Effective Communication Skills

Everyone can be a better communicator. What better way to start learning to be an effective communication than to know the very person closest to you: yes, that’s yourself.

1. What you know.
Education is all about learning the basics, but to be an effective speaker is to practice what you’ve learned. My stint as guest at every Toastmasters’ meeting I go to taught me that we all have our limitations, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn to keep up and share what we know.

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One of the usual questions that most people ask is “How can I improve my influencing skills ?” Well, the answer is quite simple. There are learning and consulting companies and groups which provide usual programs on influencing skills, personality improvement, body language, attitude and other things needed for a young man to become a complete man.

At present, almost every professional desires to have influencing skills; but without appropriate guidelines you cannot archive it. Join programs of Compass Coaching and learn all about the art of speaking and persuasion, convincing and confidence building. Compass Coaching has one of the reputed faculty of trainers who twist in you the key-points so that the best comes out of you.

1 There is nothing worse than not knowing what you want to get out of giving your speech. Do you want to be funny, thank the caterers or touch the emotions of your guests? That is why before you actually say or write anything you have to decide what you want to achieve first. It helps when it comes down to visualizing what you are going to say.

2 Listeners like to hear a structured speech and the best speeches stick to this rule. You have to have a welcome in a wedding speech; especially acknowledging those who have traveled a long way to be at the wedding. You must also have two or three personal stories to go with it such as how you met your wife for the middle and an end such as thanking and toasting the parents.
Here is an example of the speech structure:
* Greeting/Welcome where you acknowledge special guest
* Personal Story #1 – how you met
* Personal Story #2 – most memorable moment together and why it was memorable
* Something nice about the future of the couple
* Call to action: Toast Bridesmaids etc.

3 Keep your speech short at a wedding, between 5 and 7 minutes. Anything longer and your speech will be too long winded and you will bore your listeners.

4 Keep the content of your speech on a positive note and avoid making any negative comments.

5 Personal stories help you to connect with your audience in a more meaningful way.

6 Keep these personal anecdotes very short and use them to demonstrate a point, but not as the focus of the speech. Try and take people to your special moment in time by describing the place, situation and even what time of day and what the weather was like if you can remember it. This is always good because it lets the audience visualize the moment.

7 People remember the opening in a speech they hear and it is what will decide if you will be heard or ignored. The closing is important because it should reinforce the key message you want the audience to go away with in their head after they have heard the entire speech. Ending with some sort of call to action can be a powerful way to get your audience to act on your message. In the wedding speech the call to action is easy. All that you have to do is ask people to stand, charge their glasses and toast the bridesmaids.

8 You need to be alert if you are going to make a good and lasting speech. Save the alcoholic celebrations until after your speech so that you don’t say or do anything silly.

9 Use index cards with key points if you are planning to make a longer speech. Avoid reading it directly and keep eye contact with your audience as much as possible because it shows that you are being sincere.

10 Practice the speech or at least get some feedback from someone you trust beforehand.
Speeches are very often the highlight of the wedding reception. Generally the speakers will be introduced by the wedding mc. Find out more about this very important role
Wedding mc
Wedding emcee duties
Role of mc at wedding

Procrastination is the means of putting off something for another day even though you have the ability and the time to achieve those goals right now.

When you procrastinate, you are actually not getting to achieve what you are capable of achieving and that can cause you to miss out on many opportunities for success in many ways. Procrastination can ruin your career because it may be the one thing that shows others that you are unable to achieve your goals.

Can you actually get around this problem, then? Begin with learning what is happening and knowing how to react when you begin to procrastinate. When you realize that you are procrastinating or about to, you can recognize this, stop it and get back on track to better managing your time.

It is also important for you to understand why people procrastinate and in doing so you will be in a better position to avoid allowing it to happen to you, over and over again.

Lastly, you must take the right steps to managing your time so that you can manage the outcomes of your time by learning how to deal with procrastination. It’s a mind set that you can not afford with the limited amount of time that you actually have.

Procrastination is defined as putting off doing something that you should be putting your attention onto right now. Usually, people do this when they want to do something else that is favorable, a bit more fun or even just easier.

Is this you? Do you spend long days working hard but you are actually investing your time in accomplishing the easy tasks instead of taking on the larger, more important tasks?

A major problem here is that many people can not see the difference between priorities in tasks. For instance, you have an important task to complete. You also have an urgent task to complete. Which do you go to first? You should accomplish the important task because it is just that, important!

Far too many people look towards accomplish the things that they think are necessary to complete right now, forgo the important task and then have to find a way or a time to balance the ball in their favor.

Here is an example. Let’s say you are working at your desk and in walks your boss. They need you to handle an important client. The phone rings, it is another employee, struggling to accomplish his task and asks for your help. You get back to work. The other employee calls again. They need you. Which task do you do; the important client or the employee that will keep calling until you help?

The task here that you should be completing is that which is important, the one that demands your full attention and that will get you the most bang for the buck.

Unfortunately, far too many people strive to accomplish that other task because that person has complained, called and got into their head and they now are the loudest voice there telling them what to do.

So, do you procrastinate? If so, it’s time to take action.

If you are going to mc a wedding you certainly cannot afford to procrastinate. If you do the wedding reception could turn into a disaster.
Other articles
Wedding mc
Wedding emcee
Wedding mc

It is always good to have options. This is also true in language. If you know 2 or more languages (of course aside from your native words), this just means that you are more flexible to converse with different types of people with different languages. This also means that you have a wider influence than those who don’t.

