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Posts Tagged ‘Effective’

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The ability to communicate effectively – to transmit understanding and motivation from one person to another – is vitally important to program and functional managers and to others. In the present socio-politico-industrial economy, old management attitudes and communication techniques are no longer adequate. Modern managers are challenged to find new ways to meet today’s conditions. A new kind of manager must evolve who can work with a group and consider himself, or… More >>

Skill in Communication: A Vital Element in Effective Management

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Time is a precious resource, both irreplaceable and irreversible, yet we often fill our days with time-wasting activities and leave ourselves without enough time for our real priorities. As an effective manager, you need to possess strong time management skills in order to ensure that both you and your team are working as efficiently and effectively as possible and making the most of every hour of the working day. By first encouraging you to analyze where, how and w… More >>

Effective Time Management : How to Save Time and Spend It Wisely

The single biggest barrier to effective communication in a change management situation is quite simply the disconnection between the change leader and those who are or will be impacted by the change.

Failure reasons in change management are many and varied and well documented. Staggeringly any organisational initiative that creates change – or has a significant change element to it – has a 70% chance of not achieving what was originally envisaged.

Any major business initiative or venture where the business leaders fail to identify and quantify the impact on those people most affected by the change carries a high risk of failure.

The underlying root cause of this catastrophic statistic is the failure by change leaders to take full account of the impact of the change on those people who are going to be most impacted by it. And yet…. the price of failure comes so high!

So, to any business leaders reading this, I ask you:

“The numbers may make sense, the business case is sound, the ’synergies’ may look sweet, but have you assessed the human, political and cultural factors? Have you taken into account the human impact? Have you made the connection between the human impact and your bottom line?”

There are several reasons why this is often not addressed: first and foremost because the focus is on the business logic; secondly because corporate cultures are hard to see, and finally because this aspect of change is seen as “soft”, intangible and unquantifiable and by implication not really worthy of detailed scrutiny.

Just as an illustration of this point in the context of M&A, a study of 40 British companies [Cartright and Cooper 1995] reported that all 40 conducted a detailed financial and legal audit of the company they intended to acquire, but that not even one of these same companies made any attempt to carry out an audit of the company’s human resources and culture to assess the challenges concerning integration of the organization they were acquiring.

Yet, I find all of this strange given the colossal financial cost and shareholder value destruction that is the direct result of this failure.

5 proven barriers to effective workplace communication in change management

So, if you really want to get it wrong – here’s what to do in 5 simple steps:

(1) Lack of clarity of message – don’t tell them what lies behind the change and don’t sell the problem before you try to sell the solution. Use jargon, plenty of it and take a long time telling them. Oh and to really make this one stick, don’t tell them how it’s going to be different after the change – just keep telling them how its all about the values, mission and vision.

(2) Absence of emotional resonance in your message – the emotional tone and delivery of your message should clearly indicate that you as senior management haven’t given a second thought to the real impact this is going to have on them. Don’t tell what they’re going to lose or have to let go of. And to reinforce that point make very clear by your tone that you don’t care and that that dimension never crossed your mind.

(3) In-accurate targeting – make sure you don’t reach the right people with the right message at the right time. Most importantly, never address the “what’s in it for me” question, and totally disregard the psychological and emotional transitions they will have to go through in adjusting to your change.

(4) Timing schedule – why waste valuable senior management time keeping your people fully in the picture? Keep them in the dark and keep them guessing.

(5) Feedback process – two-way communication is something you can pay lip service to. Sure go through the motions, but rest easy in the comfortable complacency of your senior management certainty that knows best ["that's what we're paid for isn't it?"]

If you follow these steps you will be in good company as you almost certainly join the illustrious 70% club.

Excuse the lateral thinking for a moment – but can you imagine civil engineers or construction companies or the people who build nuclear power stations – working on the same basis – where a 70% failure rate was accepted? Can you?

So why on earth should the world of business be any different? Why does this bother me? Quite simply, it bothers me because of the very considerable, unnecessary, and totally avoidable human cost.

For more on this: ” Barriers to effective communication “

I invite you to take advantage of my 7 FREE “How to Do It” downloads that will take you through all of the key stages of ” How to manage change ” – and show you how to manage successfully.

www.PresentationStoryboarding.com provides training in presentation skills. Sell More Stuff With Storytelling.

