Effective Communication: Be Clear and Concise
Think about the last time you listened to someone drag on and on with insignificant details and unnecessary tangents. You probably found yourself saying, “Alright, already, cut to the chase.” Think about that moment the next time you’re the speaker. It detracts from the message when the speaker provides unnecessary details or side commentary that seems to drone on and on. Effective speakers keep their message clear and concise, providing only necessary details to the message and enough detail that is relevant and necessary.
The audience is more likely to understand the key points to what you are saying if the speaker keeps it clear and concise. During the fourth grade activity, frustrated Sydney said to his teammate, “Why do you talk so much? Just tell me what I need to know.” Sydney, found a nice way to say “shut up,” but little did he know that he was onto something. I think many professionals would agree with Sydney, age twelve, that it is better to get right to the point. Many managers agree that if anything is worth saying at all, it can be summed up in one page or less. We should speak in the same way, focus on the important points.
Effective speakers focus on trimming the fat and keeping just the facts and the necessary details. Pithy conversation is effective and efficient. Communication is to a high performing team as oil is the lifeblood of a car. It keeps a team running smoothly and is critical for all components of the team. Effective communication is essential to a team’s success and one of the primary building blocks of high performance teams. Freddie, age thirteen, summed it up best by saying, “Communication is not just important for teams; it is important in all other parts of life: at home, with my brother, at recess. We are always communicating, whether we know it or not.” Indeed, Freddie was exactly right.
Every second of every day, we are communicating something verbally in the actual words, in our tones, in our silences, in our facial expressions, in our gestures, in our dress and appearance, and in our posture. As we become more and more conscious of the verbal and non-verbal messages that we are sending and more acutely aware of the messages that are sent to us, we will become much more effective communicators. This is a critical attribute of any high performing team.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/banlon1964/46324162/sizes/s/
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