Tag Archives | communication
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7 Types Of Effective Communication And Why You Need To Know Them

By on February 1, 2012 in Personal Growth, Success, Tools, Wisdom

It’s not enough to know  whom you are talking to, communicate, influence, and in the case of our children perhaps teach. If you want to be effective in your communication, you need to understand the best way to reach them. This has been proven time and time again.

This is the key to success, better relationships, and higher productivity at work. In fact, this strategy has been shown to lower stress by minimizing conflict and encourage camaraderie and teamwork, whether personal or professional.


Roosevelt and Churchill in conversation (Zorba the Geek) / CC BY-SA 2.0

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a customer, client, child, spouse, co-worker, or members of a board or committee. You must connect in the manner that resonates with them. It sounds difficult, but it really isn’t once you start practicing it.

Types of communication:

Informing – Some people just want the facts laid out for them. They pay attention to facts and figures, studies and other concrete data.

Analyzing – These people don’t want specific facts, but rather a summary. You need to offer an analysis and boil down the information or request in a meaningful matter.

Persuasive – This type of person wants to know what’s in it for them. Why should they agree to act in a certain way or perform a specific action? They must be convinced. Present your argument.

Mediating – Compromise, compromise. With these people, you have to be willing to give a little. They need to feel heard and respected. Find the common ground and find the solution that satisfies you both.

Emotional – This kind of communication is all about feelings. Knowing what is important and what touches these people is the key. Appeal to their emotions and connect on a compassionate and understanding level.

Entertaining – Wit, humor and levity influences these people. Serious facts are useless, be interesting and lighthearted when possible.

Inspiring – Offer motivation, inspiration, and big picture results. These people need to feel as though they are making a difference, some kind of impact.

The way to practice communication that is more effective requires that you improve your observation and listening skills. Pay attention to the people around you and be more interested in general. We could all use a little more of that.

What type of communicator are you? It helps to understand that too.

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Infographic on how Social Media are being used...

Are We Missing the Point of Social Media?

By on November 10, 2011 in Productivity, Success
Infographic on how Social Media are being used...

Image via Wikipedia

Social media. It’s the buzz word, the wave of the future, the way business is done in the 21st century…

But if you’re missing the point of the whole social media game…then it’s just the biggest time waster in history!

What you may be doing wrong

It’s not about the numbers – Let’s be clear on this point. It’s great to have millions of Twitter followers and Facebook fans, but this fanatic obsession we have with accumulating followers is insane. It gets us NOWHERE. There is no value in a multitude of fans if they don’t really care about what you have to say. It’s about conversations, relationships and engagement, not masses.

It’s not a marketing plan – Social media participation and information sharing can and should be (in my opinion, I won’t say humble) a valuable channel for marketing efforts. But it can’t be the whole enchilada. If you think you can just post some tweets, get some buzz going and business will magically appear, you are mistaken. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Marketing needs to be a multi-pronged approach. Depending on your business or service you may need print, radio or TV advertising, possibly interne ads or to attend business shows, speaking engagements or workshops and you most definitely need a website.

Stop doing all the talking – Social media is only valuable when it’s a two-way cycle. You share information, others comment, you take in information and offer contribution to others. Information and conversation; in and out. Listening is just as valuable as talking.

Results are not necessarily in direct proportion to efforts – The more time you spend on social media, the better results you get, right? WRONG. At a certain point, the extra time you spend on social media communication is just wasted time that you could be using for other things, say creating, selling or connecting in person. Determine ahead of time how much time is reasonable for this portion of your marketing effort, schedule it in your day and stick to it.

It doesn’t happen overnight – Don’t try to follow 10,000 people right away. You’ll just come across as a spammer. Be discerning, build your “network” gradually and consistently. Be selective, be targeted, be clear on what your objectives are.

One last tidbit, social media should be enjoyable and interesting. If you’re not having fun and learning new and interesting things and meeting fabulous new people…then you’re doing it all wrong.

Question everything, move forward, enjoy the journey.

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Stop Complaining So Much!

By on June 22, 2011 in Happiness, Personal Growth

Learn to accept in silence the minor aggravations, cultivate the gift of taciturnity, and consume your own smoke with an extra draft of hard work, so that those about you may not be annoyed with the dust and soot of your complaints.  ~William Osler

To complain according to dictionary.com means to express dissatisfaction, pain, uneasiness, censure, resentment, or grief; find fault: He complained constantly about the noise in the corridor.

In my experience, real-life occurrences of complaining are more about whining, moaning and *itching about something or someone that has upset or ticked us off, but which we really have no intention of doing anything about. So why bother?

Just for today, commit to cease complaining. You may be surprised if you pay attention, by how often we complain to others or in our heads. Notice how much calmer and happier you are. Now use all of that energy you saved to move forward and do something positive in your life.

