12/18/2019

Communication is Key to Success in Every Endeavor

By Skip Weisman

Communication is the cause of every success, every failure, and every frustration in business and in life.

Yet, we continue to take it for granted.

We expect communication to just happen and be effective.

Then, when things go awry, we wonder why?

Communication is the foundation of everything.

You cannot not communicate. Even when attempting to not communicate through silence you are still communicating something; mainly that you don’t want to engage in a conversation.

In most organizations communication comes down to three aspects:

• The technical aspect in respect to the devices that need to communicate electronically, be it the computers, tablets, smartphones, etc. that need to have messages easily flow from one to another;
• The process and flow of communication so that the people have the information they need when they need to have it to do their job most effectively and serve internal and external customers at the highest level; and
• Interpersonal communication, which is how people in the work environment (or family) engage and interact with each other.

Although the technical and flow of communication are challenges, business leaders continue to tell me that their biggest issues come from interpersonal communication between team members.

Often people blame personality differences or communication styles and grab for the assessment of the month like an MBTI or DISC profile to solve the issues.

That rarely works because who wants to invest time to figure out what quadrant of a double-axis chart someone falls in relation to me so I can adjust my communication style to meet theirs just to get something I need from them.

I do see general value in understanding someone’s communication and personality preferences. But, most of the time, in the heat of the moment, those don’t come into play, or can only come into play if people are already communicating with the fundamentals.

The fundamentals are The 7 Critical Communication Skills.

This new look at communication skills are the solution to all of your organization’s (and family’s) interpersonal communication challenges and will help you overcome The 7 Deadliest Communication Sins, which will be the topic of my program at the University of Innovative Distribution on March 11, 2020 and is based on my book, published in 2018 titled, Overcoming The 7 Deadliest Communication SINs: A New Standard for Workplace Communication.

The 7 Critical Communication Skills include communicating with:

1. Specificity
2. Promptness and Urgency
3. Directness and Candor
4. Respectful ReBUTtals
5. Appropriate Tone & Body Language
6. Desirable Behaviors
7. Focused Attention

There is good news and bad news regarding these communication skills.

The good news is that they will absolutely help you build new, positive and productive, habits of communicating.

Unfortunately, the bad news is that due to human nature and human psychology, we may never eliminate these communication challenges.  The best we can probably hope for is to build communication skills that will significantly reduce the frequency and impact of The 7 Deadliest Communication Sins.

To begin your journey to Overcoming The 7 Deadliest Workplace Communication SINs join me at University of Innovative Distribution program on March 11^th. 

And, if you also attend my morning session on, Mastering The 3 Levels of Communication Influence, you will have a foundation to transform your personal communication effectiveness and ability to exert positive influence across 21-different contexts.

For more on this topic visit www.7DeadliestCommunicationSins.com and join me at the UID program on Wednesday, March 11^th.