Communication skills

First 90 days of a New Job – Strive to Achieve These Five Goals

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8 years ago, I wrote this post – Starting a New Job – 6 tips for your first 90 Days. All of the tips still apply. I want to add to it with more details

  • What should be your goals for the first 90 days – focus of this post
  • How to ramp up quickly – I came up with a 4C framework to help you remember all the areas you should learn about in your first 90 days – I will write this post in a week

As long as you have a “white collar” job, I believe these goals would apply. I just started a new job at a new company a week ago, and they also apply to me. After working 4 jobs over 10 years at a major bank, I decided to move to smaller company where I have broader role in a more fast paced setting. I will tell you more about my move across a few posts in the coming month.  ...  read more

What is the Easiest Soft Skill to Develop

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I got this question on Quora – What is the easiest soft skills to develop?. This question stomped me at first as soft skills by natural are a bit more difficult to develop. With that said, I think listening skills is perhaps the easiest to learn.

You have to be intentional and understand what active listening skills really mean. It’s the easiest to develop for four reasons. ...  read more

How to Communicate Concisely

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As more of us work from home in this new crazy reality, knowing how to communicate concisely is more important than ever. We have all been on call thinking to ourselves – when is this person going to get to the point? A professional that cannot engage or get to the point will easily lose their audience. Being able to communicate concisely is a fundamental skill that is critical to master for all professionals.  ...  read more

5 Starting Tips to Be More Strategic at Work

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“To get to the next level in your career, you need to be more strategic.” Have you heard this feedback before? If so, read on. It’s one of the most common pieces of feedback given to upcoming professionals as well as the least explained.

“Strategy” is one of the most overused words in the business world. Many professionals use it purely to sound smart but actually have no idea what it means. Here are some good definitions of “strategy.” ...  read more

Are You Listening to Those Whose Communication Style are Different from Yours?

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are you listening to those whose communication style is different

I realized I am probably not listening well to those whose communication style are opposite that of mine!  My 10 year old daughter, Isabel, made me realized this lately.   I am a pretty fast talker who will inadvertently interrupt others when I get excited about a subject. Isabel, on the other hand, is the exact opposite.  She can pause as long as 30 second or a minute before speaking her next sentence.

Here is one of our latest conversations

Me: So what happened? You don’t look as excited or as happy as I would expect after a first water rafting trip with your friends?    How was it?
Isabel: It was okay. [silence]
Me:  Did something happen?   You look dehydrated.   Was it not fun?   Did you get hurt?  Was it cold?
Isabel [frustrated]: You never listen to me…I don’t want to talk about it..
Me: [complete dumbfounded] But you haven’t said anything….
Isabel [she lets out a ‘ugh”]:I was still thinking about what to say.
Me: [staring … thinking]: How was I supposed to know that?  You were completely silent
Isabel:  [she lets out a another ugh and stopped talking. ]

I have had about 3 or 4 conversations like this with Isabel in the last few months.   Of course, every mother daughter relationship naturally has conflicts as she is getting older and into her rebellious age.   The repeat pattern of our conversation however made me realize that perhaps she was right in some respect.  Maybe I wasn’t listening, at least not the way she was expecting.

Here is what I learned so far. Hope this will not only help me connect better with Isabel but also improve my ability to listen and communicate with colleagues that communicates differently than me.   When it comes to people who are what I consider a more “deliberate, slow” communicator, I need to remember the following.

  • Let there be silence.  Silence to a speaker like Isabel doesn’t mean she is done.  She may very well be thinking how to phrase her next sentence.   What I tend to do naturally is fill silence with more questions and words.  That interrupts her thinking process and to her, I am aggravating her as “I am not listening.”  It seems that way to her even though I was speaking after she is silent.
  • When speaking, keep it short and open ended.  I was also peppering Isabel with many version of the same questions.  She would receive it better if I just keep it simple – “Are you okay? Can you tell me what happened?”  and stop there to let her decide.  When I ask more questions, I am just frustrating a slow talker like her and convincing her to say nothing more.
  • Listen with the intent to understand vs the intent to reply.  I think I do have this intent with Isabel.  My intend is to understand, but because I am not used to such long pause, I end up coming across more aggressive to her than I realized.  To her, any interruption from me or not pausing to wait through a bit of silence meant I wasn’t listening to her.