Effective communication skills training can make all the difference to your career. Below are a few tips on communicating effectively in situations where negotiation is key.

Experienced vs. inexperienced negotiators

Inexperienced negotiators often miss out by wanting to close too early or get what they want without really co-opting the other side. If you take this approach, you may miss out by playing too tough or too keen. Here are some options that you can try instead:

Pretend to throw yourself on the other side’s mercy; it’s amazing what you can get simply by saying, ‘help me out here, I’d really like to work with you but I’m in a difficult position being squeezed by my boss/sub-contractors/ channel partners/etc so what can you do to…’

Use ‘we’ a lot; if you want the other side to open up, paint a future in which it’s already happening. Use ‘imagine’ to open up the doors and work backwards from there.

Test the waters by using ‘how about… and following up with ‘what do you think?’ that shows you’re just floating an idea to see if they are interested. It doesn’t mean that you are wholly committed to it either. But you will get the other side to state where they are.

Tough negotiations

When you are taking part in a tough negotiation where the stakes are high there are 4 golden rules:

Go with a negotiating partner. You can’t pick up on all the clues, run the negotiation, remember all your points and stay on track without help. Take someone else with you.

Take plenty of breaks. You can’t focus for more than 30 mins if you are really listening hard. Plus you need to confer with your partner other than with eye-meets (too telling) or kicks under the table! If you set the ground-rules up front, no-one will be surprised by your need for breaks.

Summarize frequently. That way you show you are listening, that you have achieved movement together.

Leave the toughest thing until well beyond the half-way point. Then you’ll be able to talk about what you have agreed, the positive steps you have made and the progress you’re looking forward to. If you tackle the toughest thing first, you may hit stalemate and you then have no basis from which to move forward.

Negotiation no-nos

When you are negotiating here are some things that you need to avoid doing at all cost.

Don’t write any numbers or terms down. If you do, you are signaling acceptance to the other side and you don’t want to do this without getting something first.

Don’t say ‘this is a good/fair offer.‘ That kind of comment is calculated to annoy. Good and fair for who? Probably for you not them.

Don’t say ‘this is my final offer’. It never is and it may act as a red rag to a bull if you do say it. There is no such thing as a final offer: there’s always more to talk about, you’ll always trade price for volume, so don’t say anything amateur and close the door on yourself.

Effective Communication Training & Presentation Skills Training www.bmconsultantsindia.com

It’s Not Just for Tires

If you’re like most of us, you’re probably wondering what business communication has to do with alignment. It’s possible that the only time you ever thought about alignment was when you needed to get your tires aligned. While that’s not the “alignment” we’re discussing here, it does operate on the same theory. In order for your car to perform at its best, it’s essential that your tires are aligned–that they’re all moving in the same direction. The same is true for any business relationship; they’ll be at their best when both people are aligned and moving in the same direction toward a desired result.

What we’re talking about here is not about improving your communication skills or just learning new listening techniques. Effective business communication, or any interaction where people need to work together to create the best outcome, begins with alignment.

Think about it this way: in life, we go about our business, heading in our own directions while trying to achieve our own results. At the same time, we are all inter-connected with each other. As we try to achieve the results we want, our interconnections put limits on how far we can go in our own direction. Now, when we have alignment about what we want, and we start sharing the same vision, it makes it much easier to get the desired outcome. Alignment opens the way for greater success and mutual satisfaction.

Aligning Within

Before you can create alignment with someone else, you need to identify, and be able to express, what’s most important to you about the outcome you want. To do this, you’ll need to identify the underlying values hidden within your desired outcome. Perhaps you want everyone in the office to show up 10 minutes before a meeting starts. When you dig down to find the hidden value, you might discover that consideration is very important to you, or you might highly value effectiveness. Just remember, within every desired outcome there are values that motivate you to want it in the first place.

Alignment Conversation – Moving in the Same Direction

Once you identify your own underlying values, it’s time to discover the values that you share within a partnership or group. You start this discovery process by expressing the values you’ve identified as important to you in your work environment. Then you ask if those things are also important to the other person, or people, and if they would be willing to explore ways to create that kind of experience. This is the process of aligning your values–creating a shared vision. This shared vision might sound something like: having a more harmonious relationship or being more effective or increasing productivity. Once you define your shared vision, you’re ready to effectively negotiate strategies to achieve your desired results.

