End note from Author of "Simply Said" - Reflection Shorts - "Win that Communication"
It's a wrap!
This is the final episode of “Win that Communication” reflection shorts series 🎉 and I couldn’t be more excited to feature , the author of the famous book, Simply Said: Communicating Better at Work and Beyond as a guest. He’s generously agreed to share an exclusive endnote on this series, just for you! 🙏
Without further ado, I’ll pass the mic 🎤 to Jay. 👏
For the last few months,
has been posting key elements regarding being an effective communicator.He’s approached it from the perspective of writing, speaking, leading, and managing. Hopefully, you’ve had a chance to implement many of those ideas in your daily interactions.
How do you hang on to that growth and not slip back into bad habits?
Focus on one skill at a time. 🎯
If you practice one approach for two months, it will become your new habit. Then you can move onto the next skill.
If you are working on your speaking skills, prioritize maintaining eye focus with one person at a time for a full thought. Deliver one sentence to one pair of eyes and the next sentence to the next person.
If you master that skill, many of the other delivery skills will fall into place.
Slowly master effective communication across the full range. 🔑
Unlike engineering, where there are clear correct answers, effective communication skills can’t be measured on a “right” and “wrong” dichotomy.
Think instead of a “spectrum of effectiveness,” with less effective on one end of the scale and more effective on the other.
The impact we have as communicators is not based on the single instance of a behavior or a single behavior trait. ❌
It’s based on the cumulative effect of different behaviors - a combination of our delivery skills, overall sense of presence, the clarity of our message, the structure of how we share our details, and the specific language we use to describe our main points. ✅
For instance, perhaps you’re like a lot of people and use a lot of filler sounds, like “um” or “ah”. If you say “um” two or three times in a meeting, who cares? It’s irrelevant. No one even notices. 🤷♂️
But if you say “um” in between every sentence, it becomes a distraction. You sound like you came into the meeting unprepared, and you start to slide down the scale of effectiveness.📉
Go back through Gourav’s posts and select one trait regarding oral communication skills and one skill applicable to your writing.
Focus on those skills until you own them, and move on to the next.
It’s all about incremental growth. 🚀
It’s Gourav again.
Thank you, Jay, for sharing this path of incremental growth—mastering one skill at a time and transforming into an exceptional communicator. That’s it for today. If you are wondering “What’s a Reflection Short?” Read here. 📖
Jay writes about communication skills and leadership every other week for Forbes.com. He posts those columns on his LinkedIn page. If you’d like to receive them, please feel free to connect with him.
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👋 Hey there, I am Gourav. I write about Engineering, Productivity, Thought Leadership, and the Mysteries of the mind!
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