Whilst the digital-centric world has certainly overtaken many of the ways people communicate in business, this has not negated the need for face-to-face interactions altogether. However, through emails, mobile phones and text messaging services what it has unfortunately contributed to is the lost art of communicating effectively in person.
But just how important are communication skills in the business world? And what are the key factors that make up effective, and further influential, communication? TechRound took the time to explores some of the key insights in the art of communicating throughout business, as well as the tactics people can use to both engage and influence those they converse with.
How Important Is Communication in Business?
Communication skills are essential throughout the business world, helping to convey your ideas in meetings, pitches, interviews and more in an effective, personable manner. Communicating effectively and with influence, can make it easier to navigate various different operations throughout your professional life. It can help you to stand out amongst your colleagues and competitors, building up a charismatic reputation that accelerates your career and pushes you further up the corporate ladder.
Utilising effective communication tactics can also help those in business to engage with target audiences better than their competitors, enhancing reputations and influencing opinion. Whilst there’s a whole host of different tactics that can help you to communicate effectively, three majorly influential points to take into consideration are:
- Learning how to listen
- Being clear in your message
- Executing this message effectively
By considering the following three factors, you can take your communication skills to the next level, influencing conversations in a range of different business settings.
Learning How to Listen
Arguably, one of the most important factors in communicating effectively, and with influence, is listening. Giving your full and undivided attention to those speaking during a conversation helps you to optimise your response, resulting in a more productive discussion overall. Additionally, active listening can also help you to pick up on the dynamics of the conversation better, enabling you to gain a deeper understanding of how the person you’re conversing with operates, and furthermore how you can accommodate them – strengthening engagement and ultimately influencing their perspective on you through your conversation.
To practice active listening whilst in conversation with others, you should clear your head from any thoughts, including thinking about what your response is going to be, and focus 100% on what the speaker is communicating to you until they have finished speaking. Demonstrating this level of engagement with people can also help to reflect a respect and commitment to the conversation, helping to create a more authentic connection throughout it.
Being Clear in Your Message
Another vital step to practicing communication that influences is to make your message as clear and concise as possible. Bombarding people with too much information overwhelms, often causing them to tune out or struggle to grasp the true concept behind what you’re trying to convey. It’s good to try and sum up your objectives in a few key points and provide these to the listeners, helping them to grasp what you’re trying to convey in a way that’s easy to digest, and furthermore improving engagement as well as their experience within the conversation.
Execute This Message Effectively
It can be easy to over-complicate what you’re trying to say, often over-explaining or, following on from the last point, overloading listeners with information, all of which runs the risk of people tuning out of the conversation, or struggling to understand the key message you’re trying to present.
Talking too much will often frustrate your listeners. To help keep people engaged, it’s useful to try and communicate your ideas with as much brevity as possible. Communicating in a clear and concise way can make it easier for listeners to understand what you’re trying to say, making the conversation more productive, more enjoyable, and ultimately more effective.
What Can These Tactics Bring to My Business?
Whilst those listed above aren’t the only factors that can help to advance your communication skills to influential levels, learning how to incorporate them into your conversational repertoire can help improve your reputation, and furthermore the way people are introduced to your ideas, influencing how people see you and what you’ve got to say. The University of Cambridge Communication for Influence and Impact online short course can provide you with the tools and insight needed to develop purposeful communication and influence within your business.
