Tips for Communicating Well at Work

Why in-person communication is still vital in the digital era

May 10, 2011 RSS Feed Print

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So your request isn't totally open-ended?

The strategy is, start with what you know, state your intended direction, and then get feedback, thoughts, or clarification. Because what that does for me is it shows me you've put some thought and judgement into the process ... If you come to me with a decision and I agree with you, how do you look? You look smart. If you come to me with a position and I disagree but you've given me your rationale behind it, I still think you look smart. If you come to me and say, "Jodi, what should I do?" What do I think? I have no idea whether or not you're smart. So take a stand, take a position, and then ask for feedback.

How could people who are looking for a job apply your advice?

The last part of the book is all about the personal elevator pitch … The strategy I use is destination, backstory, and connect the dots. What I mean by that is when you are looking for a job, I always find it interesting when people start by saying, "Hi, my name is Jodi Glickman. I studied social policy at Northwestern, and then I went to work at the EPA, and then I went to the Peace Corps, then I went to business school. And now I'm looking for a job and I think I want to go into brand management." I'm pretty bored listening to that. [Instead, share] your destination first. Tell me what you want to do or where you're going first. Then tell me where you came from, then connect the dots.

Everyone goes in reverse chronological order and it makes no sense … It's not relevant. I only care about what's relevant. When you start the story with where you're going, it's so much more compelling ... I don't care what you've done most recently, I want to know what's relevant to the job you're hoping to get.

[See How to Market Your Skills in Your Job Search.]

How should you respond when someone asks you a question you don't know the answer to?

Here's the strategy. [Say,] here's what I know, here's what I don't know, here's how I'll figure it out. A lot of people don't answer a question that way. They say, oh, you know, I don't know, or I'm not sure, I'll have to get back to you. What I always say is, I know this, I don't have that exact piece of information, but let me go get it for you right away. Boom, boom, boom.

Any final thoughts for U.S. News readers?

The best news of all is that you can learn this stuff … The conventional wisdom has always been that communication skills, you either had them or you didn't … [But] you can learn this and you will absolutely, 100 percent do better on your job.

agrant@usnews.com

Tags:: employment,; careers,; corporate culture

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Person-to-person communication helps people feel better about the idea, project, etc. they have to discuss about. I think that this form of communication helps us visualize what we are talking about, and thus understand it better. We recently wrote a guide http://academy.justjobs.com/be-precise-be-specific-and-be-clear that discusses the importance of being precise, specific and clear at work. - Erich

Erich Lagasse of TX 2:53PM January 24, 2012

To keep this communication on sharing to the team always share the important that is related to work and get the team to read back in order to know if they are listening and understand.
Atmosphere is important to dissemiate effective communication and only one person say or appointed for the sharing.
Make it a habit to get the read back and watch the monotone when the communication is passed around to the team.
Be clear of the message in order for all to understand you.
Appoint representative of each group to disseminate after the meeting in order for the rest of the department to get to the message or annoucement.
Many of times verbal communication is not effective. It is best to type out the minutes and for the team to refresh thru and sign especially the important notes.

sam of SC 12:53AM June 13, 2011

Communication is key. Social networking or no social networking, communication is a fundamental aspect of producing quality work. Great article! We like to reiterate that asking for help when concerns arise in the workplace is an effective means of problem solving. http://www.exechunter.com/

bruchard and associates of MO 11:21AM May 19, 2011