Social Entrepreneur Site

COMMUNICATION

Effective communication is a must, an absolute must for anyone who has any kind of entrepreneurial ambitions. Without this skill your chances for success are diminished by a large margin. It is also one the more difficult skills to master for those who were not accustom to communicating effectively and will take time and more importantly practice.

 There are lots of reasons people are not effective communicators, some of the more common reasons are due to fear, shyness, lack of confidence, poor vocabulary, low self esteem, a bad temper, un-accepting of others views, inability to listen, lack of assertiveness, overly assertive and lastly inability to both convey and decipher non-verbal communication cue’s.

Each of these items can be fixed but again its starts with identifying which one of these major categories you above you may currently fall into. These by no means are the end all be all list, simply the more common ones. However by focusing on what you can remember that has gone wrong in your past communications can help determine what might have caused the break down.

Communicating with others whether to persuade, encourage, motivate, instruct, inform or any other form of communication is a bit like sales. You need to provide value and build interest in which ever form of communication you are attempting. Next, learn to listen! This is a very common problem in today’s world. In order to learn you really need to listen.

As they say those who are talking are not learning. A way to encourage active listening you can try a simple activity with a friend by practicing the 5 second rule, wait 5 seconds after the other person stops talking to discourage the impatience of wanting to get the next word in. With this exercise you will learn to truly soak in what they are telling you as opposed to simply thinking of the next thing you’re going to say. There is a phrase that states “Are you listening or waiting for your turn to talk”, you don’t want this to be you! Otherwise, the other person will notice this and end up doing the same thing.

Instead of a conversation where both parties listen intently to what the other has to say, they are simply trying to compete over who’s opinion matters more. Do not let your ego get in the way of learning. Practice patience and listening and you will in turn be able to say less in response however your words will be listened to more intently because you have listened and understood the other parties position making them eager to hear what you have to say about it. GETTING OVER THE FEAR OF COMMUNICATING WITH PEOPLE

Some people will never feel they are ready to be highly social and feel they will never be able to communicate tactfully and intelligently due to fear or shyness. For those of you who fall into the category. I will only say, you first must really want to push yourself over this barrier. It would be good for you to realize the importance and the level of success simply being a good communicator can bring you in both your professional and personal areas of your life.

By writing down as many of the beneficial reasons you should push yourself to move past the fear can help push you to place yourself in positions that will force you to become a better communicator and a more social person. Likewise write down all the reasons it is silly not to be a more social person. To become a better communicator obviously reading about it only goes so far, you need to actually  get out there and practice communicating!

Start by simply telling people hello, or striking up conversations with people around you that you normally wouldn’t. Remind yourself what’s the worst that can happen, they may not feel like talking, that’s about it, no harm done to you. More often than not you will end up making lots of new friends and afterward, 9 out of 10 times you will end up glad you decided to talk to that person guaranteed!

There are lots of activities you can do, simply put yourself around more people in areas that you can openly and easily strike up conversations. Or make goals to say hi or communicate with at least 5 people you do not know every day, then move it up to 10. Passive ways to assist improving communication is by reading in general, reading books above your current vocabulary level. Likewise reading the dictionary will help you learn new terms as well.

IMPORTANCE OF NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

Next, Non-Verbal communication is probably one of the most neglected and over looked forms of communications. This form of communications normally occurs simultaneously while actual verbal communication is taking place.

For example for someone at a circular desk seated with colleagues may move forward in his seat prior to speaking. Or a person who is uncomfortable in a particular conversation will tend to move back prior to wanting to initiating the actual verbal closure of the conversation. Someone who is listening intently tends to sit forward, and the opposite for someone who does not care for the conversation.

You always want to ensure your non verbal signals are in par with what you are trying to achieve through verbal communication. Talking with your hands is another typical form of communication that stresses what you are trying to say, it may be a tactic you are accustomed to seeing people in the sales or persuasive speaking professions. 

Non verbal communication as subtle as it may be normally has just as much weight as verbal communication. At times, it is even a lead indicator as to which direction verbal communication or conversations you are engaged in are going. A good communicator is able to notice and decipher these none verbal cue’s and adjust accordingly and help guide the communication in the direction they would prefer and keeping the audience engaged.

VOCABULARY

Next in improving communication is your vocabulary. Most will find the more successful you become the better your vocabulary becomes, and typically the better your vocabulary the more success you attain. After your appearance it’s the very next thing people notice, how you talk. If your vocabulary is very poor and lacking in clarity full of slang and sounds un-educated most people both in business and socially will think you are not very bright.

Developing an effective and broad vocabulary will take time to improve.  Some of the best ways to improve your vocabulary is by reading books that are a challenge to read. You will notice individuals in a professional type of employment, say a doctor or lawyer speak with large words related to their field of study. For example a lawyer may say, “Through his negligence he developed Diabetes” and a doctor may say, “Through his poor selection in dietary regiments he developed Diabetes”.

The point here is we speak what we have learned. Reading books or writing on a broad range of literature will help create a well rounded vocabulary capable of performing tactfully in many different situations.  It is not wise to try and sound overly intelligent or using a vocabulary that is clearly out of your scope, If you don’t not have at least a basic understanding of say the study of law, it will not sound very natural for you to try and carry on a conversation with a lawyer using his own vocabulary.

However you should challenge yourself to learn more and read more, in doing so you will slowly create a foundation for a much better vocabulary to flourish. You should also try and stay away from using fillers, such as using the word “LIKE” after everything you say, or “UM” those are the most common ones, if you need to pause to think just do It, don’t say anything and take a pause to gather your thoughts then continue talking.

APPEARANCE

Unfortunately our society does place a large focus on appearance, both on how we dress, how we look and how we carry ourselves. As such this is also another way in which we communicate with the world. Most would say it does not matter what you look like as long as you are competent and can get the job done, and to an extent this is also true.

However, focusing on your appearance is good practice especially during first impressions when you still do not have a proven track record so to speak, your appearance will typically be what carry’s you through until you are able to establish a reputation. Good appearance can also help you build confidence and overall ensure you depict yourself in the most favorable light. Lets face it, people are people, and they do not always make decisions based solely on rationality.

This is why a more likable well dress individual who portrays himself as being very confident can make, say a manager, feel confident and comfortable in giving him a promotion over someone who may be better qualified for the job but appears to dress very casual and carry’s himself very sluggishly. Dressing for the position you want instead of the position you currently have is another great way to ensure you are depicting yourself in the most favorable light.

For example, say you are secretary, but you carry yourself like a manager and dress the part instead of dressing like a secretary it will be very easy for your upper management to promote you, being psychologically they already view you as management material.

Dressing the part and carry yourself a certain way simply makes it easier for others to visualize you as a more competent, capable and confident individual both in business and social settings. As stereotypical as this is, it’s a fact none the less, and having others give you this benefit of the doubt can help carry you a lot further throughout your lifetime.