BCG Bulletin THE TRAINING EXPER

Communication in the Workplace is
Essential to Productivity
by Michele Graham

In a small business atmosphere, it seems that everyone wears many hats, which can keep boredom at bay but also cause stress to your employees.

Depending on the size of your physical business will determine the different means of communication that can be used.

Email is a really good form of communication between employees. It's quiet and it gives the recipient an opportunity to research or think about their answer with little or no pressure. Emails between employees should be kept in a strictly business mode. Employees that email jokes on a continuous basis are not concentrating on their goals or their job duties.

Emails are also an excellent way to communicate with your clients or customers. This gives your client/customer an opportunity to respond in their time, without disturbing their workday. Of course, this only works when your clients/customers actually read their emails on a regular basis.

Instant messaging is another form of communication in the workplace. If your employee is getting up out of their chair continually to go to another employees' desk for a question, it is wasting your dollar. Most questions can be answered through instant messaging. Any question that requires detailed explanations should be asked through email.

Cell phones in the workplace should be discouraged. Personal calls are on the up-rise with so many people owning cell phones. Additionally, it is really hard to monitor employees that may be abusing privileges of allowing cell phones to be on at work.

In my particular business I try and operate the honor system. I assume if the work is getting done in a timely manner, then my employees are not abusing their privileges. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Even the best employees sometimes abuse their privileges.

Michele Graham, CEO and Owner of Professional Healthcare Management

How To Use Communication Training To
Boost Collaboration And Interaction
by Jonathan Blocker

One of a manager's biggest job responsibilities is to get the teams of employees under his or her supervision to work together in effective ways in order to increase their productivity. A manager searches for methods that will help increase the interaction and collaboration of the employees. One easy and effective method for producing these kinds of results is through participation in communication skills seminars. Using the new skills gained from communication training can help boost collaboration and interaction of your employees in a number of different ways.

One benefit from everyone participating in a training seminar is the camaraderie that often develops. Going through an experience together tends to draw all of those involved through their shared training. It provides a setting where employees can see each other in a new light because of the new communication skills learned, and this bonding will help boost collaboration and interaction in the workplace.

Another advantage that comes from training in communication skills is that employees will learn listening techniques. Many people like to talk, but few really stop to listen, and this is one important difference between a communicator who can take in a customer's information, for example, and then meet their needs in an effective manner. Working together in teams also requires astute listening skills, in order to not miss excellent ideas that could help your team perform beyond expectation.

If all employees have received training in business writing, they will not feel intimidated when it comes to performing this vital task. Because of those new skills, it will be easier for them to not only collaborate with their team mates through writing, but also interact more effectively through the written word. Instead of rambling on, they will learn skills to help them write clearly and concisely.

Spoken communication training also helps teams collaborate and interact to greater effect. Your team might come up with the best idea your company has yet seen, but if you can't communicate that idea to others it will never get the attention it deserves. Gaining skill in presenting your ideas to managers or clients will make you more confident when you do have to give a presentation, and it will make your presentation best suited for your particular audience. Spoken skills are also vital for team members to acquire so they can work together and understand each other in a respectful way. Many employees feel shy when they have to speak, but they can learn techniques that will aid them in overcoming timidity because they know they are properly prepared, which also bolsters confidence in their hard-won new skills. Whether speaking, writing, presenting or listening, strong communications skills training is an important key to team collaboration and interaction.

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Communicating with Clarity and Confidence
by Sherry Read

What you say is only as important as what is heard and understood by the listener. Too often, our messages are obscured by the structure of the communication. Even worse is when we are unaware of the gap between what is intended and the message received.

Communication and language are a function of the environment you are in – your organization’s culture. In order to deliver your intended message with clarity and confidence, the structure and word choice should be consistent with that organizational culture. This article provides some suggestions on building awareness of how word choice influences how the message is received. We will also look at how word choice influences perceptions, that is, whether the speaker is seen as credible and confident, or uncertain and evasive. By becoming aware of how language is used around you, you can begin to reduce the gap between your intent and the message received.

Build Awareness

Identify three or four business meetings or conference calls that you will be attending this week. Ideal meetings involve people you perceive as successful in the organization. Focus on meetings where your direct involvement is minimal, or limited to specific agenda items. Teleconferences, where you can readily take notes unobserved, are particularly suitable for this exercise.

Create a form that captures the following information about successful speakers:

Does the speaker primarily use I, We, You, or They?
Are statements normally positive (“yes, and ...”) or negative (“yes, but ...”)?
What action words / verbs are being used to convey confidence?
How are concerns or issues raised?

By comparison, monitor the language and word choice of someone whose communication you see as ineffective.

Analyze the Communication

At the end of the week, review your data and write out the answers to the following statements.

Successful speakers in my company speak primarily from a [first-, second- or third-person] perspective.
Successful speakers in my company speak about issues and challenges most frequently from a [positive or negative] position.
Successful speakers in my company use verbs and action words such as ....
Successful speakers in my company raise concerns or issues in the following ways:
By contrast, ineffective speakers communicate by ...

In the second week, continue to monitor the language and word choices of people within your organization.

Are you seeing additional patterns of speech that are effective and ineffective?
In what ways do you see clear and strong messages delivered?

Monitor Your Speaking Patterns

In this second week, begin to evaluate your language and word choices after each important meetings, teleconference or one-on-one conversation. Consider the following questions.

