Boosting Business With Communication

Social media is rapidly changing, challenging the way the world communicates. In corporations, we are seeing many more team and project collaborations, which alters the expectations of employees and customers as the new culture of social media entwines with traditional business communication. Books like The Conversational Corporation: How Social Media Is Changing the Enterprise provide insight into the social media phenomenon.

While keeping pace with the evolution of social media, many organizations have also spent time teaching their employees about the communication dynamics of a diverse workforce. Management is taught to recognize that no two workers are alike. Companies that practice one-on-one management are discovering the value of learning about the communication styles of their team members to understand what motivates them. For many employees, this effort by supervisors helps them become more productive.

The bottom line is this: Communication, which is constantly evolving, is crucial to businesses.

Over the decades, researchers have consistently cited communication as one of the most critical skills for managers to possess. Some studies indicate that managers spend 75 to 80 percent of their time engaged in written and verbal communication. Add to that today's engagement with social media, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and you see more emphasis on traditional "soft" skills that provide new and core links in business functions.

The Importance of Communication

Communication is important for three major reasons:

First, ineffective communication becomes expensive. Messages that have no clear objective lead to confusion or missing the mark, failing to win understanding on the part of the listener or reader. This lack of understanding of or sensitivity to how the message will be received can lead to poor reception of the message. Time is wasted and projects can fail. Customers may not receive proper customer service.

Second, today's business environment is increasingly complex, which makes communication that much more important. Diverse and participatory workforces require managers to build trust, promote understanding, remove barriers and encourage feedback. Furthermore, flatter organizations mean that supervisors are communicating with many people over whom they have no formal control. This requires you to break down complexities through effective listening: You must learn to probe, reflect, support and advise in order to communicate effectively.

Finally, the world's economy is increasingly global and competitive, and currently sluggish. Business is even more challenged, stretched and stressed. Every customer touch point, every negotiation, every purchase and sale, joint venture, adaptation, and product delivery involves communication. Thus, messages should be well designed, clear and concise. They should also avoid complex or pompous language, be logically organized and be directed at the receiver's interests. This breaks down barriers to understanding.

A key element to today's communication is building a base of hope and trust among employees. Supervisors who are trained properly build the kind of culture that facilitates productivity and reflects good communication. In turn, employees interact more effectively with internal and external customers.

The following list of "Leadership Tenets of Hope and Trust" presents the fundamentals of what businesses need and what employees expect today:

• Respect and honor others
• Be aware of what you say and how you say it.
• Practice what you preach, and do what you say you're going to do.
• Be true to yourself. Be authentic. Don't hop the fence for popularity.
• Listen and appreciate another person's point of view.
• Avoid using put-downs and zingers.
• Look for the good and reward the positive.
• Appreciate others' uniqueness. Embrace diversity and cultural differences.
• Acknowledge that hope and trust go two ways.
• Don't be afraid to show your human side and acknowledge your mistakes.

This sounds pretty simple, but if your supervisors aren't communicating effectively, then your workforce could be suffering at a time when it needs to be soaring.

Uncover the Essential Skills of Communicating

Vital Learning has debuted a new cover for its Essential Skills of Communicating program, and the redesigned cover reflects today's business environment. This program has been taught to millions of supervisors worldwide, and it is a staple of training for many organizations. The program is available in classroom, online and blended (online and classroom) formats, and it teaches managers the following:

• How to design clear, concise messages
• How to look for nonverbal clues
• How to listen to communicate
• How to overcome barriers to understanding

Only you and your training professionals can improve the skills of your supervisors, managers and team leaders. This program is easily customizable with current communication scenarios typical in your organization. The Essential Skills of Communicating can give your organization real communication skills for real-life business issues. Give your employees what they need now and re-energize your workforce with communication that is trusted, appreciated and authentic.