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Effective Communication in the Workplace – 2 Tips
Orlando, Florida – Effective communication in the workplace is vital to the success of any team, business and organization. It impacts virtually everything, from the topline, to the bottom line, to employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Higher staff turnover rates, lower retention, difficulty recruiting…so much of what can be ailing an organization can be traced back to ineffective communication.
As a group that works with teams and companies all over Orlando and Central Florida in the areas of communication and collaboration (through our various corporate workshops and our popular team building activities), we see the impact every day. Both the negative impact and the positive. How a team and organization can flourish when leadership is committed to creating an environment of open, respectful communication.
(If you’re looking for a workshop focused on effective communication in the workplace, or a fun team building activity that focuses on increasing your team’s communication and collaboration, connect with Gina here at SAK and she can provide all the details – (407)-648-0001 or email her at [email protected]
Here are a couple of quick tips that will help create more effective communication in the workplace.
Effective Communication in the
workplace Tip #1) Listen
East to say, tougher to do. At the risk of over-stating the obvious, but the
listening part to effective communication is super important. And not that
listening approach where you’re waiting for the other person to finish so you
can say what you wanted to say…but actually listening.
Improv only works when everyone involved is actively listening to what’s being said. That same principle can be easily applied in any workplace.
People know when they’re being listened to…and when they’re not.
Effective Communication in the
workplace Tip #2) Yes, and
Being an improv organization, you know “Yes,
and…” is going to be a part of our communication focused workshops.
The concept is fairly straight forward…whenever possible, you want to accept the ideas and contributions of others, and then build on them. There will likely be a time for more critical analysis and judgement, but rarely is that time the instant someone puts forward their idea.
Coming out of the gate with a “no, we can’t do that”, or “no, we already tried that, it doesn’t work”, or even “Yes, but….” shuts effective communication down, stalls creativity and innovation in the long run, and becomes fatiguing for everyone.
If staff know their contributions are going to be met with support and even built upon, this creates an environment where not only do ideas flourish, but people feel respected and valued.
“Yes, but…” and the “no, we already tried that” type of responses shut things down, minimizing what was just said before it and usually segues quickly into someone else putting forward their own agenda. It blocks creativity, and makes people much less enthused about contributing their ideas and opinions, which can have a significant impact on overall job satisfaction (leading to the issues we referenced above of higher turnover rates).
In our workshops we go though activities that demonstrate how embracing “Yes, and…” connects teams and creates an organization that communicates at a high level.
Talk to Gina for more info on how we can customize a workshop for your group. She can be reached at (407)-648-0001 or via email at [email protected]
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For anyone in the Pacific Northwest region and Canada, Vancouver TheatreSports, also does a lot of work with organizations in the area of effective communication in the workplace. Like us, they’ve been designing corporate workshops for collaboration and communication for over 15 years, working with clients such as Microsoft, SAP, EA Sports, Hootsuite, and thousands of other groups of all sizes.
Check them out – Team Building in Vancouver