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    How to Communicate Strategically and With Impact – 5 Tips You can Use Immediately

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    communicate strategically and with impact

    Strategic and impactful communication skills are critical to success in almost any career.    Business professionals absolutely need these skills, but so do professionals in the technical arena, like architects, engineers, developers, etc…  The better you can translate the technical details of your work into impactful, simple business and customer outcomes, the more a business audience can appreciate your contribution.   In turn, they are more likely to want to partner with you and support you in your promotion. 

    This article is inspired by questions from a SSG member – let’s call him “Joe”.   See Joe’s questions below on how to communicate strategically and with impact.

    I joined Business consulting firm from the IT Services firm 2 years back. I have been told that my communication is not making any impact and this is impacting my career.   I usually communicate with clients and internal partners.  I have been told that if there are 2 sets of audience – Business and IT, my communication resonate with core IT stakeholders. But doesn’t resonate with business stakeholders.  I would like to get coaching in 2 things:

    1. How to communicate with impact. My background is engineering and I usually get into details . This gives an impression that my communication is not good to create an impact with business and partners in consulting world
    2. How to think and communicate strategically?

    To try to improve, I started reading various strategy magazines like MIT sloan review. I also attended some communication courses. But it is not creating an impact.  Hence I would like to have a coach for me to improve my communication and thinking style.

    Joe, thanks for reaching out.  Here are 5 tips you can use immediately on how to communicate strategically and with impact.

    Tip 1:  Always start from outside in.  When you prep to speak to a business audience, first think about

    • What they want to get out of this communication?
    • What do they care about and what questions are they trying to have answered via your communication?

    If you are not sure, what they want to get out of the conversation, then go ask them before the presentation.   They will appreciate your proactiveness.   Then prep your communication to address their need directly.  Sit down and write down 3-4 questions you think this business audience have and then write down your answers to each.  Once you do this, then see how you can weave your answers into your presentation so they are fully covered.

    Tip 2:  Always answer these three questions for a business audience.  If you are not sure how to do number 1 above, don’t worry.  Always share the answer to the following questions.  Every business person would want to know the following from your communication

    1. How does your work help the business?  Does it increase revenue, save cost?
    2. How does your work improve the customer experience?  How does your work make the life of customers better?  This will in turn improve customer loyalty
    3. How does your work impact each of the business departments in the audience?  What do they need to know to do their work better?

    By answering directly these questions with your presentation, you will come across strategic and impactful.

    Tip 3: Less is more and speak in bullets.    Often times, we want to share every detail of our work and how we got to the current results.  Don’t do it!  Business audience can easily get lost if you share too much detail.  Focus on the “so what” of your work and NOT the how you do your work.

  • Get to the point quickly and answer the above questions in tip 1 and 2.
  • Don’t need to share too much detail about how you got to these conclusions.  Leave that to Q&A.  If someone ask for details, then you know they want to know.
  • Best to speak in summary point first and support it with 3 to 4 bullets.   This tip is key and will immensely help you keep your audience engaged.  Many people like to speak in continuous sentences. “and we did this and we did that..”  You will lose your audience quickly with this unorganized style.  Instead, provide a key conclusion first and then support it with your key reasoning.    Remember your 8th grade writing class tips.  Start with the central point of your essays, then go into 3 supporting details, then conclude by summarizing your point again.  Verbal communication works the same way.  By having an obvious structure, you won’t lose your audience.

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    How to Speak Effectively in Interviews When English is My Second Language

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    Two weeks ago, I wrote about  how to improve my communication skills when English is my second language. It was prompted by this question below from a member.

    I am a software engineer at a major American tech company.  I came here two years ago but have been studying English since the first grade.  I want to do an MBA and move into business development.  I feel my communication skills are holding me back.  I need to improve my communication skills. I want to feel more confident, speak fluently and answer to the point. I feel I tend to jump into answers, get too excited and do not know when to be quiet. Can you suggest how can I improve on this?

    Once she read the article, she emailed me with the these two follow-up questions.

    I am doing good in terms of pointers of Section 1.  I have been watching American sitcoms for 4 years and I believe in general people enjoy talking with me. I think my problem is more focused towards the Section 2. In situations where I am being judged, such as behavioral interviews  or when the question is abstract, such as talking about my project, is when I get excited and tend to blabber. This in turn shows me as a not so confident person.   I think your Section 2 pointers should help, they make complete sense. 

  • Is there anything else I can try? 
  • Also I wonder how can I assess that I am improving and may be define milestones to make sure that I am progressing. Do you have any suggestions for that?

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