Professional communication skills can make or break your career. So learn a few skills here that
are going to set you apart from your colleagues. And if you stay tuned to the end of this video,
I have something really interesting for you. Hi, if you're new here, welcome. Don't forget
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By improving your communication skills at work, you're just going to increase your probability
of success. So let's learn about what those top communication skills are so that you
can rock it at work. Let's get to this video. Body language speaks volumes. So I know this
is interesting for the first one. We sometimes think about communication as being our words,
but a lot of communication comes through our body language. So there's positive body
language and there's negative body language. So let's kind of get into some examples of
what positive body language is like. Well, just what I'm doing right now
is I'm focusing my attention on you. My eyes are directly looking at you
and that's really important. It shows the intensiveness. Some really other interesting
ones too is a little bit of a head tilt that shows the interest of what the individual is
saying. One thing too is when you rub your hands together in glee or excitement, that
means I'm totally listening to what you're saying. That becomes really important how we use our body
and most of the time actually is unconsciously. So I want you to really be aware now of
how your body is presenting itself. Now let's talk about those negative types of body language. This
one right here is really dependent upon how it's done because I'll be honest. There are times I
myself I'm talking to someone and I really don't know what to do, where to put my arms.
So my head is tilted. My arms are just crossed because I don't have pockets and it's just a
little bit of a natural reaction. I'm still attentive. I am putting up a little bit of
a guard in the sense of give me my space, but I'm still attentive. But you have to
be careful with this one because if your arms are crossed and then you're sideways like hmm.
And you can see by the body language, I'm really not into it or worse yet looking elsewhere and
then coming back here that in itself. Another one too you may see a lot in
a lot of people don't know that they do this is when they're sitting at a table
and do you ever hear the jimmy leg going where it's like, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap?
Or worse yet you're on a table and you can see them tapping like this and it's an in-patient tap.
So those are things to really consider is watch your body language. What is it doing without
you realizing that it's doing it? Look, I'm a hand talker and I'm trying really hard not to
talk with my hands because I really want you to focus on what I'm saying. So it's
important for you to really analyze it. If you can why don't you with a friend,
have them videotape you so you can see what kind of body language you unconsciously
do so that you can see if you can improve it. Particularly if it's on the negative side.
Manage your nerves. It is really, really important when you are communicating with people.
Particularly if it's something that is really important, maybe a little bit high stressful.
So your nerves are a little bit on edge. Maybe you're presenting to some really
important people or you're doing a media shot. All of that is all about the nerves. So learning
how to calm the nerves down are really going to be important for you to improve the communication
skill. So what are some techniques you can do to help calm those nerves? Well, just what I did.
Take some deep breaths, take some belly deep breaths. Really ensure to breathe
in through the nose, out with the mouth. That's very purposeful. Not short breaths,
but you really want to be able to get full body breaths. It's just going to calm the pace
of your nervous heart down. Something else you may want to consider too is visualization. It is so
powerful to visualize how you're going to be communicating. So if you are going
to be presenting and your nerves are up, visualize how that's going to unfold all
in a positive way think about it over and over. There have been studies that have shown athletes
visualizing them scoring a goal and them actually having a higher probability rate of scoring that
goal because of the mental visualization. It's not just about physically doing it. It's about
getting our mind prepared as well, which leads me to the last point on mindfulness.
Consider meditating. Consider taking even just five minutes in your day before you even start
it. And you're having that big important meeting where you are nervous and you need to communicate
to ground yourself through meditation. Clearing the mind. And if you can't do
it first thing in the morning, try to do it right before you're about to present.
Go away in a corner somewhere, shut a door. Just really try to dump as much
as you can and have a clear mind so that you can focus, take some deep breaths,
visualize the success you're going to have. And that does have a really positive impact.
Focus on the can versus the can't. So why is this so important when it comes
to business communication? Well, how we speak to others in regards to information
really plays a important factor in how they interpreted us and their impression of us.
So if we're communicating on a business level to other people and all of our ideas are about
how we can't do something, even though we are positive in nature, that actually
has a negative impact on how they view us. Are we problem solvers? Are we we trying to
find solutions? Or are we just the individuals who tell us why we can't do it and don't come
up with any type of alternative to make it happen? So it's really easy again to fall back on nerves,
think about why it won't be successful. And now I want you to switch it around,
nothing wrong about thinking why it won't be successful, but think about how you can do it.
Maybe you have to tweak an idea that was presented. Maybe it has to be a whole new
approach, but the way you communicate your ideas in business becomes really important
and focus on the can versus the can't. Really critical when it comes to business communication.
Active listening. All right, you've heard me in many videos talk about active listening and how
important this is for professional communication. It is not just about the words that we say or even
our body language, but it's actually truly being able to listen to what the other person is saying.
That becomes really important. Do not formulate your thoughts for the next point
or for you to come up with a better idea because you're not really in that moment,
that present moment of listening to what they're saying. So this is a skill set. It is something
you have to practice. Particularly in a society where we all want to make our point because we
all have something amazing to say, right? Sound familiar? Look, I work on this too,
because it's really easy for me to talk. Look what I'm doing right now, talking away, but
listening becomes extremely important. So what can you do with listening? A really good technique
that I use all the time in my workshops is I will reiterate what the person said to me
on the last sentence or I'll say, "Just so I'm understanding correctly,
what you're trying to tell me and what I interpreted as is A B, C, D. Is that correct?"
It's just a validation. And what's really cool when you do that, it's acknowledging what the
other person is saying. There's respect with that. And that becomes extremely important
with communication because communication is not a one-way street. It's a two-way street.
Writing better emails. Yes. Emails are all about our communication as well. I'm not just talking
about verbal communication or when we're together live. What we say in our emails and how we say
it has a huge impression on our professional communication skills and how people view us.
In fact, you can check out a video that I have, which is strictly all about
how to write awesome emails. Definitely recommend that you look at that,
but why is it that our emails are so important because you don't have the benefit of inflection.
You don't have the benefit of body language and things can be misinterpreted really quickly with
emails. So what are some things that you can do? Number one, proofread. When you do an email, just
don't send it out. And my kryptonite is grammar and spelling. So I try to proofread as much as I
can. Yeah, I'm not perfect, but I definitely just can't send it an email right away. I do need to
proofread. Ensuring you don't CC everybody. That's the worst. Why are you inviting everyone on this
email when it's really just between you and I? You also want to ensure that your emails are concise,
just like language of speaking to someone you don't want to give them the long-winded story.
I'm a big believer in bullet point what it is you want to say,
and if you have something that's extremely long that they have to read, make it an attachment.
It just makes it for clear and concise language and bullet points are to the point. And if you
know them well, I sometimes end things off with a smiley face just to show that what I'm saying here
really is, "Hey, it's all good." So definitely look at your email communication. Big part of
professional communication that can definitely make or break you in the professional world.
Now that you have some great tips on how to improve your professional communication skills,
I want to start talking about projects because you probably do tons of projects and don't even
realize that you do them. So what is a project? Well, it has a definitive start and end date,
usually a unique deliverable. And in some cases is cross-functional where you have to bring in
people to help you that you wouldn't normally do. So if professional communication skills are really
important, your project management skills are just as important. So I want you to go
in the download below and grab this free guide on how to ensure that your projects are successful.
Don't forget to subscribe to this channel, like this video, and please
share it with all the people that you know. Do you have any professional communication skills
that you use constantly that are successful for you? I would love to hear from you.
Please put it in the comments below. Until the next video. See you later.