If you are interested in learning more, read Complaint Free World by Will Bowen.

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Ramping up Facebook – Have You Looked Lately?

By on June 13, 2011 in Personal Growth, Success

Do you have ideas, projects or tools that you really know you could be pursuing, but can’t seem to squeeze out the time?

Absolutely! We all do.  Our Facebook page is one of mine. I love it, want to spend more time there, grow it, make it a valuable resource for information and discussion, but have only managed a half-hearted, somewhat inconsistent effort. I have not made it a prioritized focus until now.

I will be playing with options and scheduling over the coming weeks, but for now you will be able to find:

  • Daily inspiration
  • Daily tips for living your most productive, fulfilling, successful and joyous life
  • Weekly questions, polls and discussions to help us all share, discuss and grow; personally, professionally – hopefully both
  • Frequently I will be adding music, photos, videos and links to motivate, inform, entertain, inspire and expand

Thanks to all those who already “Like” our Facebook page. If you haven’t already, please come take a look and join in the discussion!

Now it’s your turn!

What have you toyed with, pushed aside or put on hold that you’d really like to explore? Choose one thing that you want to bring to the forefront and give it a nudge.

  • Choose your project – work, home, community, whatever
  • Decide what you’d like to accomplish with it – What will the outcome be or what will it give you
  • Make a plan – at least a loose outline of action steps
  • Revise as necessary – ask for feedback and shift directions accordingly

Please share with us. What project you’re choosing to dust off? Better yet, stop over to our Facebook page and tell us all!

 

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Have You Tried Scheduled Replies

By on June 6, 2011 in Productivity

Action challenge – Try checking email less often.

If you find your productive periods of work ever shrinking because of email, phone, and other interruptions, it’s time to adopt a policy of scheduled replies. Some productivity masters recommend that you check email, VM, etc. only once or twice per day and batch your responses. You will find that often, many questions have already been answered and your participation really wasn’t required!

In an effort to practice what I preach, I am striving for twice per day. I have IM and text messaging for urgent matters, so I really am still reachable. Unfortunately, I find myself addicted to that Send/Receive button and suffer from the “disease of curiosity” whenever I get a voicemail, so I haven’t mastered this strategy yet. Still a work in progress….this week I am attempting to check only once per hour so that I can focus on my current task at hand.  One suggestion if you decide to adopt this routine, is to set up a VM or email auto-reply letting people know your new policy for responding to messages.

You decide what works for you! Let me know how it goes…

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Do You Consider Yourself an Optimist?

By on April 22, 2011 in Personal Growth

Something to think about…

The Creed for Optimists

  • Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
  • Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.
  • Make all your friends feel there is something in them.
  • Look at the sunny side of everything.
  • Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best.
  • Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
  • Learn from the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
  • Give everyone a smile.
  • Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others.
  • Be too big for worry and too noble for anger.

Prefer an online version?

Optimist International recently introduced desktop designs featuring tenets of the Optimist Creed. The complimentary designs are available for download from the Optimist.org.

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email

Productive Email Strategies: Part 2 – “One-Way” Communications

By on April 13, 2011 in Success

emailI realize that for many, the issue of inbox overwhelm is very much about “one way communications.” Newsletters, sales and marketing, jokes, videos to watch, feeds, updates on varied interests and projects can make up a large portion of email piling up in your email daily.

While these communications may often be necessary, sometimes even desired, they can all just get to be too much. They can completely take-over your inbox and completely overwhelm even the most organized and efficient among us.

There are some simple steps we can take to combat this insidious dribble of incoming information. Simple yes; easy no. We humans are wired to seek information. We want to stay informed, in the loop, knowledgeable. We hate not knowing everything that’s going on around us. We might even go so far as to say that our insatiable curiosity has turned into an information addiction. Though many of us are still in denial about that…

What you can try to trim the incoming flood:

  • Chill with the newsletters. Really. Only subscribe if the information is truly valuable to you in some way. If you find yourself skimming or deleting without even reading, it’s time to unsubscribe.
  • Use an RSS reader. Instead of signing up for daily or weekly emails, subscribe to the sites RSS feed and use Google Reader or something similar to store and manage your information. Get it out of your inbox!
  • Be very selective when sending jokes, chain emails, video links, photos and that sort of thing. For the most part that kind of stuff is more appropriate to post on Facebook usually. Everyone loves a cute pet or a good laugh; once in a while is fine, but not on a regular basis.
  • Opt out of those sales alerts. If you need to buy something you can search the internet for sales or discounts. If you don’t need it then you shouldn’t be wasting time getting alerts about it. It is a waste of your valuable time and inbox space and will probably save you money too!
  • Likewise, opt out of those marketing emails. Nearly every time you sign up on some website and give out your email you are going to be placed on a mailing list. Unless you are waiting for some specific information from the website uncheck that box during the sign-up process. If there wasn’t an option or you missed it, opt out or unsubscribe as soon as the marketing emails start showing up.
  • Get it in digest format if possible. Instead of getting a notification every time someone posts on your LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook profile of conversation, opt for a daily digest. Another option is to use and inbox filter to divert them to a separate folder, get text alerts or turn off the notifications totally. You can always log in daily to look.

