Ever wonder how you can become a better communicator? All it takes is one communication blunder (whether at work or in our personal relationships) to make us realize that honing our communication skills takes dedication and practice! I recently had this experience while trying to deliver a speech about Pinterest. I hadn’t had to do any public speaking for awhile, and I really struggled to communicate effectively.
So what can we do to improve our communication, both face-to-face and online?
I found the holy grail of communication podcasts, and I want to share what I learned from it with you!
The podcast is called Communicast: A Communication Skills Podcast. You can listen on their website here.
You can also listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts here.
The podcast is hosted by Scott D'Amico, a seasoned sales professional, and every episode features a business professional who talks about the importance of communication skills in their careers or business. Because so much of communication takes place online these days, online communication is a hot topic on the pod.
I’m going to share with you some insights I gained from a recent episode featuring Chris Hood, Head of Business Platform Strategy for Google.
The Importance of Online Communication:
Hood says that everything these days is connected to technology, and that the ability to embrace technology can make our lives better. For him, effective communication is the bridge between business and technology (D'Amico, 2023, 2:08).
He says that, in business, how we listen, process, and respond to information is key because communication is a two-way street!
This definitely reminds me of the Interaction Model of Communication, which recognizes communication as a two-way process (Communicating Online, n.d., p. 10).
Image Credit: McGraw-Hill Companies, as found in Communicating Online
Hood says that we are likely to create personas online that may censor how we communicate. However, honesty is an important element of communication and our online personas can make us fearful of embracing and challenging the opinions of others in online business settings. He says what separates you from your competition is your ability to have conversations and to embrace or challenge the opinions of others respectfully.
5 Expert Tips to Hone our Communication Skills!
Hood reflects on the communication skills that helped him get to where he is today. Here are his top tips to developing effective communication skills:
1. Mindset shift: Hood suggests shifting our mindsets from convincing people (or being averted to conversations altogether) to “I’m going to have a conversation with you.” Getting comfortable having respectful conversations is critical to building our communication skills!
2. Develop public speaking skills: His theater background helped him develop his public speaking skills, and as a result, public speaking came more naturally to him. He speaks about how skills like diction and word formulation are important. Diction refers to articulation, and can pose real problems for college students like us (Communicating Online, n.d., p. 256). This is certainly an area to pay attention to, and it was something I struggled with in my last speech.
Sure, this guy obviously loves public speaking, but what if it terrifies you? No worries! He’s got an answer for that. Hood suggests several ways we can improve our public speaking skills. We can take a theater class, an improv comedy class, or even a stand-up comedy course. Young people, he says, can even participate in student government. He assures us that the skills learned in these settings are transferable to business and online communication (D'Amico, 2023, 19:29). While these things might scare us, they will make us better communicators in the long run!
3. Practice telling stories: According to Hood, reading stories (try news articles!) and practicing synthesizing them in a “story time” format is helpful for both face-to-face and online communication. He says that small talk helps bring people into the conversation, and this can be an especially great tool for introverted people! (Where are my introverts at? I’m definitely raising my hand on this one!) Having knowledge of current events and being able to synthesize and interject them into conversations can make you the expert in the room.
4. Find, mimic, develop: Hood counsels us to identify communication skills we wish to acquire and mimic the heck out of people who are good at exercising them. For example, the greatest influence on his communication style was his father. Hood says his dad was a great public speaker and was comfortable having conversations. So…he mimicked his dad’s style and then developed it to make it his own. So what if your dad’s not an all-star communicator? I know mine won’t win any prizes for his communication style. Well, Hood suggests we watch TED Talks and take note of how people communicate. We can then mimic what they do in order to acquire the communication skills we desire. As we continue this practice, we will eventually find what works for us, and can develop it into our own style. He gives us some examples of things we should take note of. Who memorizes their speech? Who reads their script? Who interacts with the audience?
As a reminder, in terms of public speaking, there are four basic methods of speech delivery. These include reading from a manuscript, reciting from memory, speaking impromptu, and speaking extemporaneously (Communicating Online, n.d., pp. 250-2).
As we know, there are TED Talks on virtually every subject! Head on over to the TED YouTube channel to try Hood’s strategy.
Image Credit: YouTube, TED Channel
5. Get committed to the process: Hood says that we must not only embrace communication as the bridge between business and technology, but that we must also acknowledge that it’s a skill that we have to grow and develop. Communicating effectively is essentially a lifelong journey!
Although Hood’s expertise is in business, I believe these tips can help enhance both our professional and personal communication. Listen to the podcast below or head on over to the Communicast website to listen to it here.
I think these are exceptional tips, and I’m excited to put them into practice! What do you think? Can you use these tips in your online and face-to-face communications? Let me know in the comments.
Reference List:
Communicating Online. (n.d.). McGraw-Hill Create.
https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781307755855
D'Amico, S. (Host). (2023, January 3). Chris Hood: Bridging the Gap Between Business and
Technology (No. 31) [Audio podcast episode]. In Communicast: A Communication Skills
Podcast. Communispond.
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