Other Language Study
Learning A Second Language can come in various ways and different media. You can learn it by classroom lesson (meaning you have to enroll in a language school). You can also learn a second language by immersion wherein a student is sent to a place where the language he is studying is used. Whichever you utilize, certainly Learning A Second Language will give a significant advantage.

In addition, with the advent of the Internet technology, Learning A Second Language in now much easier. The Internet makes learning more effective. There are websites which give comprehensive courses in languages. These program are given in a form of manuscripts, audio and video resources which can be accessed 24/7. Meaning, you can access them anytime, anywhere you want once you are enrolled and as long as you have an internet connection.

Learning A Second Language has always been an advantage for all of us because once you know a certain language aside from your native language, you have a great edge especially in terms of oral and written communications. This just mean that you are more in good relation to other people (with different languages) compared to those who have not.

Significance Of Learning A Second Language
Another Importance Of Learning A Second Language can be pointed to influence widening. What is meant by that? This simply means that, especially when you are in business or corporate world, you can expand your potential costumers. This is your edge over those business men who do not know other language. Second language can simply expand your influence.

Significance Of Foreign Language
So, what then is the Foreign Language Importance? Well, communication has been playing a vital role for all of us especially today that we are in a globalization era. With the tremendous medium of communication brought by technology, to communicate other people from other part of the world ( for whatever purpose) comes without boundary except one- language barrier. When you know even a single foreign language, you have an edge to excel globally; in business you will excel in the global market- this is a great Foreign Language Importance.

So, whether you are learning a foreign language for personal purposes or for business purposes, you are certain that you, somehow, has an edge over the other. You are more to succeed in business and in good relationship with others.

Dealing with difficult people can make you very frustrated and even feel victimized It’s important to realize however that it’s not actually about you at all. Difficult people really care very little about you. Their focus is on themselves, merely themselves. The truth is you are a blip on their radar screen. You are only important if you happen to be a block between them and what they want. Or alternatively your importance is only to the degree that they need you to get the thing they want. So recognize what is happening and don’t take what they say or do too personally.

When trying to cope with a difficult person the worst thing you can do is to stuff down your annoyance, outrage, frustration or feelings of hurt. Inevitably this will make the situation worse. Instead express your feelings. If someone offends you, say how you feel. It’s important however to avoid any indication of accusation. Instead ask questions to clarify the intention of the difficult person. For example, you could ask open “I’m not sure that I understand what you meant by that remark, can you explain it to me?”
When coping with difficult people invite them to express their feelings. Get their feed back; don’t try to assume what someone else is thinking because you may be incorrect in your assumption. So ask. Just as you need to express your feelings you also need to know how your boss or your colleagues or your customers feel about what’s going on or what you’re doing.

When dealing with a difficult person, stay calm. This may seem simple and obvious advice but it’s not easy to do. If you can stay calm and polite you have a better chance of not escalating a difficult situation into an impossible one. It also gives you the opportunity to withdraw from the conversation if the difficult person’s behaviour accelerates from irritating to unbearable. You can postpone the interaction by saying something like, “Joe, I’m speaking calmly and courteously to you and I need the same in return. Let’s talk about this later when you’ve have a chance to calm down.”

As you have probably realized by this time, dealing with difficult people is inevitable. It is a fact of life. You have a choice as to how you deal with a difficult person. You can approach the difficult person with your teeth gritted expecting to have a miserable or difficult experience. Alternatively you could try to be as positive as possible. Devise a strategy ahead of time. Decide what results you would like to achieve rather than concentrating on the negative issues or your bad feelings about the difficult person.

Have you ever regretted starting a conversation or writing an email, or answering someone, and thought afterwards you shouldn’t have done it that way? I know I have. Many times I’ve rued the fact that I’d ‘put my foot in it,’ or simply should have known better. The truth is we all do it. It’s initiating and responding in communication with others at the wrong times and in the wrong ways.
This principle is about protecting accessibility. For your own peace of mind and heart you need to protect your accessibility. It’s essential in your struggle for self-empowerment. Self-empowerment is always a struggle because there are so many competing forces for your time. The competing forces are life priorities, the needs of others, and tasks you might need to do. We all need to protect our accessibility to be able to effectively reflect and plan. Without reflection and planning we are never at our best, and this is not only a bad result for ourselves, but it’s also a bad result for others - everyone misses out on the best we can offer.

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Communication is the passing of a message from one person to another person or a group of people. To put it another way communication involves people, information and often requires an action to be taken. Communication involves one person passing the message and another person or group receiving the message. This could be speaking and listening, demonstrating and observing, or writing and reading. Communication involves an interchange so at times you might be speaking and at others listening - it is definitely not one way traffic.

Who might you have to communicate with? Individuals can include colleagues, suppliers, and customers, but do you communicate with them all in the same way or do you use a different approach? Very often we have to modify our method of communication depending on who we are talking to. Aside from improving your body language, how can you improve your communication skills? Well here are some ideas.

- Plan effectively and put your ideas in a logical sequence,

- Always try to use clear, concise language,

- Never use negative language, keep it positive,

- Correct use of language think of the level of communication, how much jargon you can use, know your audience and modify your language, where possible keep it simple,

- If you are writing a report use short sentences and keep your paragraphs short and snappy. If your audience will only read the first page then don’t put all your best ideas on page ten. If they only have time to read bullet points then that’s what you need to deliver.

- Use pictures, photos or diagrams wherever possible instead of words to convey your message, and

- Always ask for feedback to make sure that your audience has understood the message you have tried to convey.

Most important of all, don’t think that you know all there is to know - you are only as good as your next conversation, so be prepared!

by Louise Manning

http://thehumanimprint.typepad.com/the_human_imprint/

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