8 Tips to Communicate Effectively in The Workplace

Congratulations. You got the job. Congratulations. You got the promotion. Congratulations. You made the team. No matter what your circumstances are, if you are in a improved situation, if you got the next level up, if you got the next thing, if you made progress, you are going to be in a situation where you need to learn to communicate better. Right? So today I want to share with you eight tips on how to communicate better in the workplace. Whether you are talking to new team members, your boss, your colleagues, or the people who are on your team. Maybe you are managing a team, maybe you are leading a team, but no matter what, you will have to be able to communicate effectively and you will have to be able to communicate in a way that moves people. So I want to share with you eight tips on communicating better. Walk with me. Tip number one is to learn the shared language. Language is the tool that you're going to be used to communicate. It is the most important tool because language is the tool for connection. It is the tool for building connection and maintaining connection with members of your team, with other people, with people you have a relationship with. So learn the shared language. And so what is a shared language? A shared language is a language. So they are a bunch of words, they are phrases, they are distinctions in vocabulary or distinctions in things that we say that everybody knows what they mean. Right? So that's a shared language. You can't have a connection without a shared language. And a shared language could be like the office words, right? The office jargon. It could be the industry terms that your industry uses. It could be the jargon, particular to the study that you and your teammates have. It could be simply what's trending in the environment that you're in. It could be colloquial, it could be formal, but whatever it is, you got to understand and learn what that shared language is. That shared language could have been there before you got there. Or you could be the change maker to create a new shared language. Right? Or it could be something that's already emerging. Wherever that shared language is in the timeline in which you enter, you have to be sensitive to knowing where we're at, what stages, how mature is that shared language and to learn the shared language. So that's tip number one. Tip number two is to create an enrich connection. Right? So what's connection? Connection is between two or more individuals that have a common interest, right? And there are three ingredients that you need to have when you are creating and enriching a connection with somebody else or with a group of people. You must have the first thing is you must have authenticity and that is really being yourself. The second thing that you need to have is vulnerability and that is the courage to admit your weaknesses and to also ask for help. And the third ingredient is to have trust. Trust is really important. It is being able to stand in your truth and be in your truth, but at the same time to have predictability in your behavior and other people's behavior. So as not to put the group of people and not to put the team at risk, right? So when you are creating and enriching connections, you want to make sure you are fostering those three things. Authenticity, vulnerability, and trust. And the way to do that is to create an environment where those things are not only encouraged, but they are practiced. And if you are the leader, if you are the leader is to practice them first, to lead by effective action, to lead by taking the action that inspires others to do the same, right? So connection is very important to be able to communicate effectively and building connection, enriching that connection will be the second tip to communicating more effectively. Tip number three is to listen better. There is a difference between listening and hearing, right? Hearing is a subconscious action where the sounds go into your ear and they enter your auditory canal and your brain perceives them as a language that you can understand. So hearing is automatic. It is subconscious. Listening is active, is voluntary, right? There is an action involved in listening. So listen better. And there are three things that I can tell you to improve your listening. The first one is to embrace the silence, right? So you imply something called the 80-20 rule where 80% of your results come from 20% of your actions. So the 80-20 rule says that you want to be talking 20% of the time when you're in a conversation, especially if you are leading, if you are the leader in that environment, you want to be listening more. If you are a salesperson, you want to be listening more. If you are managing something important, imagining managing your team, you want to be listening more. So make sure that you allow the person that you're talking to, that you're trying to create connection and build connection with, allow them to speak and that you can listen, right? And so the second way that you can listen better is to embrace the silence. That's the first one. And the second one is to really to be present. Being present means that you give them the gift of your attention, which means that there are no distractions, turning off your phones, you know, having eye contact, standing at a respectable distance, facing them, having the body language that shows them that you are present. So that is being present, being fully present and demonstrating that with action. And the third thing you can do to listen better is to ask clarifying questions, right? There is a big difference between saying something and the other person hearing what you said. Most of the times when you say something, the other person receives the words and then they hear something different from what you said. So listening better, a part of listening better means asking for clarifying questions. And here's one question I'll give it to you. You can say, so what did you hear me say? Right? And asking in a non-threatening way. So you said something, 80-20 rule, you're speaking 20% of the time, but when you spoke, you can ask, okay, so what did you hear me say? Just want to be sure, want to clarify, what did you hear me say? And allow them to say in their own words what they heard you say. And therefore you clarify right from the get