How important is communication?

Consider the following about communication…

• One of the amazing and irrefutable laws of human nature is that we must communicate to survive.
  It is in our programming to do so.
• Due to the emotional nature of the human creature, all interpretations and perceptions about
  communication pass through emotional filters. These interpretations are often incorrect, leading
  to upset, disenchantment, cynicism and apathy.
• For the average adult in the a working environment, up to 75% of the time they are at work is spent
  in the process of communication with someone in some way, through verbal communication
  with co-workers and customers, written communication via e-mail, inter-office memos, updating information on systems, letters to customers and so on.
• One of the major complaints of employees, when speaking about job satisfaction is: “The
  management doesn’t ever listen to us. They don’t understand what it’s really like for us to do
  this job. If they did, they’d change things immediately so that we would want to do our best for
  the company.”
  The number 1 complaint of customers, when speaking about service and sales functions of
  organisations is: “They never listen. They don’t understand my needs or my concerns much less
  what it would take to keep me coming back.”
• When communicating verbally, 90% of all communication is done “unconsciously”. That is to
  say, there is little thought to the content or the context of what comes out of a person’s mouth
  at any given time. When asked to repeat exactly what was said in a previous sentence, most
  people are unable to do so.
• The higher level the position, the more critical the need for exceptional communication
  skills.

Communication is the lifeblood of every organisation. In today’s corporate environment,
executives are expecting employees to serve better and sell more in less time. “Please speak to
my customers, impress their socks off, sell them lots of things, create a feeling of loyalty and
make certain that they become return customers ~ and do so in 3 minutes or less.”

Here’s the good news…

• Another irrefutable law of human nature is that people WANT to be truly
  committed, productive and loyal. We all want to feel needed,
  perform well and provide a service that is worthwhile. This, too is
  an integral part of human programming.
• Humans can be taught to communicate brilliantly.
• If organisations can get their internal communication and communication
  with customers right, most other corporate ailments will vanish.

Ask yourself the following difficult questions:

• How many times have you communicated something to someone with a
  specific intention in mind, only to have it interpreted as something
  completely different ~ and the result was an upset or a failed goal?
• How often do you ask for “honest” feedback from people and later
  discover that the feedback you got was not the truth at all?
• Have you ever sent or been sent an e-mail that you or someone else
  interpreted as inflammatory?
• How certain are you that the messages you want your customers to get
  are they ones they are really getting?
• Do most people in your organisation truly live the corporate vision and
  mission ~ or do they casually roll their eyes and regard the information
  as platitude?
• Are you aware of the nature of the “grapevine” or “elevator”
  communication in your organisation? Is it generally positive or negative?

Communication is truly vital to every organisation. Most organisations believe they are doing it well ~ the reality…not so! The majority of corporate ailments can be boiled down to communication issues in their base-most forms.

Most organisations make the mistake of making cutbacks to the training departments when they fall on hard times or are in financial crisis. In other cases, organisations will blindly throw good money after bad into training programs that contain solid and relevant information, but are rendered useless without the necessary communication skills and understanding of human behaviour.

So how do you go about improving communication skills in your organisation?

In our next post on this topic we will provide our Top 10 Tips for Developing Communication

Any thoughts on this topic? We would love to hear from you.

Tags: attitude, Communication Skills
Posted in Communication Skills, Training. Permalink for this post: permalink.