Your Guide to Effective Workplace Communication

Workplace communication comes in many forms: in-person conversations, meetings, text messages, emails, or phone calls. Each type of communication has its merits for productivity, but if the results don’t facilitate connection and understanding, you may find workplace interactions frustrating or discouraging.

Effective communication with colleagues starts by embracing some core tenets of how to interact with others. Bearing in mind that everyone is unique, you can then practice strategies that bring people together with clarity and purpose. 

What Makes Communication Effective?

Politician and entrepreneur Malcom Forbes said, “The art of conversation lies in listening.” Much more than just sitting silently or not talking, listening is an active skill that requires learning and practice to develop. In any business conversation, you generally want to achieve four things: 1) speak objectives clearly, 2) be understood by the other person, 3) encourage productive discussion, 4) leave with actionable items that encourage productivity. Being a good listener is one of the best ways to contribute.

Active listening has three aspects, according to Robin Abrahams and Boris Groysberg in Harvard Business Review.

• “Cognitive: Paying attention to all the information, both explicit and implicit, that you are receiving from the other person, comprehending, and integrating that information

• Emotional: Staying calm and compassionate during the conversation, including managing any emotional reactions (annoyance, boredom) you might experience

• Behavioral: Conveying interest and comprehension verbally and nonverbally”

In many ways, we are conditioned to think of conversation as talking, when a huge part of the conversation is the listening with the intent of absorbing and applying the information. 

Tips to Improve Listening Skills

Ready to become a better listener? Here are some useful ideas to practice:

Offer undivided attention

Consider putting your phone in a drawer, closing a laptop, moving to a quiet space, or moving away from other colleagues who may interrupt. If internal distractions like life challenges or feeling unwell or tired will make it difficult to focus, consider, if possible, rescheduling important conversations for when you feel more able to give your full attention. 

Use verbal and nonverbal cues

Nonverbal cues include facing the person speaking, making eye contact, or nodding. Verbal cues include repeating information back to the person, speaking short affirmative statements like “I understand” or “that makes sense,” or asking questions that show you have heard what someone is saying and you want to process it clearly.

Avoid interrupting

Your thoughts or ideas may feel urgent to you but interrupting is ultimately disrespectful and can derail the conversation from its original purpose. Similarly, effective communication isn’t just waiting for the other person to stop speaking to make your point. If you’re worried about forgetting your point, taking notes during conversations may help, but don’t let it become a distraction from listening.

Manage emotions

If a conversation makes you angry, frustrated, or hurts your feelings, try not to let the feeling dictate your response. Rather than shouting, rolling your eyes, or actively disengaging, you could try a mindfulness exercise to invite a calm demeanor for discussion. Try a breathing exercise: inhale for a count of 4, hold it for 7, exhale for 8. Or, without interrupting, ask for a pause in the conversation and leave the room for a short break or a brisk walk. Don’t let your feelings give you an excuse to abandon your listening practice.

Set parameters for communication

It’s okay to discuss the details of the meeting in addition to the content. If you struggle with nonverbal communication, you may say, “I know my face may not appear very expressive but it doesn’t mean I’m not listening” or “It helps me remember everything if I take notes while we talk” or “It would be more comfortable if we were both sitting for this meeting rather than standing in the hallway.” Reasonable requests can help with distractions and invite better communication.

Good listening provides the best foundation for avoiding misunderstandings and fosters connection between colleagues. Just as becoming a good listener is a skill that can be learned, effective communication of ideas, assignments, and feedback is an equally vital skill.

What’s the Best Tool for the Job?

With so many forms of communication available for the modern company, step one is to consider what’s the best tool for the job. An invitation to a meeting is best accomplished electronically so the person can have a record of the time and place for reference. Detailed instructions on how to carry out a work task are likely best conveyed in an email. Compliments and praise might carry greater weight when delivered in person with the nonverbal cues to match.

Consider that even within those rules of thumb, you may need to vary from employee to employee or based on circumstance. For managers especially, getting to know the preferred communication style of those on your team can make a big difference. Rather than interpreting a team member’s silence in a large meeting as lack of interest, a thoughtful leader may invite them for a one-on-one session after the meeting to make sure their ideas are heard in a more comfortable setting. For people who find it challenging to think of what to say on the spot, a good leader can validate and accept their preference for a follow-up email.

Keep Meetings Succinct

Organizational scientist Steven Rogelberg told Forbes that their “research with organizations generally suggests that roughly 50 percent of meeting time is well spent and engaging, so folks feel as if it is a good use of their time. However, that means that is not the case 50 percent of the time.” For a company that uses meetings as a frequent tool of communication, reclaiming that 50 per cent of poorly-used time feels like a worthy goal.

To start, it may be worth redefining what constitutes a meeting in your organization. Is it a discussion for a certain length of time? Is it something formal that’s scheduled on a calendar? Is it a gathering of a certain number of people? Is it a discussion that has an agenda or a schedule? Does it require a leader or facilitator? 

This kind of scrutiny can help you avoid lumping all communication into the default “meeting.” Rogelberg describes the phenomenon that a meeting scheduled for an hour will last an hour, even if there’s only 20 minutes of content. It may be that a shorter gathering promotes urgency and leaves more time for actionable tasks.

Consider the agenda, a theoretically valuable tool for keeping a meeting on track. “Typically,” Rogelbug says, “agendas are structured as a set of topics to be addressed. I want to propose framing your agenda as a set of questions to be answered. Doing so requires you to think at a much higher level.” Requesting input from other colleagues to form the agenda instantly promotes engagement.

The workplace brings together a variety of personalities and communication styles. With some effort in developing listening skills and looking for creative ways to deliver vital information, you can achieve collaboration and productivity.