Communication Skills: Why are they important and how can you improve them?

Bad communication is costing money

According to a 2018 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), verbal communication skills are ranked first among a job candidate’s ‘must have’ skills and qualities. No wonder majority of job candidates put down ‘communication skills’ in their CVs, but how many of them truly possess these skills? If it is really that many people in the job market are having good communications skills, why communication barriers are still costing businesses around $37 billion a year? There is 86% of employees and executives citing the lack of effective collaboration and communication as the main cause for workplace failures.

It is either people have bluffed on their CVs or they simply don’t understand what communication skills are. Luckily, there isn’t an AI machine that assess your communication skills quantitatively, just yet. Imagine there is a real time ‘communication score’ floating next to your face whenever you receive and give out information. We hope that day won’t arrive.      

Communication is both fundamental and ultimate

Communication is a fundamental skill, just like running in all kinds of ball games. Having fast footballers elevate the performance of the entire team —nothing is more frustrating than to see footballers dragging their feet in a match. No matter what professions you are in, great communication skills are springboards to success.

Communication is also the ‘ultimate skill’ as the importance of it will only increase as your career progresses. When you climb to the top of the career ladder, that is the only skill that you need to get by another day at work. Think of leaders of a nation, there isn’t a task they can’t delegate except for communicating. Many people are helping them to make decisions and ultimately it is down to them to communicate the decisions to his people. Communication would make or break their career. Even the star-rated PR professionals could not spit words out of their mouths for them! 

Thankfully, communication is also not dissimilar to running as you can always run faster and better than yesterday. No one could claim they have ever mastered it and there is always room for improvement.

What is communication?

Communication is not broadcasting. It is a two-way process. It involves both sending and receiving of information. Out of different communication skills, this article will focus mainly on interpersonal skills — the skills engaged in face-to-face communication with one or more people.

Interpersonal skills could generally be classified as three sets of activities:

1.      Body Languages: facial expressions, body postures, gestures, eye movements and the use of space.

2.      Presenting/ Talking: wording, tone and volume.

3.      Listening: listening is not hearing. It is in fact a highly skillful act that involves attention and distinction.

How to improve your communication skills?

Here are the activities you can spend 5 minutes a day practising in your family or workplace to improve your communication skills:

1.      Paraphrasing

Miscommunication is costing companies with 100 employees an average of USD$420,000 per year. False information, misinterpretation or simply forgetting what you heard are all miscommunications. Paraphrasing what you heard is a way to check what you understand is the intended message.

2.      Summarising

Many people struggled to get their key points across or tend to give out too many trivialities that are taking up precious meeting time. You can practise and also teach people to communicate effectively by summarising their points, but summarising can be backfired if one does not take in the underlying emotions and context. The key to effective summarising is active listening and emphathising.  

3.      Asking questions

You would be surprised by how much more information you can gather simply by asking questions. Open-ended questions like ‘How do you find this experience?’ and ‘How this information can help you make your decision?’ can help get to the nut and gritty of what matters.

4.      Get the person to say Yes or No

When you felt like all stumbling blocks are cleared and the other side just need a push in making a decision, asking closed end questions, leading questions and clarifying questions will be effective.

Examples are:

Closed-end questions: ‘Are you happy to do the laundry if I walk the dog?’ or ‘Is this what will take you to say “Yes”?’

Leading questions: ‘You have mentioned that you want more time with your family, will you take this offer with flexible arrangement that allows you to take day off for your children’s activity?’

Clarifying questions: ‘You have mentioned that your boss doesn’t recognise the effort you have put in, is this the main frustration that you have with your current job?’ 

5.      Get the person to think

Asking process questions and hypothetical questions will invite people to actively engage their analytical minds.

Examples are:

Process questions: ‘How do you weigh up the pros and cons of making this investment?’

Hypothetical questions: ‘What if they didn’t give you the pay rise you have asked for?’ or ‘Would you take an offer that gives you $100,000 monthly for doing box filing 10 hours a day?’