go that it's a safe space here. Let's clarify to make sure that you heard what I said and that is what I wanted to convey to you. And if not, we can start from there. We can start from scratch or we can clarify further. Right? So that is the third principle is to listen better. Tip number four is to hold the responsibility for communicating. So let me ask you a question. If you are in a conversation with somebody, whose responsibility is it to make sure that the other person hears you clearly? Is it your responsibility? Is it the listener's responsibility? Or is it both of your responsibilities, a mutual responsibility? Right? So what's your answer? I invite you to comment below. What is your answer? Who do you think holds that responsibility? Okay. And so it's interesting. When I was thinking about this concept, the person who is responsible in that conversation to ensure that the listener hears correctly is actually the one who initiates the conversation, right? It is not, most people think it's a mutual responsibility that the speaker and the listener have to take responsibility to communicate effectively, but actually no, it is the initiator's responsibility to ensure that they communicate clearly enough. And here's what this means. The implications are like this. Let's say for example, I am communicating with you, right? As I'm talking to you right now, I'm communicating with you and what I said was not very clear, right? And you had confusion and so you were typing a lot of questions in the comments, clarifying questions because you didn't understand what I said. That is actually my fault, right? As the communicator trying to convey a message, trying to deliver eight tips for communication, for example, it is my fault if what I'm saying to you does not make sense to you. It is not your fault that as a listener you couldn't understand what I said. So the same thing is true in any conversation that you are in. If you initiate the conversation, it is your responsibility to ensure that you communicate effectively and clearly and succinctly enough that whoever is listening to you can receive it in a way that they can receive it, right? So it is not their fault. If they didn't hear you correctly, if you ask a clarifying question and what they heard you say is not what you said, it's actually your fault, right? So that's tip number four is to hold the responsibility in communication. If what I've said to you makes sense to you so far, I want you to comment below. What was your favorite tip so far? I've presented four out of the eight tips on how to communicate better. What was your favorite one so far? Which one resonated with you? And as well, if you like what I said, give me a like a thumbs up and remember to subscribe to my channel. Ring that bell so that you receive notifications each time I upload a new video. Tip number five is to focus on outcome, right? Because when you are in a career and in your workplace, you are going to be measured in terms of the outcome you provide for the company you work for, right? They are going to be looking at outcomes, especially if you are on the fifth or the sixth stage of your career. Remember there are six stages of your career. And if you want to learn more about the stages, I want you to click somewhere here to my YouTube video. It's called the six phases of your career. So the fifth and sixth, especially at the fifth stage, you are measured mostly in terms of the outcome you provide in the workplace, in your company, right? So if that's the case you want to focus on outcomes because you are measured on what can you provide for the company that is of value and the value is going to be assessed by the company, right? You are working for a boss and that boss has expectations of an outcome when they hire someone on the team that every member of the team can add value to the company in the way that they need to add value to produce an outcome that is favorable to the company. So you are going to be expected to take a certain set of actions that will lead to those outcomes, right? And so when you are taking effective action, the effective action leads to the outcome and effective action is actually the symptom of communication, right? In order for you to be able to take effective action, someone needs to have had communicated to you what is valuable to the company. If you are a leader in that company, you have to be taking effective action enough to inspire others to do the same and communicate to them what the outcomes need to be and what the effective actions needs to be, right? So effective action is the outcome of good communication. So when you focus on outcome, you are essentially going to be able to elevate your communication to communicate what is the action they need to take to have the outcome that benefits the company and therefore you are more effective in the workplace. Tip number six, be as direct and to the point and concise as possible because here's the thing. Vagueness is a really common problem in the workplace and if you are communicating with someone and you are too vague, what happens is you lose the lead, right? So there's a term in copywriting and business called losing the lead. Like for example, if you read a newspaper, you read the headlines first and from that headline you can decide whether or not you're interested in reading the rest of the article. It's because the writer of that article, that newspaper article or the magazine article that captured your attention, they were able to put in the headline a capture or a hook that hooks you in because in that headline you already know what the lead is going to be. You already know kind of like what the topic is going to be and you know whether or not it's going to be interesting to you. So the same thing is true when you are communicating effectively in the workplace. Don't lose the lead. Don't be vague, hit the headline, right? As though you were that article writer in the magazine or the newspaper, hit the headline. So most people when they're communicating, the biggest mistake they make is they feel like they need to tell the other person everything they know, which is not true. Don't let your ego get in the way. Instead of telling them everything you need to know, they don't need to know that. Instead, ask yourself what is the one thing that they need to know when you're