Do you frequently interact with teammates yet feel that something could be done to improve your communication results and boost collaboration? In this case, be sure to check on your ability to listen, manage conflicts, read others’ emotions and recognize context cues – these are a few of the core things that can help you converse with colleagues more effectively and convey your ideas just right. Read this article to learn more about them and explore some other key rules of successful communication in the workplace.
15 Ways to Promote Effective Communication in the Workplace
1. Express Yourself with Clarity
Vague or messy writing and speech are the worst enemies of effective communication. But the chance to be understood rises multifold if you:
- Have a clear communication goal,
- Choose words that reflect the desired meaning precisely,
- Frame your message into a readable and coherent structure,
- Implement logic and evidence,
- Avoid abuse of emotion.
Besides, it’s always better to be concise. Brief digressions and long detours into amusing stories serve their purpose too. However, prior to using them, make sure they fit the communication moment well.
2. Check on Understanding
Mutual understanding is the core of successful communication. Hence, you need to check on understanding both when listening to colleagues and when doing the talking. How? Actively engage with listeners and speakers, ask questions and, when in doubt, try to translate complex concepts using different words and simpler ideas. This way, you will reduce the risk of miscomprehension to a minimum.
3. Know Your Audience
Not knowing your listeners’ needs, problems and values, it’s very hard to hit the right target with your words. But understanding your audience, you can address their wants and provoke desired responses in them with greater ease.
So, become acquainted with your colleagues. Learn about their experiences and interests. Get an insight into their characters. This will help you to adopt the right communication strategies and make sure the things you say and your manner of expression sit well with everyone else on your team. As a consequence, you’ll get a guarantee that the message you want to convey is fully comprehended.
4. Consider Context Cues
Each instance of human interaction takes place within a unique communication context. It means that your communication style in a highly formalized, hierarchical workplace will differ drastically from a style you can have in an informal work environment. Your manner of expression can change depending on whether you’re talking to a colleague at a coffee break or presenting report data to your boss or your business partners at an official meeting.
However, not all context cues are so obvious. Your aim is to learn to read them all and evaluate how appropriate and timely your communication approach is in a particular situation.
5. Adopt Effective Communication Routines
Workplace communication is more fruitful when it occurs regularly and in an orderly fashion. Hence, it’s pivotal for you and your colleagues to establish some communication routines, i.e., events that take place repetitively. You may arrange daily meetings, send out weekly internal newsletters or organize a group chat to discuss minor issues. The goal here is to foster an ongoing exchange of information and guarantee that each employee is in the know of what’s going on in the company.
6. Develop Emotional Competence
Emotional competence is a set of skills that enable a person to recognize emotions in self and others, express feelings (even the intense ones) in a constructive manner and adapt well to collocutors’ emotional states. Since feelings play a crucial role in any type of human relationships, including those formed at the workplace, emotional competence can help you tremendously during communication with colleagues. It allows reducing the negative effects of adverse emotions on the team and boosts mutual understanding.
7. Be Respectful
Respect means many things, but the very basic notion of the concept refers to viewing others (or self) as worthy and recognizing their merits. Respect is manifested in such behaviors as:
- Politeness,
- Consideration of others’ experiences and opinions,
- Equal treatment,
- Avoidance of negativity and harsh criticism.
Practicing these behaviors at the workplace will help you form positive relationships with colleagues, avoid conflicts and promote collaboration.
8. Be Friendly
Friendliness is engaging. To help others open up for a discussion, make them feel comfortable and establish trust, you have to be a pleasant companion and express a favorable attitude towards your teammates. Just like respect, friendliness promotes a positive workplace atmosphere, which prevents conflicts and fosters closer collaboration.
9. Be Empathetic
As the ability to comprehend others’ feelings and look at things from their perspective, empathy can also let you bond with colleagues and develop strong connections with them. The best way to become more empathetic is by practicing active listening, which involves:
- Showing attention and consideration;
- Using nonverbal signs of listening (i.e., eye contact, mirroring, etc.);
- Reflecting back on everything said by your collocutors;
- Asking relevant questions;
- Avoiding judgement and advice.
Empathy and active listening will help everyone in your team to understand each other much better. Besides, empathy has a therapeutic effect. By empathizing with others, you will significantly improve individual and team well-being.
10. Master Conflict Management
Wherever humans interact, conflicts are inevitable. We tend to perceive them as negative phenomena, yet conflicts may have positive effects as well. They encourage people to work harder, generate creative ideas and invite favorable social changes.
The positive effects of conflicts at the workplace can be maximized in case you and your colleagues understand and utilize the principles of conflict management, such as:
- Quick response to a problem,
- Mediation,
- Negotiation,
- Open dialog,
- Training in positive behaviors, etc.
With their assistance, you will prevent and successfully resolve any disputes, interpersonal and intergroup issues arising in your team.
11. Welcome Constructive Feedback
Feedback is the objective information about one’s performance and progress in attaining specific objectives. Objectivity is the primary feature of feedback that differentiates it from personal evaluation or advice and brings it closer to constructive criticism, i.e., provision of evidence-based and actionable recommendations on how to achieve improvement.
Using constructive feedback, you and your teammates will stimulate individual and organizational learning. Plus, you’ll be able to talk about unpleasant and difficult topics – such as poor performance and failures at work – more delicately and efficiently.
12. Use Body Language Intentionally
Nonverbal signals are an intrinsic part of verbal communication. When we interact, we use gestures, postures, facial expressions and eye contact to support our message or read others’ intentions, attitudes and real feelings. In many cases, body language conveys much more meaning than words themselves – it may help you win over your listeners and establish trust with them or discredit whatever you say and invoke skepticism.
Therefore, it’s very important to use nonverbal signals intentionally and make certain they match the tone and the nature of your message. Remain aware of your emotions and pay attention to your body whenever you speak to reinforce your speech and attain your communication goals successfully.
13. Stay Open-minded
Open-mindedness is much more than the state of being receptive to new ideas and information. It is also about the unprejudiced acceptance of differences, curiosity towards the unfamiliar and the ability to sympathize with people whose arguments and values contradict your own.
Open-mindedness can be cultivated through self-awareness. No doubt, this task is very difficult and time-consuming. But the hard work will reward you with broader outlook, improved collaboration skills, higher workplace innovation and creativity.
14. Focus on Improving Your Communication Skills
Learning and self-improvement are the never-ending processes. If you want to become a proficient communicator, build productive professional relationships with your team and boost collaboration, you have to invest much effort and time in developing your skills. You may experience some failures on the path, but don’t let them discourage you and prevent you from attaining the ultimate goal. Focus on continual self-development, and you’re bound to acquire and perfect the necessary skills and competencies.
15. Choose the Right Communication Tools
Professional issues are now commonly resolved through multiple mobile and web-based media. And to make workplace communication more effective, you have to find and employ the right instruments – those that work infallibly, are convenient to use and enable you to exchange information quickly and efficiently.
Today, you have an opportunity to choose from many high-quality video conferencing apps, document management platforms, groups chats and messengers. Besides, you can benefit from adopting a tool with task management and time tracking functionality, such as actiTIME. With its help, you will coordinate work among colleagues, track progress, leave notes on task performance and collect profound project data with ease. All these features will allow you to attain superior collaboration outcomes.
