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Effective organizational communication serves as the foundation for development and planning. It promotes the distribution of information, motivates, and encourages socializing. Without an established line of communication, your organization can suffer from misunderstandings and non-responsiveness that penetrate every level of operation. This issue is more than frustrating; it’s costly. Fortunately, there are 6 steps to help employees and managers effectively communicate to their teams and across their organizations.
Understand the Elements of Communication
There’s a history to communication and a very good reason why we collectively decided drawing on cave walls wasn’t cutting it anymore. We discovered that there were better ways to articulate our intentions and feelings. While we won’t take things back to the stone age, employees should be aware of both the classical communication model and the human relations communication model to understand their own content, direction, and style. Remember, communications start with the messenger first!
Develop Self-Awareness
Having self-awareness is more than maintaining your personal space. It is comprised of 4 crucial categories: Spiritual, Physical, Mental, and Emotional. This is a total body experience that gives you a sense of control, value, and motivation. Achieving self-awareness allows you to explore your own strengths and weaknesses in an environment that cultivates positivity and recognizes emotional intelligence. This understanding of self-awareness leads to regulation and self-management, development of social skills, and improving overall empathy. Now you can empathize like the human you are, not just as a self-aware robot (Right?)
Build Your Interpersonal Skills
Let’s build on those table manners of yours! Interpersonal skills can further develop participants’ awareness of themselves and their roles inside the company. The ability to harnesses the power of active listening teaches participants how and when to speak. Because, believe it or not, breaking into a musical number when your frustration over the printer reaches its limit, isn’t socially acceptable outside Broadway. These skills integrate whole body communication and provide detailed interpretations of non-verbal communication, so no “jazz hands” okay? There is a lot to learn about developing these skills. View Developing Successful Interpersonal Skills course demo to see a sample of how to recognize the difference between hearing and listening and techniques to move towards high quality conversation.
Develop Organizational Awareness
This skill focuses on recognizing how information flows and will help you become familiar with the strategic direction of the organization. You are an essential part of your company and it will help to know who is in positions above, below, and beside you. How can you rise on that corporate ladder if you can’t figure out which way to climb?
Communicate with Facilitation
Most people can recognize a problem, but what are YOU going to do to fix it? Facilitation focuses on getting things done! That means that next month when your company holds a “group meeting”, you don’t just show up, you participate. This type of skill is often found in leaders and is a perfect example of corporate communication. Why not try to discover your leadership voice where you'll learn proven techniques to find and develop your own voice as a leader – one that builds trust, fosters enthusiasm for change, engages colleagues, strengthens relationships, and achieves results.
Execute Communication Strategies
This final step focuses on the effectiveness of communication and how it will impact different areas of your life, such as your stress levels, productivity, and relationships with others. The biggest obstacles you’ll face in communication are barriers such as language, distance, and culture. But you didn’t get this far just to give up when you don’t understand someone. The use of pictures and interpretations in business presentations can help overcome the obstacles to workplace communication.
Conclusion
Employee communication, once mastered, will be allow you to plan and lead projects and programs better. New Horizons offers leadership training in Communicating Across Your Organization. This 3 day workshop is part of a curriculum from the Center for Leadership and Development powered by New Horizons. Participants in this course will learn how to build communication strategies that leverage interpersonal and organization awareness. Practice will be done on understanding those who think differently and understanding the role of a good facilitator. Find the next scheduled course date that fits your schedule or watch this free course demo of Communicating Across Your Organization.