There are so many strategies we can employ to weed out and trim down our email volume. With a little diligence we can move closer to an efficient, streamlined inbox that is a useful tool to share valuable information. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be for anyway?

If you missed Productive Email Strategies: Part 1 – Effective Communication, I highly recommend you go back and read it. The most effective approach to a manageable inbox is streamlining what goes out as well as what comes in.

 

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email

Productive Email Strategies: Part 1 – Effective Communication

By on April 11, 2011 in Success

emailMost business professionals I know acknowledge that email is the biggest obstacle to overcome in their daily routine. A necessary and oft times indispensable tool; it can also be a huge detour that easily leads you off the path in your quest for productivity.

In thinking about how to minimize this stumbling block, (we really can’t remove it, but we can “manage” it) I realized that much of our email volume is made up of repeat requests, follow-up emails and “reply-all” updates. I came up with a few simple strategies that help me (when I actually use them) and might help you too.

Email communication strategies:

  • Be concise.
  • Communicate “action steps” first, not last.
  • Number your questions if you must have more than one.
  • Be clear about what you want.
  • Include deadlines.
  • Use “FYI” for emails that have no actionable information.
  • Don’t send “Thanks!” emails.
  • If you can’t respond or carry out the request fully now, acknowledge and tell them when you can do it.
  • Use “reply all” judiciously.

You may not always be able to achieve the elusive “inbox 0,” but anything you can do to reduce unnecessary email will save you time and inbox clutter.

I realize that for many, the issue of inbox overwhelm is also about “one way communications.” Newsletters, sales and marketing, jokes, videos to watch, updates on varied interests and projects can make up a large portion of email piling up in your email daily. We’ll discuss some strategies for that in Part 2 – “One-Way Communication”…

 

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Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work

By on March 30, 2011 in Success

I just finished reading a thought-provoking new book, Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work: Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles of RESPECT by Paul L. Marciano, Ph. D. If you are a small business owner, company executive, manager or anyone who leads employees this is a must read.

I am always intrigued when someone raises their hand and suggests that we take a hard look at the status quo and urges us to try a different approach. That is exactly what Paul Marciano does in this book.

Most successful businesses realize that employees are their most valuable asset, but they fall short of knowing how to maximize that potential. Research shows that rewards and recognition programs do not work. Dr. Marciano asserts that they have short-term results and only work under positive conditions.

Going a step further, he explains that there is a difference between engagement and motivation. What we truly want is to have employees who are engaged. He goes on to describe how the fundamental principles of respect and trust are paramount to building relationships with our employees and creating a culture of engagement and team mentality in our organizations.

“Engaged employees will hang in there during adverse conditions because they are a part of the team.”

What he says does work effectively is the RESPECT model, based on seven key drivers of employee engagement that are proven and supported by decades of research and practice:

  1. Recognition and acknowledgment of employees’ contributions
  2. Empowerment via tools, resources, and information that set employees up to succeed
  3. Supportive feedback through ongoing performance coaching and mentoring
  4. Partnering to encourage and foster collaborative working relationships
  5. Expectations that set clear, challenging, and attainable performance goals
  6. Consideration that lets employees know that they are cared about
  7. Trust in your employees’ abilities, skills, and judgment

He addresses each of these drivers in turn with explanations, stories, quizzes and suggestions for implementation. He writes in a clear and easy to follow manner with a conversational tone. Anyone who manages or leads employees will benefit from reading this book and applying these principles to your business. Happy reading!

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plan

Are You Interested in Guest Posting?

By on March 7, 2011 in Success

I am occasionally asked about guest posting. For the writer it is a wonderful way to build your reputation, cross promote and share information. From my perspective it allows my readers access to different points of view and keeps things interesting. A win-win situation for all.

If you are interested in guest posting please submit your post via the contact form on this website.

Also please adhere to the following Guest Post Guidelines:

- Post content must be high-quality, relevant and useful to site readers.

- Post length should be approximately 300 – 1000 words.

- Post must be original and never been published before on the Internet.

- Any photos must be credited with an appropriate source, and must be legal to use.

- Links appearing in the body of your post must be valid, modest, and relevant and not affiliate links.

- Include a short byline or bio (50 words or less) at the end of your post. Feel free to include a link to your site.

- You are encouraged to promote and share your guest post, link to your guest post on your blog or on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Stumbleupon, FriendFeed, etc.

- I reserve the right to edit or reject the post if necessary for brevity, grammar or readability. Not all guest posts submitted will be published, but I do try and publish as many as possible.

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