How To Improve Communication Skills

Have you ever asked yourself how to improve communication skills?

Why did you ask yourself this question? Why is communication so important in business?

Our patterns of communicating with others, the way we talk, email, use body language, voice inflection and the words we select all determine how the rest of the world sees us and relates to us.

In the context of this website, how your team communicates ultimately determine its success or failure.

Communication does one of two things:

• It solves problems or creates them
• Changes your team, for better or worse

So, when you ask how to improve communication skills you are searching for a way to increase your effectiveness as an individual and as a team.

Self-Talk: The First Step In Improving Communication

As humans we all have inner-dialogues running in our head at all times. Even when you're asleep. At times these thoughts are positive, but more than likely they spin to the negative side.

Why does the mind focus on the negative?

Your inner-dialogue often determines how you feel, what you think, how you react to others and certain situations, the empathy you have for the people around you. Basically our personal dialogues determine our perception and reactions to the world around us.

If you're having communications issues on your team, it is very likely the main problem you're confronting is a conflict between people's self-talk.

How to Improve Communication Skills Internally?

We are subject to our own thoughts. When absorbed by our thoughts our perception of the world around us suffers.

We get into fear mode, focus on negative traits in others, we project future scenarios of doom and gloom (for ourselves and others). We paint ourselves into a corner, giving ourselves less options to succeed.

In this fear-based mindset, our communication skills suffer and our performance at work suffers.

You can no longer compete effectively with the people around you. Working relationships suffer and as a result people's lives suffer. All because of their inability to communicate effectively.

To change how we speak to ourselves internally we must change the words we use. We must work to shift the default patterns in our head in order for our communication and relationships in the real world to follow suit.

A good gardener must plant seeds and help them grow.

Seeing Your Team As A Community

Leaders lead groups of people, a tribe.

Tribes have specific ways of speaking, established language patterns that either propell them toward success or block them from it.

Each individual automatically influences what authors Kenan and Lahey call the "language culture" of the group.

As a leader searching for information on how to improve communication skills you are acutely aware of the problems poor communication skills present to your team. You also know the benefits good communication can bring.

Leadership Is Teaching Others A New Language

You must teach your team how to communicate correctly. Developing a "cultural language" for yourself, your team, your business, and your community.

Answer these questions to see if your communication skills need improvement:

• Do people in your workplace often blame each other or complain?
• Are people eager to take personal responsibility for their failures? What about their successes?
• Do people often make commitments to projects or responsibilities, but then fail to fulfill their obligations or assignments? When they finish something is their work "up to snuff"?
• Do people make assumptions? Is there workplace gossip? Or do they ask direct questions and expect direct responses?

These are some general questions to demonstrate the importance of the question how to improve communication skills on your team and in your business.