Communication is the medium by which people will share their ideas, information, concepts, opinions or feelings. Effective communication skills in the workplace are the foundation of any business. Without it, you could miss out on business with potential clients, waste time, you may lose business with existing clients and employees could be confused and unsure of their role.

Did you know that communication is more than words? In fact, words accounts for just 7% of the communication, 38% is related to voice tonality and the remaining 55% is communicated through physiology such as body language and positioning. To be an effective communicator in the workplace you need to use/apply:

1. Sensory Acuity

Sensory acuity is all about noticing the minute changes that are occurring in the other person when communicating. These minutes changes can provide you with a clue as to whether your communication is effective or not. These changes include:

  • Skin colour which is the shift from light to dark or vice versa
  • Skin tonas which means the tone of the muscles or the tension of the muscles underneath the face
  • Breathing whether breathing high in the chest, in the middle or more in the stomach or diaphragm. The rate of the breathing is important too such as whether slow or fast
  • Lower lip size changes from moment to moment and can be gorged with blood (fewer lines) or when there are more lines there is less blood
  • Eyes can either be focused or defocused and can change from dilated or undilated

2. Behavioural flexibility

Behavioural flexibility is the ability to be able to change your behaviour if you are not achieving the intended outcome. If you are communicating with a colleague and if they look puzzled, then for some reason your workplace communication is not being understood. So what should be done? Well, you need to work on improving communication skills and change your behaviour so your colleague can comprehend the message.

3. Rapport

Rapport  is the process of building a relationship based on trust, harmony and understanding. It is all about meeting the other person in their model or interpretation of the world.  When there is rapport, anything is possible, people are more likely to want to be with you, be like you and do business with you. Rapport is created and maintained by matching and mirroring posture; voice tonality; facial expressions; keywords and common experiences. Matching and mirroring must be subtle and not obvious to the other person. If matching and mirroring is obvious then you have broken rapport and the other person may feel you are mimicking them and any trust created may be lost.

4. Medium

The content and importance of the message will determine the medium you need to use in corporate communications.  If you use emails then only 7% of the communication is being provided to the other person; with telephone only 45% (7% words and 38% voice tonality) and face to face then communication is occurring by all three of words, voice tonality and physiology. Decide on how much information must be exchanged and its importance to the intended recipients.

It is important to realise that your employees or colleagues may not have communication skills training or effective communication strategies specific to the workplace. With appropriate training and learning and applying the appropriate listening skills and techniques, effective communication in the workplace is achievable.

Training Benefits for Effective Communication in the Workplace 
  • Creating and maintaining rapport with colleagues, clients or potential clients so there is better communication and increased sales
  • Enabling employees to communicate more effectively means they will feel more confident and improve morale
  • Employees and staff will learn how to resolve conflicts before they are a problem and handle difficult situations
  • Improved communication between employees and within work teams will enable the business to provide excellent customer service

You now understand the benefits of training for effective communication in the workplace, then the Master Communicator for Business Workshop is for you and your employees, colleagues or friends (or even for your life, personally)

 In this workshop you will discover:

  • The NLP Model of Communication and how to use it for your own success
  • How your internal representations (pictures, sounds, feelings) determines the results that will produce your behaviour and ultimately your results
  • How to use sensory acuity to notice how effective is your communication
  • How to create and maintain rapport through matching and mirroring
  • Understand what is the primary representational system and how to use predicates to maintain rapport
  • How to use resource anchors for communication excellence
  • Placing goals and outcomes into your future time line so that your goals are actually achieved

Get a customised workshop for your organisation, department or work team by contacting Darren on 0448 0447 86 or by email darren@forwardperformance.com.au