When did I believe my message was received as intended?
In those cases, what did I do particularly well?
In future situations, what patterns of language and word choice do I want to use more consistently?

Create an Action Plan

Once you have built an awareness of how messages are delivered with clarity and confidence in your organization, and become aware how you are delivering messages, it is time to create a personal action plan.

Complete the following sentences.

The change I will make in my choice of words to portray clarity and confidence as a speaker is ....
My messages will be clearer to the listener when I ....
I can measure the change in how I am communicating by ....

Finally, define the impact you will believe the change will have on your results and the perceptions of your capabilities in the workplace.

Change comes through awareness – of your environment and your self, gap identification, commitment and practice. As you move through the steps above, you may notice an immediate change in how you structure your communications and the words you choose. Creating the action plan, a measurement system and a goal for the change, will enable you to turn your newfound awareness into a habit; a habit that enhances your credibility and confidence.

Read Solutions Group helps people find solutions to being confidence and successful as leaders, particularly in multi-cultural settings. Sherry L. Read is the Founder and Chief Coach with over 20 years of experience solving business issues in technical, quality and human resources fields. Visit us at http://www.ReadSolutionsGroup.com for free resources and to learn more about our services.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sherry_L._Read

Dialogue Skills: Mastering The Workplace Conversations You Dread
by Sam Galea

Dialogue: an exchange of ideas, opinions, information, experiences or assumptions on a particular issue.

Consider the long list of companies that have lost zillions in shareholder funds because of plummeting values or, even worse, consider those that have gone belly-up altogether - mostly because of stupid mistakes, dishonest action or both.

Very often these destructive corporate events are portrayed as the result of a bad leader acting in isolation or a few senior people conspiring for their own benefit. However on almost every occasion these negative events also require the acquiescence of many others who may notice inefficiencies or irregularities but who choose to remain silent.

The positive mirror-image of this is also true. The high standards of truly great organizations are not maintained exclusively by a CEO or the senior executive group. A high performing organization absolutely requires the verbal participation of employees who are prepared to voice ideas and opinions assertively when warranted. But unfortunately in many workplaces this confidence to speak up has been replaced by a destructive silence.

What causes this culture of silence? The answer is - a lack of dialogue skills. Where the level of skilling is low so is confidence. In addition most people are naturally uncomfortable about raising bad news and many view with absolute dread any conversation that has a potential for conflict. For example conversations such as giving negative feedback, confronting a colleague, putting a strong point of view to the boss or a client, voicing an opinion when outnumbered, confronting a bully, and pointing out flaws or raising product or service concerns. Lack of dialogue skills usually means that these conversations do not take place or they happen when it is too late.

Dialogue skills can be improved across the whole organization, within a team or at an individual level by adopting an executive coaching program that usually concentrates on the following basic concepts:

Creating Safety: All relationships, whether outside or within the workplace, can be temporarily or permanently derailed simply because individuals do not feel safe to say what they are really thinking. One of the keys to good dialogue is learning how to build safety into a conversation and maintain it throughout.

Questioning Reality: Because thoughts are a reflection of our own views this means that multiple competing realities exist simultaneously and this often creates a communication blockage. It is possible to question your own and your conversation partner’s reality without blame or recriminations thereby creating openness and making it possible to arrive at your goals.

Making Dialogue Genuine: Before having a tough conversation with anyone else have one with yourself because gaining absolute clarity regarding your own motivation will display itself in attitude and behavior so when you go into that important dialogue your demeanor will physically manifest the picture your mind sends to it. If you have had the correct conversation with yourself that picture will be genuineness.

Sharpen Listening. Hearing and listening is not the same thing and a closer look at successful listening shows that it is not a natural process, it requires conscious effort and the process consists of discrete stages. Many people with perfect hearing have very imperfect listening due to any one or more of eight recognized poor listening behaviors.

Never Delay Conversations You Dread. Hand in hand with the courage to question reality comes the bravery to speedily confront your toughest professional issues. Very often the delay in having these dreaded conversations is caused by a lack of skill. There is a distinct process for having a challenging conversation and emerging with a successful outcome.

Silence Is Good. Silence during a conversation makes most of us uneasy which is why, when both parties feel this way, the conversation is usually full of words rather than meaning, simply to avoid silence. This type of conversation lacks any real substance and the goals of the conversation are often not met. The more emotional the subject then the more silence is required.

Act Upon Your Instincts. There will always be a situation where we simply just know that something is wrong and no amount of research or rational inquiry is going to alter the gut feeling that it will all fall apart unless you say something. That is fine as long as you first take the time to listen very carefully to your own individual internal voice. We need to listen to more than just the content; we need to listen also for emotion and intent.

Be Accountable For The Emotional Results. For any person in any type of leadership position it is almost impossible to pass even a trivial comment without some sort of emotional result, positive or negative. Because we have little control over the emotions of others we should instead focus on ourselves. Taking responsibility for the emotional results means that you must always take people WITH you rather than leaving them floundering in an emotional whirlpool.

Once the detail behind these concepts is learned, practiced and modeled the overall payoff is an increase in organizational performance through a more articulate, more highly engaged workforce and reductions in conflict, all resulting in higher morale and improved staff retention.

And there is a bonus - the fact that you can carry these skills from the workplace into those tough conversations you need to have in your non-professional life.

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Sam Galea is the principal of Coachability a Sydney (Aust) based executive coaching practice specializing in workplace communication skills that have the potential to improve the performance of individuals and teams. He is also a Facilitator & Speaker.