Four Barriers to Effective Communication
Why does communication so often go wrong? Here are the top four reasons for breakdowns in communication:
1. Poor Listening Skills. Poor listening skills top the list when it comes to barriers to communication. Poor listening skills can result from:
* Lack of involvement with the other person or the topic at hand: you just don’t care enough to listen.
* Distractions in the environment such as excessive noise or activity.
* Disagreement with the speaker, resulting in mentally “shutting off” the other person.
* Passive listening rather than active involvement with the speaker.
2. Assumptions. There are many assumptions we make while communicating with others. For instance, you might think that you know what the other person is going to say, so you simply “leave” the conversation.
The Art of Public Speaking: the Charisma Formula
It’s not surprising that if you’ve ever attended a presentation held by a brilliant presenter to feel a kind of charm and magnetism in the conference room. This is not magic at all, but a set of techniques used by the presenter to impact his audience. These skills are not hidden or whatsoever, but rarely used by people. The reason why I’m writing this is to share some of these skills and how you can use them to a maximum impact.
-The first thing to focus on is your entrance. This is the most important stage within your presentation and the most remembered one as you give them a first impression about you, so it should be very strong and impressive one.
-Your stance is the second most important one. Stand tall with a straight back; keep your shoulders level and relaxed.
Q&a: Mike Colicchio, Celanese Hungary
SSON: In this current economic downturn it’s very important to keep robust lines of communication open throughout the business. Can you tell us a little about the steps you’ve taken at Celanese to enforce this?
Mike Colicchio: Of course. We’re carefully monitoring our overdues and looking for any signs of softness in our very structured collection process. I stay in close contact with our sales directors in the EU and we strategically determine proper collection protocol in these challenging times. Being a relatively new SSO our recent hires have received exceptional training and job-shadowing; however, being rookies they’re not as well-versed on the qualities of different types of customers. They also need to understand the histories of our customers, and even when the customer is also a vendor. This is sometimes a point of interest. I bring the sales directors to Budapest for a “learn the customer” day. To serve our customers we must understand their customers. This gives the sales organization leaders and the credit and collection staff an opportunity to set expectations and parameters, but most importantly it opens up even more the communication channels, which is tantamount to success today.
So, You Want to Be a Change Leader
You may have been selected by your executive to initiate and see through some change program in your organization. Or you may have decided that the time has come to make your mark by dusting off the cobwebs in your workplace. However your change role came about, you have a challenging task ahead of you.
Consider this sobering thought. In spite of the importance of successfully implementing workplace change for maintaining your business’s competitiveness, most change initiatives fail to deliver the expected organizational benefits. This failure occurs for a number of reasons:
? absence of a change champion or one who is too junior in the organization
? poor executive sponsorship or senior management support
? poor project management skills
? hope rested on a one-dimensional solution
? political infighting and turf wars
? poorly defined organizational objectives
? change team diverted to other projects