Sunday, August 8, 2010

Hit the communication Bulls-eye

Most top managers around the world tend to overestimate the strength of their communication skills. They often think that since they communicate at work, and since they are successful at their jobs, they must be good communicators.

However, more often than not they are wrong. They are rising through the ranks for various reasons, but they’d go even further in their careers if they worked on their communication a bit. What are they doing wrong? All too often they are talking to other people as if they were talking to themselves.

What they need to remember is just as different people have different personalities, different people have different communication styles, too. Expecting others to communicate the same way they do is as unrealistic as expecting everyone to have the same kind of personality they do. Managers stuck in that unrealistic mindset get less of their message across, and only hear a fraction of the messages being sent their way.

The key to improving communication with coworkers is to understand their different personality types. They don’t need to be psychologists to understand personality types. All that they need is some basic observational skills and the willingness to adjust communication techniques for different types of people.

First, it's important to understand the coworkers’ personality types, then find ways to tailor the style a bit for each one. More of things will get across to the people, and we could receive more of their messages, too. The more every team member understands about every other member, the better this approach will work. We could find the team far more effective when everyone is communicating well with each other.

- Mani.

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