Three great communication tips

A critical key to all communications is simplicity and directness, writes Halina St James. Too often our words obscure our true meaning because we smother them in a mountain of cliches, jargon and unnecessary elaboration.

Instead of inflating and hiding your meaning, try deflating – for clarity.

DON’T SAY              SAY

Made the decision…    Decided

At this point in time… Now

Ahead of schedule…    Early

For the purpose of…   To

Will be able to…          Can

In order to…               To

That was one of our top tips offered during a webinar for which I am a panelist.

I’m the Effective Speaking expert on a communication panel, for the monthly webinar run by the International Institute of Business Analysis. My fellow panelists are Patricia Davies for Effective Writing and Julien Sammy for Effective Virtual Tools.

My favourite tip from Patricia was, always proof read. Even the simplest email. You can miss an embarrassing typo – like this example Patricia gave:

“Organization Power Politics: More than meets the eye in workplace learing”

Patricia says we should communicate to “express, not impress.” Great advice. If we follow it, we increase the chances of getting our message understood and remembered.

My favourite tip from Julien was on what he called ‘leveling the communication field’. If you’re on a conference call with three people in one city and four others in different cities, what often happens is that the three who are together take the call together in a board room.

Julien suggests everyone, including the three in the same location, should be on separate phones at their desks. This prevents the people who are in the same location from dominating the conversation.

When everyone has the same communication mode, every one has an equal communication opportunity.