Business Success Through Effective Communication

Communication Skills

Want to have a fighting chance in the business world?

Then you’d better be an effective communicator.

These 3 steps will enable you to operate as a truly effective communicator.

First - Know Your Outcome

Effective communicators know their outcome and state it positively.

Second - Know Where You Are In The Process

You need to know if you’re moving toward or away from your outcome.

Questioning and listening skills play an important part in this step of the communication process.

Third - Know Your Options

You need flexibility.

If it's not going the way you planned, you need to be ready to try something else.

So there it is - a model for Effective Communication.

Three Steps To Effective Communication

1. Know Your Outcome

If you don’t know where you’re going, that’s where you’ll end up.

Are you clear on the outcome of your communication?

What do you want to accomplish? When you go into a negotiation, a sales call or a client meeting, are you clear on your outcome?

Make sure you state your outcome in the positive.

We live in a culture that thrives on negative outcomes. We know what we don’t want and frame our outcomes accordingly.

What outcome do you want from your negotiation?

Do you want to avoid overpaying for the project?

The desire to avoid overpaying for the project is an example of an outcome stated in the negative.

Here’s how this outcome might sound when stated in the positive.

I will negotiate the best possible price for the project and I will stay within budget.

Work on creating outcomes that are clear, specific and positive.

2. Know Where You Are In The Process

Become aware of as much information as you can.

This is where measurement and testing can provide you with valuable clues.

You must have some measuring strategy in place.

How else will you determine if your communication or action is producing the desired outcome?

Here’s an idea for a simple measuring strategy.

Create your own checklist (kind of like a shopping-list for success) before you begin your communication or take an action.

3. Know Your Options

Be Flexible. If what you’re doing isn’t producing your desired outcome, you need to do something else.

Requisite Variety is a term born out of Neuro Linguistics Programming, NLP for short.

The theory of Requisite Variety states that the communicator that has access to the greatest number of communications options will usually control the communication.

Science uses the same assumption when it comes to experimentation.

Scientists know what they want an experiment to produce.

They measure their results and know whether or not it worked.

If the experiment works, great, if not, they utilise different options as the basis for their next attempt at success.

Come to think of it, that approach would be really helpful in your business networking, client meetings, sales calls, marketing, or in any number of your business activities.

Communication Success Tip - Know Your Outcome

All three steps of the Effective Communicator Model are important, but if you’re really clear on your outcomes and you state them in the positive, you’ll find yourself reaching those outcomes more easily and more often.