Being able to communicate effectively is key to be successful. Here
are tips that will help your verbal and written communication.
Tips to improve your speaking style
1. Make sure your speech is not wordy, chatty or unfocused. Get to the point.
2. Do not do a lot of hemming and hawing when you are speaking by making sounds like umm or ahhhh.
3.
Use the words of personal power, definitive words, words of
affirmation. Do not use words like kinda, sorta, maybe, coulda, shoulda,
woulda ...those are not the words of leadership. They are not the words
of personal power.
4. Stay away from you knows, like you
know this or you know that. The key to an effective overall
speaking style is to be precise in your language. Say what you
mean, mean what you say and say it very clearly. Slang words used
inappropriately can blow a whole speech for you.
5. Lead off every
talk you give with a powerful headline. This technique works
particularly well one on one or in small group speeches. When you
use this technique, spend the rest of your time delivering on your
headline and then sum it all up in the end.
Another
fundamental of effective communication is being adept at writing. It has
been said that people who are good thinkers are good writers. This is
certainly true in today's society. If your thinking is flabby then your
writing is flabby. Therefore, as you improve your understanding of how
to write effectively, you will sharpen your thinking skills. Your
thinking will become crisper, clearer and more compelling. Your writing
will become persuasive and in most organizations a good writer gets
promoted.
Tips for writing effectively
1. Make sure
that you state your key point, recommendations or conclusions early
in the document. Then support the finding or conclusion throughout
the rest of your document.
2. Also let the reader know
what you want him or her to do after reading the document early in
the document. This helps them read with an idea of how to use the
information.
3. Write short crisp sentences and paragraphs so
as to keep the document reader friendly. We have a rule at my
company that our paragraphs on a standard 8 ½ inch by 11inch sheet
of paper will not exceed eight lines. The reason is that we have
found that people tend to stop fully reading paragraphs that are
longer than that. They scan and may miss key points. The longer your
paragraph, the less likely people are going to read it.
4. Try to keep most documents to no more than one page--90% of most subjects can be communicated on one page.
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