There are several things that are important to remember about effective communication, everything that you tend to do, will improve your communication skills. For a charity, effective communication is important, the employees have to communicate with their clients all the time and even more so for a charity like Rainbow which is based around people who have sight difficulties. Good communication will make it easier to explain things to people as well as getting information out of people too.
General
General communication is how well you can get your point across, and there are several factors that make it easier to do so. Knowing you audience would be the main one. Finding out about your audience is very important as this will affect everything you will be trying to explain. People like to understand what you are trying to explain to them, therefore making it interesting and easy to understand will benefit you greatly.
This will effect the tone of voice and speech methods you have to use. For example, if the room is filled with children you will try to keep the wording simple and with the element of childishness and fun within the speech, where as with adults you are able to be more straight forward and use slightly lengthier words with explanations. Another factor that may affect this would be the size of your audience. For a large audience, you may have to speak up and possibly try to explain (including slang and jargon) the same thing in different methods. You will also need to keep an eye on the audience to make sure that they are paying attention and are not getting bored. For a smaller audience you are able to do more personal approaches, such as 1 to 1 communication and explaining things to the audience individually if it is not too time consuming.
It is important to dig into your mind about the cultural differences that we live amongst at this day. Since we have mixed cultures and each believing into what they have been told, it is important not to offend them in any way possible that may go against their beliefs. Adjusting your communication will benefit you and the people you are talking to and making the experience much easier for both parties. Knowing your location would be a key factor. If it is in a foreign country to you, you must learn about their country so you don't try to tell them something that will offend them. Also taking into consideration that some foreign nationals may not have the same grasp of English (or whatever language) as you do will also affect your communication. Trying to use common words which are easy to learn and are heard daily will make it much more understandable for the listener and maybe if they have a thick accent and you are not able to understand them, using sign language is always useful, although having a translator translating for you would get rid of difficulties entirely.
Most importantly, make sure you are giving out the correct information. People who know nothing about a subject you are trying to introduce to them will believe you (unless the subject is completely, out of this world, unrealistic). Therefore, you do not want to give people out wrong information, because it will have some long term consequences and make communication harder along the line. This can also take a toll on you, since there are new technologies such as Google which is filled with information, people may search up the subject and find out you have been supplying them with wrong resources, further on, making communication even more difficult as they may choose not to listen to you.
On the other hand, including your own opinions isn't bad, but it should be kept to the minimum as you opinion may not be the one that may benefit everyone, and it may not be the most correct one.
Engagement with the audience - By confronting your
audience, it not only makes the whole communication more interesting,
it also makes sure that the audience is paying attention. There are
different ways to execute this, and finding the most appropriate on
will depend on the type and size of your audience. One of the
approaches that can be used is by singling out a single person and
giving them a question related to what you were talking about. If they
get it wrong, correcting them would be the best way to deal with this,
but they will pay attention afterwards if they haven't been so far.
There are different questions that can be asked to the audience:
Single: " What is your opinion on this?"
Single/Multi: "Who can give me the answer to....?"
Multi: "Who has been paying attention?"
Interpersonal
Interpersonal communication is directed towards certain people or one persona in particular. They can effect how you change you communication style and approach making you more dominant in communication and increasing you skill in this area in general. There are variety of skills you should invest some time into mastering to make communication even more effective.
Listening - Listening to the person that is talking will benefit you greatly because you will understand what they are talking about. Sometimes listening to how people speak and what they speak about will show you what type of person they are and what they like and don't like, which you will be able to use the next time you are talking about. For example, if Rob likes cars, then bringing up the subject of cars would be a good method to get to know Rob.
Problem solving - This skill can be useful for you communication as knowing how to solve problems will benefit not only you, but people you are trying to communicate with as well. Problems will arise daily, especially when communicating with people. An example of this would be, if you are not on the same wave length about a subject with the person you are talking to, letting them know that your opinion is your own but taking theirs into consideration and working around it would get you out of getting on their bad side. Also if the person does not know the subject you are trying to teach them, explaining individual parts that they are having difficulties with can benefit them.
Eye contact - Eye contact ensures that the person is interested in what you are talking about and is paying attention to you. Therefore making things easy to explain to them, keeping in mind that they are paying attention, you wont have to repeat yourself. Having bad eye contact has a different effect, if the person is looking around the room will reassure you that they are either shy or are not interested in what you are explaining, therefore, do something about it and confronting them on the issue would be beneficial to you as you are able to use the information they give you in future conversations.
Body language - Body language comes from both parties of the conversation. The person that is talking may use body language to make the point easier to grasp or to make communication more interesting. Using hand gestures when explaining what you are talking about will make people pay attention and they will understand. Not having body language, you will be completely reliant on your voice, you will have to use different tones to keep it interesting, as this is not very practical method, combining both voice and body language will result to effective communication.
Written Communication
When written communication comes into place, it is important to figure out what type of written communication would be the most beneficial to use. Whether it is formal or informal, you may approach each differently. For formal audience such as your Boss, you would need to choose you grammar and language that you will use. Usually using words such as "Sir" and "Mr/Mrs" would be appropriate for this manner. Also taking in mind the type of written communications methods you can use for different situations. If the message is short and urgent, you may need to use e-mail since it is the quickest method. Although for a more formal approach it would be advisable to write a formal letter, for such occasions such as job applications.
IT IS VITAL, when using written communication to have applicable spelling and grammar. Spell checking what you have written afterwards may show that you have made a mistake, therefore correcting any mistakes you have made throughout your written produce would make it more appealing. Also the use of capital letters is a common mistake found. The whole reason of this is to show that you have intelligence and that you look professional. Although this should be more used for when doing hand written letters whereas when composing letters or emails on the computer, auto correct seems to do the job for you.
Having good grammar can also effect your communication, as if the grammar is incorrect it will make some sentences harder to understand.
When composing a letter, it good to remember the proper structure of how letters are meant to be written, and the positioning of all content within the letter.
Here is a good example of a letter : http://www.learnist.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/retail_jobs_cover_letter_example.jpg
Keeping in mid that making sure that you involve paragraphs into your letter to be sure that the content of your letter does not simply flow from one subject, to another.
Knowing your audience is also important when composing either a letter or an email. Depending who you are writing to, your writing styles will change. If you are writing professionally and in a business algorithm, you should know to write in formal context. So starting with Dear Mr/Mrs... and finishing off with Your Sincerely etc., will differ from the text you would write to a friend to whom you may start with hello and end with bye.
Finally taking into mind that when writing any sort of written communication, is to be aware not to give any information that may put either you or anyone at risk. This includes giving any personal details or information about someone to other people, as this can be used against you and the receiver of the message will have the option to hold on to that information in written form.
No comments:
Post a Comment