Interpersonal Communication Skills
Tips for Improving Your Interpersonal Communication Skills
Interpersonal Communication Skills are an important factor in both workplace efficiency and social processes. The ability to effectively communicate ideas and concepts leads to better relationships, more effective workplace strategies and improved results. Everyone is equipped with the basic interpersonal skills, the ability to speak and listen and respond, but anyone can benefit from increasing their communication skills to fit different contexts, histories and cultural backgrounds. By learning about, and then developing a variety of interpersonal communication skills, you can dramatically increase your effectiveness in your job and your social life. It is quite easy to do, like most things worth doing; it simply takes some time and commitment.
Communication between two people can be lessened or wrongly interpreted because of a variety of reasons. The unique histories and cultural backgrounds of different people may interfere with their ability to fully understand the other’s meaning and ideas. There are many different contexts that can also play a role in how two people understand each other including: mental contexts, the social settings that conversations take place in, their relationship to one another, environmental considerations and the cultural aspect. For example, you may converse differently with someone at work than at the gym, and you may talk differently to someone you know well as opposed to a stranger. Building up your interpersonal communication skills can help you overcome these contextual differences and make you able to share your thoughts so that they can be correctly interpreted by anyone.
Remember that once something is said, it cannot be unsaid, and due to the many different contexts discussed above, if a statement can be misinterpreted, it will be. This is just human nature. Self improvement is possible however, and it all starts with awareness. Becoming aware of your social skills allows you to identify any areas you need to strengthen. After an interaction, review the event in your mind. What were the positive or negative points? Where can you improve to make the interaction go even better next time? A trusted friend to help you notice and point out any problems can be real help. Self improvement on any level is a process, it cannot be done overnight, in fact it should be a lifelong process.
A good place to begin is with listening. Everyone knows how to hear words and respond, but not everyone is aware that they should be actually listening and not just hearing. When involved in a conversation with someone, you should be actively listening. Again, it all begins with awareness of how you listen to a conversation. Show receptive language so the person knows that you are listening by nodding your head or asking relative questions. Watch their body language. Think of the story they are telling from inside their shoes. Avoid giving advice or judgments unless directly asked. Focus on keywords in case you get distracted. You will be surprised how actively listening to a person changes the whole conversation and allows you to really understand and grasp the meaning behind their story.
These tips sound like common sense, that is because they are. But too many people just don’t use common sense and it does affect their communication abilities. Take interrupting. A lot of people interrupt other people’s statements. You know you shouldn’t do it, but you do anyway. Again we go back to awareness. Conversations should be two-sided; one person should not be doing all of the talking. To train yourself to stop interrupting, try to think about the other person’s story, its meaning and what they are attempting to convey to you by telling it, rather than just thinking about the interesting antidote you have to share about the topic. This will make you less likely to just jump in to the conversation inappropriately. Remember active listening.
When it is your turn to do the talking, remember that effective communication is achieved when the listener receives and interprets the sender’s message and intent correctly. How many times have you felt that you had ‘come across the wrong way’ to another person? This can be avoided by remembering that your listener cannot read your mind. Include all the necessary information you want to convey, don’t rely on the other person ‘just getting it’, because often they won’t. Ask for feedback, ask questions, and make sure the person gets your idea correctly. These tips sound simple, but they can really help you improve your interpersonal communication skills.
While self improvement is an ongoing process, you can also get addition help through online classes, test and skill workshops, or by hiring a professional communications person or company. Everyone will benefit from increasing their communication abilities, and the effects of such improvement will vastly and positively affect your life.