Effective Communication Skills

In his latest article Interpersonal Skills, Dr. Adalat Khan of the American Chronicle outlines 6 factors that combine to create effective communication skills. Here is a review of the article.

Effective interpersonal communication skills are necessary for positive healthy relationships

The 6 factors are:

1. Creating interest and catching attention

People are more interested in themselves than anything else, so to do this what better way than to ask others questions about themselves.

2. Build a Rapport

Dr. Adalat Khan states that creating an environment where people feel at ease is very important, He suggests using body language and speaking the person’s name as being very effective.

3. Self Confidence

People feel most at ease with those who display confidence; it creates positive energy. In fact a non-confident person can make a self confident person feel nervous. I particularly liked this quote by Dr. Khan: “If you don’t have faith in yourself, how can you expect others to believe you.”

4. Three’s Company

Dr Khan believes that the three most effective communication skills are silence, listening and questioning. Not only do these three make you an effective communicator, Dr Khan states they make you a powerful person. The threeissiues to avoid in communication are religion, race and politics.

5. Honesty and Empathy

Being honest in your desire to hear and understand others is the main point here. Insincerity is easily picked up. This is Habit #5 in Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Seek first to understand and then be understood

6. Optimism

Thinking positively is an infectious quality. Dr Khan writes “Even if one meets a person who initiates negative topics, a good communicator should skillfully lead the other person to positive topics. We may not realize it but negative topics makes us sad, while positive topics lead to happy feelings, so why not opt for the second. Interpersonal communications, the skill which enables us to effectively relate with others, is a key skill for personal effectiveness.”

This a a good article identifying some of the major skills needed to be an effective communicator. It is interesting that each of these factors have more focus on the other person. Effective communication skills have more to do with undewrstanding and building rapport with the other personal than oratory skills. So often out focus is on the words we speak, but that is just a small part of the way a message is communicated. Vocal tone, inflection and body language convey the largest majuority of the message.