Points to Keep in Mind during Conversation:

As you start the alignment conversation, it’s important to remember to keep it as strategy-free as possible. During this beginning stage, we suggest that you make an agreement with the other person not to try and figure out how to get the specifics of what you want. Once you’ve agreed upon your shared vision, there will be plenty of time to move on to the specifics of how to reach your goals. It’s also wise if you and the other person, or group, agree to avoid spending time talking about the failures of the past. (Bringing up the past can be useful, but only if it is done to understand values that may have been missing back then, not to assign fault or to justify your skepticism.)

Also Include:

A willingness to negotiate strategies that are mutually agreeable
A commitment to let go of judgments and/or criticisms
An agreement to celebrate all wins that come from this conversation

Once you are sharing the same vision, you’re now working toward the same end result — the big picture of what you all want. This will make it easier to create situations that produce results that everyone will enjoy.

When everyone is making agreements from a shared vision, you’ll start rolling along down the road to cooperation and teamwork with far fewer bumps than you encountered before–cooperation and teamwork that will increase productivity and will create rewarding results for everyone involved.

Communication is the key that unlocks the potential of all people undertaking businesses. Two can never walk together unless they agree. Communication is the sure way of keeping in touch in the business world.

At the work place, bosses can give instruction to their juniors even when they are out of the office. But it is important to know how to clearly communicate to your juniors to ensure duties are performed effectively.

Lack of clear protocol at times leads to mismanagement. Sometime junior staffs fail to understand their tasks due to lack of clear guidelines of how to perform their duties. Big companies have a way of assembling their workers to brief them over daily or weekly duties to be undertaken. Failures to offer good leadership through communication, businesses tend to bend on either side of making profits or losing. All this can be blamed to lack of clear communication skills.

Some juniors especially, lack motivation to perform their duties because of being mishandled by their equal colleagues as they take up their respective responsibilities.

Business people should make every effort to embrace sound communication skills in their business. For example, advertise your products or services through affordable means like using small brochures, radios and banners. Talk constantly about the products you are offering, keep advertising over and over again until when people think of any product close to what you are offering, they will run to you. Efficient marketing strategy calls for an entrepreneur to relay relevant information clearly to the target audience.

All in all, communicating to your staffs, suppliers and customers will ensure a smooth flow of business operations. Successful businesses worldwide have embraced effective communication skills that have ensured that they stay afloat in the current competitive market.

Nonverbal communication has been defined as communication without words. It includes apparent behaviors such as facial expressions, eyes, touching, and tone of voice, as well as less obvious messages such as dress, posture and spatial distance between two or more people.

Some major areas of nonverbal behaviors to explore are:

Eye contact Facial expressions Gestures Posture and body orientation Proximity Paralinguistics Humor

Eye contact:

Eye contact, an important channel of interpersonal communication, helps regulate the flow of communication. And it signals interest in others. Furthermore, eye contact with audiences increases the speaker’s credibility. Teachers who make eye contact open the flow of communication and convey interest, concern, warmth and credibility.

Facial expressions:

Smiling is a powerful cue that transmits:

Happiness Friendliness Warmth Liking Affiliation

Gestures:

If you fail to gesture while speaking, you may be perceived as boring, stiff and unanimated. A lively and animated teaching style captures students’ attention, makes the material more interesting, facilitates learning and provides a bit of entertainment.

Posture and body orientation:

You communicate numerous messages by the way you walk, talk, stand and sit. Standing erect, but not rigid, and leaning slightly forward communicates to students that you are approachable, receptive and friendly.

Proximity:

You should look for signals of discomfort caused by invading  space. Some of these are:

Rocking Leg swinging Tapping Gaze aversion

Paralinguistics:

This facet of nonverbal communication includes such vocal elements as:

Tone Pitch Rhythm Timbre Loudness Inflection

Humor:

Humor is often overlooked as a tool, and it is too often not encouraged . Laughter releases stress and tension. Obviously, adequate knowledge of the subject matter is crucial to your success; however, it’s not the only crucial element. Creating a climate that facilitates learning and retention demands good nonverbal and verbal skills. To improve your nonverbal skills, record your speaking on video tape. Then ask a colleague in communications to suggest refinements. 

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