldn’t really care less how this or that change is going to benefit the organization, they want to know what’s in it for them. Tell them how the change is going to make their lives easier, even if the reality is that it’s not. Change can always be spun to emphasize the positive. Recognizing this basic fact will help you communicate change more easily and get buy-in from your employees.
The most valuable gift you can give your employees of co-workers is their time.
How many times have you been in a meeting where the speaker – or speakers – have continued to drone on long after they have delivered whatever useful information they had to divulge? They seem to think that just because they have scheduled a meeting and booked a room for an hour that it must last for the entire hour. It’s not so. People begin to mentally check out and you will be lucky if they remember what they came into the room to discuss in the first place. Get in, say what needs to be said, and get out. Your co-workers will thank you for it.
