If you are in business, then you must appreciate the importance of good communication in your company. Interviews by people who have excelled in business such as Steve Jobs (Entrepreneur and co founder of Apple) reveal that they mastered the communication skills and made sure that they were in constant communication with partners and employees. If you are in business, you need to polish your communication skills if you want the company to grow.
Tips on improving business communication
*Have open channels of communications: When coming up with business strategy, you should ensure you have put in open communication. If you have employees, you should set up a channel where they can openly communicate about issues that are affecting them. You should deliberately create an environment where you can have face to face or phone conversations so that you can understand issues that are affecting them.
- Communicate with integrity: Simply put, when doing business communication, you should be a person of your word. You should practise what you say, and when you make a promise, make sure that you follow through with it. In business, the worst communicators are those who do not follow through what they say.
- Remember relevance and context: before you say or write anything, ask yourself why your audience should care. Why is it relevant to them? And what do you expect them to do with the information? Do not communicate just for the sake of it. The information that you churn out should be something that is important and one that can generate feedback from the recipient.
- Think about the channel: When it comes to business and professional communication, the channel you use is very important. For instance, if you have serious information to convey, like change in management and that kind of information, it would not make sense for you to use social media to communicate. You should instead use email or have a staff meeting.
- Appreciate feedback: When you get feedback for your communication, you should take it in good faith. Do not hold grudges when you feel like the feedback you are getting goes against your beliefs. You should always assure the people you work with that they will not be penalised for giving feedback.
What to avoid in business communication
- Dominating the talk: Even if you are the boss, you should give everyone an opportunity to talk. Do not dominate the conversation too much as this will make other people feel like you are selfish.
- Intimidating language: As much as you may want to convey a stern message, you should watch your language so that you do not come off as intimidating. Your tone should also be professional. Avoid yelling or sneering at all costs.
- Gossip: Resist the urge to mention other people when communicating, unless it is for professional reasons. When your messages are full of gossip, you are likely to come off as unprofessional and malicious, and you will lose respect.
- Winding on: Business communication should be brief and to the point. There are bosses and employees who believe that giving too much information makes them look honest and open. The reverse could be true. Winding on will lead to information overload and some people who may drift off when the conversation becomes too long.