communicating with them? And that one thing, if they knew that one thing, then they would be able to take care of a lot of other things consequentially. So what's that one thing that they need to know? The biggest domino that when you knock that domino over, it's going to knock down all the other dominoes down the line, right? So instead of telling them everything you need to know, it's just the one thing they need to know and therefore you will not lose the lead. Tip number seven, personalize it, right? When you are talking to someone, remember your communication is for them. It is not about you, right? What you have to say is important and you want a certain outcome from what you have to say. So make it about them. The focus is not about you, what can I get out of it? It is about what can my communication do for the people or the person that I'm talking to. So personalize it. And this is more than just the way you express yourself. This is more about understanding from the standpoint of the people or the person you're talking to, what is their personality? How can I convey, how can I talk and communicate in such a way that is aligned with who they are, right? Align with the way they think, empathize with them. How do I empathize with them? How can I communicate in a way that they can really resonate with? So really personalize it. It's more than just an expression of yourself. Because you know, people do anything at all for only one reason only is because they feel like it. So if you are communicating and you want to be effective because you want them to take a certain action, then you got to make them, they got to get them to the point where they feel like doing the thing you want them to do in their best interest, right? So the way to do that is to really personalize it and empathize with them, understand the way they think and express yourself in a way and communicate in a way that is in line with that personality. Tip number eight, respond with curiosity. I mean, let's face it, when you are communicating with someone, especially if there is a high stake, right? You want to get them to agree with something or you have a proposal, you want an agreement to happen, then you really need to communicate effectively and people will have a filter. When you're talking to them, they have a filter to see their perspective of the world through their own lens and their past experiences, right? And so they will have objections to what you have to say, right? They will have objections based on what they think they know and the perspectives they had in the history of their experiences. And so in order to overcome that, most people, the biggest mistake they make in overcoming that is they try harder, right? They try to be more convincing or persuading and that is adversarial because when you try harder, what they do is they defend more, they defend their stance more and that creates adversary. And so to get around that is to respond with curiosity because when you respond with curiosity, what ends up happening is they are not on the defense. It breaks down barriers in objections. It allows them to come out and to answer your questions from curiosity rather than being on the defense and being resentful to you from trying harder. And so genuine curiosity is what I'm talking about here. And when you couple that with caring and concern, it really opens doors for exploring what is possible and that's where you can come in with your ideas, come in with your communication with all the other tips that I've given you and to really communicate your idea effectively, right? And so genuine curiosity is the key to influence rather than trying harder to overcome those objections that will necessarily happen because we all come at this conversation with a different lens. So if you want to learn more about exactly how to implement genuine curiosity, then I invite you to go to my other YouTube video. I created a video called the tips on how to, okay, hold on. I forgot what the name of the YouTube video was. Can you just cut there? How to do a rejection. Okay. Okay. Ready? So if you want to find out exactly how to implement curiosity in this situation that I invite you to listen and to watch my other YouTube video. I have a YouTube video that I created called how to handle rejection from higher ups in the workplace. So just click anywhere here, anywhere around the video here to that YouTube video where I talk more about how to implement genuine curiosity in rejecting rejection and handling rejections from higher ups. And you can implement that in your communication in order to be more effective. So I know that I have talked about a lot in this video. So I want to summarize for you the eight tips. So what are my eight tips on communicating effectively in the workplace? The first tip was to learn the shared language, right? The second tip is to create and build and enrich connection. Remember there were three ingredients in connection and that was vulnerability, authenticity and trust, right? And the third tip is to listen better and I gave you three ways on how you can listen better. That was to embrace the silence, to be present and to hold that responsibility, right? To take the time to clarify, right? And so the fourth tip is to hold the responsibility for communicating because you as the initiator is the one with the responsibility, not the listener, right? The fifth tip to communicating effectively is to focus on outcomes, right? Because remember, effective action is the outcome is a symptom of communication and you want to take effective action because you want to produce an outcome that your company will desire or the workplace will desire. So that's the fifth tip. The sixth tip is to be as direct and to the point as possible because vagueness is very common in the workplace. The seventh tip is to personalize it and that's more than just the way you express yourself. It's really to know the personality of the people or the person you are talking with. And the eighth tip and the final tip, it is to respond with curiosity because anything otherwise is just adversarial, but curiosity, genuine curiosity when it's coupled with caring and concern, that is truly influential, right? So comment below what is your favorite tip out of all of that and which one of the eight tips for communicating are you going to implement today?