How can the Effectiveness of Your Communication Skills Impact Your Future?

Throughout most of my life, I had always been told that communication and the way you present yourself has a great impact on success in a future occupation. From elementary school through college, communication skills have been pounded into our heads. I remember the nervousness and restlessness getting up in front of the class to speak, and always finding ways to improve. While this aspect of communication skills is important, there is much more to communication than just this. Communication skills are important in everyday conversation with someone. The things you say, how you say it, and the way you present yourself can greatly impact a conversation.

One article I found discussing the importance of communication skills in the work place is from a website called Forbes, which you can find here. The author starts out with saying that all business professionals believe themselves to be good communicators, but asks the question if that is true or not. He then goes on to say that Warren Buffet once told a business class of his that good communication skills can boost your worth in business by fifty percent. That sounds pretty good to me. Although what he is talking about is written in context to directly relate to those in a business field, I believe the tips he gives applies to every occupation where a person has to interact with other people. The rest of the article is composed of a numbered list in which he gives his tips and opinions on how to further your effectiveness in communication.

One of the first things that jumped out at me in relation to this class was the concept of "aim to simplify rather than inject complexity." While discussing this tip, the author explains that simplicity will lead to focus and in turn, will produce clarity. One of the many things we discussed in lecture was the importance of striving for accuracy and clarity. If you're constantly trying to invoke some kind of a complicated mess in speaking, how are you supposed to get your point across to another person? This may cause inaccurate decoding by the receiver, and lead to a misunderstanding. This could be problematic in my cases, especially the work place. When being concise and to the point, you're creating a direct message path. Another interesting idea that the author discusses with this is that people will distrust what they don't understand. Distrust is not something you want in a conversation.

Lastly, there is one more relation to the article and our lectures. The last tip the author gives in the article is to "lead with empathy before your own perspective. This ties in the importance of active listening and understanding that others will have a different understanding of the words you're saying. A point he makes is to let others help you listen, rather than only listening with your own ears. This article does an excellent job of explaining the importance of communication skills, but also explaining how to improve on it.