Communications: A Competitive Weapon – Part I
Contributed By - Yogs Jayaprakasam
Are you someone, who has been thinking, “I’m the best at what I do, but why am I not getting the right attention or the right rating that I deserve?” “I constantly communicate with my boss and my colleagues, but nobody seems to care about all the great work that’s being done?” You feel underappreciated and sometimes frustrated? If this sounds like you, this article should help you to elevate your game.
If you would like your work to be credited or appreciated, apart from doing the great work, it’s also important to communicate your great work. Sounds familiar, but what is communication? There may be many definitions, but I picked this one, “Communication is the successful conveying or sharing of the information or idea”. Please note the emphasis on the word “successful”.
All your traditional communication books, courses will immediately start with the mode of communications (1.Verbal, 2.Nonverbal, and 3. Written), when they talk about communication. However, in order for your communication to be successful, you need to do something extra on your part.
We live in a world of information overload. We are always connected to a multitude of information channels (i.e. Your Phone, Social Media, Personal Email, Official Emails, Text Messaging, Explosion of Instant messengers, video chats, etc). Information hits us all from many directions, and it’s increasingly harder for our generation to stay on top of the relevant information, compared to any other generations in the history.
Remember, communication is “successful conveying or sharing of your information or idea”. So, how do you make your communication successful? Take a look at “The communicator’s roadmap” from the popular book “Communicate to Influence: How to inspire your audience to action by Ben Decker & Kelly Decker from Kelly Communications”.
To make your communication really successful, your communication should be centered on your audience and must emotionally connect with them. In order to do so, you need to crystalize 2 things before you communicate, 1. YourAudience and 2. The Purpose.
1. Audience (Whom do you want to read or listen to your communication?): These are the people that you want to listen to what you have to say. For example, if you wanted to get a spotlight for your great work, then your audience will be your leader(s), your users, who benefited from your work etc.
2. Purpose (Why should they care?): As we discussed in the beginning of this article, drawing your audience attention from multitude of information channels, to your specific communication is definitely an art. You need to first put yourself in your audiences’ shoes. Ask this question, why would you respond to anyone’s email or text message during your busy schedule? You will do so, only if you were expecting a message from the sender or the message indicated that it contains information on something that you care about. So, as a sender, it’s your responsibility to know, what your audience will find most meaningful or relevant to them. Your communication must draw their attention to that relevant information. For example, if retaining customers is your division’s top goal, then your boss will read an email immediately that carries the subject-line of “Our Top Goal: Customer Retention Results”.
Shift your communication from focusing on you and what you have achieved to your Audience and why should they care. This simple change will have a significant impact on your communication. I hope you will try this and share your experience with me. In the next article (Communications: A Competitive Weapon – Part II), I will share techniques for choosing the right communication mode (1.Verbal, 2.Nonverbal (e.g. body language) and 3. Written) and their impacts with interesting reference materials.
Until next time.....Ciao
Note: Opinions expressed here are solely mine and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.