Developing Communication Skills

All About Communication Skills

We all know how important communication skills are in today's world. This skill is valuable in both professional and personal aspects of an individual's life. But one of the most frequently asked questions is how we can improve our communication skills. After reading this article, hopefully, you don't have to question this anymore. But before that let's get to know about the definition and some different communication skills hand in hand.

DEFINITION OF COMMUNICATION

According to Google, the ability to convey or share ideas and feelings effectively is called communication.

But defining it more broadly, communication is a medium of giving and receiving information among people in a way in which they can be able to understand and sometimes get impressed with us. Communication involves all forms of it which are phone conversations, face-to-face conversations, and conversations on social media.

TYPES OF COMMUNICATION

Mainly communication has four types i.e. VERBAL COMMUNICATION, NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION, WRITTEN COMMUNICATION, and VISUAL COMMUNICATION.

Verbal communication:

It is the type of communication in which you exchange information with others through your voice either face-to-face or on devices. The potential of this type of communication depends on some factors like the speaker's tone, voice clarity, volume, speed, and quality of words.

Nonverbal communication:

It is the type of communication in which you exchange information with others without words and your voice. The interaction happens through your facial expressions, touch indications, physical postures, and eye contact.

Written communication:

It is the type of communication in which you exchange information with others through written content like emails, text messages, blog posts, social media posts, etc.

Visual communication:

It is the type of communication in which you exchange information with others through visual elements like images, signs, designs, animation, typography, etc.

10 NECESSARY COMMUNICATION SKILLS TO MASTER

Communication is a vast skill that has different small skills included in it which are:

1. Listening skill-

According to Google, listening is the ability to pay attention to and effectively interpret what other people are saying. In other words, listening means paying attention to every minor clue while a conversation like the other person's body language, use of language, voice tone, and pitch as well as the way of speaking.

To improve your listening skill, you may follow these points :

• Face the speaker if possible while talking and try to maintain an unstrange eye contact

• Be attentive.

• Stay calm and relaxed

• Don't interrupt the conversation.

• Put your advice and opinions aside.

• Try to feel the feeling of the speaker

• Try the picture the words of the speaker in your mind.

2. Asking questions-

This skill helps you in various paths of your career. In simple words, the art of asking the right question to the right audience in the right way at the right time is called the questioning skill. There are mainly two types of questions: the one in which we answer yes or no and the other in which we answer in detail. There are also many other types of questions as well. Hopefully, we'll discuss that in another article.

3. Body language -

From the word itself, we can understand that the movement we make with our body while talking to someone is called body language. It includes all the behavior we make awarely or unawarely while talking like facial expressions, body posture, gestures, eye contact, and tone of voice. While communicating body language plays a vital role in building the trust of another person upon us.

4. Storytelling-

There was a time in which storytelling skills is only used by big brands and organizations to gain their customer's trust and to effectively sell their products or services. But now storytelling is also used and suggested by communication experts to make other people imagine every word while talking.

5. Confidence-

This one factor is very crucial in our whole communication. It has the power to make our speech outstanding or shit. Speaking with confidence allows listeners to trust you and your words. Also when you are confident, you are more relaxed and flexible.

6. Conflict management- As a human, we have a nature to easily lose control of our anger which sometimes led the beginning of any conflict. In this situation, there must be a person who can identify and handle conflict fairly and sensibly. However, communicating clearly and patiently will also avoid conflict.

7. Clarity-

Clarity means simplicity in your words. The simpler your sentence is the easier it is to understand. To bring clarity to your words, try to convey only one message at a time. Also, try to use familiar words in your sentences rather than idioms and proverbs.

8. Rapport building-

Rapport building is a process of establishing a friendly connection with another person which makes a great conversation. The easiest way to build rapport with a new person is to find a common area of interest between you two and start conversing on that.

9. Negotiation skills-

Negotiation is a process by which two people can make beneficial decisions for themselves by preparing, discussing, and clearing the goal. The main aim of negotiation is to form a win-win situation among both parties for which they have to make offers, counter offers, and requests.

10. Empathy-

Empathy is the ability to understand the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and experiences of the person you are speaking with. It does not mean understanding fully what another person is going through but realizing it enough to support them.

IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS

*More than 60% of employers say that applicants are not demonstrating sufficient communication and interpersonal skills to be considered for jobs.

*CMSWire reports that 97% of employees believe communication impacts their task efficiency daily.

* over 80% of Americans agree that employee communication is the number one factor that inspires trust between a company and its employees.

There are many more stats present to show how important communication is in our life. Communication helps us to build trust and respect for another person upon us. As we read previously, good communication is important in both professional and personal areas of life. For example:

In personal life, good communication makes it easy to have good relationships with our friends and family members. This also results to live a stress-free life because sometimes we got depressed only for the reason of not expressing our feelings properly to our family and friends.

In student life, good communication helps you to freely discuss doubts with teachers which results in the improvement of your studies. Also, you can build good relationships with your class fellows.

In professional life, good communication helps you to do your job well. It also brings many opportunities for you. It is helpful to have good relations with your fellow employees.

In business life, it is one of the most important skills you have to have to build your organization. It is not wrong to declare communication skills as the backbone of a business organization. It helps business owners to make loyal and retain customers by building their brand value.

Now after this brief discussion hopefully you understood the importance of communication in our whole life.

HOW TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Now finally we come to the most crucial part of this article, that is, The ways which help us to improve our communication skills. So let's examine the basic ways in bullet points to make it easy to understand.

Listen carefully to another person while talking.

Pay attention to your body language, tone, and way of talking.

Try to convey your information in short and understandable words.

If you are going to speak in front of a group, prepare your speech in advance and practice many times

Be respectful in your words and behavior.

Try to avoid annoying words like hmmm or uh etc.

Strictly avoid communicating with someone when you are furious or upset.

Avoid making assumptions about another person.

CONCLUSION

In the above article, we discussed the most important life skill (communication skills). Like all the other skills, it also needs practice to develop or improve. You need to just start communicating with different people and try to be 1% better every time.

FAQs

Q.1) what is the purpose of communication?

A.1) All living beings communicate for majorly 4 basic reasons: to inform, to entertain, to influence or persuade, and to express their feelings.

Q.2) what are the barriers to communication?

A.2) The most common communication barriers are emotional barriers, cultural barriers, language barriers, and environmental barriers.

Q.3) what is the best language to communicate?

A.3) Every language is best in its way. But, as different people speak different languages, so to communicate effectively with everyone we have to learn one common language that is used by most people( which I think is English).

Q.4) what are the factors of communication?

A.4) The 5 essential factors for communication are sender, objective, message, medium, and receiver.

Q.5) what is the nature of communication?

A.5) The basic nature of communication is exchange of information between two or more people.