Here’s a little communications quiz to take:
What are your experiences when you call a business in order to deal with a bill or buy a product or get technical support?
- Are you satisfied with the results?
- Do you experience being treated like an individual?
- Does the person at the other end of the telephone really listen to you and your needs, and respond in a personable and helpful way?
- Does the person you’re talking to read from a script?
- Do they try to give you explanations about why they can’t help you, and then try to get off the phone as soon as they can?
What about the kind of help you get in a store?
- Is the staff courteous and mature?
- Are they well trained and versed in the products carried by their store?
- Do they seem to care about helping you, or are they in a hurry and seemingly under a lot of stress, or do they just not seem to care?
What about training situations?
- What is your experience in learning a subject or skill in a classroom, at work, or other training environment?
- Is your teacher/manager/trainer interesting, easy to understand, and easy work with?
- Is the trainer just going through his planned syllabus with little or no change from other times he’s done this training or course?
What about your spouse or partner, children, friends or others in your personal circle?
- Do they communicate clearly and effectively and compassionately?
- Do they freely admit when they are wrong, even before you confront them on a particular issue?
What has worked best for you in all of the above situations and what hasn’t worked?
Do you think you’ve made any of the communication errors that the above phone or store personnel, teachers or managers or trainers or spouses children or friends have made with you?
The answer is probably, “yes.”
We all have.
Dissatisfaction with communication experiences is one of the biggest complaints we all have! Satisfaction with our communication experiences is very important to us and to people we interact with in our work. Although good communication is critical to achieving our goals and leading the kind of lives we truly want to lead, communications skills are given the least attention or entirely overlooked in our world.
We all know this.
Often, when I talk with people about communication skills, people will tell me what good communicators they are and that they don’t really need any help in that area. If that’s true, why is it that we all experience so much dissatisfaction in the way others communicate with us?
Even though we can all walk and talk, that doesn’t mean we’re good communicators.
Good communication is a skill that needs to be practiced and learned. None of us are born with it.
The difficulty for all of us in learning any skill is to get our egos out of the way and admit our limitations as well as our strengths.
At Authentic Communication, we want to reinforce your strengths and give you tools to overcome your weaknesses .
Please feel free to give us a call at (818) 752-9678 to discuss your concerns with us, ask any questions you have, or to set up an appointment.
Copyright 2010 David Kagen All rights reserved