The 4-Step Shortcut to Good Communication Skills (The R.E.A.P. Formula)
https://youtu.be/4DQySecbFXg
All of us know that having effective communication skills is important, although some of us may not be sure how and why.
We are used to hearing that getting a high salary and scoring high marks in exams are indicators of ‘success’ – but we might not be aware that our communication skills have a huge part to play in our ‘success’.
Effective Communication Skills Might Land You a Better Job or Get Better Grades
According to research, ‘Excellent Communication Skills’ is one of the topcriteria that employers look for in a potential employee. This means that Communication Skills should be taught from a young age.
Sadly, many educators strongly prioritise the academics and exams – and sometimes, life skills such as communication skills are taught as an…afterthought.
When I was a counsellor, I noticed that students with stellar communication skills tend to be more cheerful, more resilient, surrounded by reliable friends and are well-liked by teachers.
From a practical point of view… it helps a whole lot when we have people willing to help us, willing to cooperate with us and if we are well-liked and respected. Having a satisfying school life, work life and social life become (almost) effortless.
Strong communication skills, coupled with good grades or work ethic, is a recipe for excellence.
Most of us would want this for ourselves and our children.
So how do we start attaining ‘effective communication skills’?
The R.E.A.P. Formula for Effective Communication Skills
- Respectful
Being respectful to others is a no-brainer. This means viewing everyone – regardless of status – as someone who has something valuable to teach us.
(Even the seemingly nastiest person we know teaches us something – for eg: patience, tolerance and resilience.)
People might have different opinions from us – but this is not an invitation for us to argue with them to prove that we are ‘right’. It takes immense strength to not react when someone has a different opinion from us regarding a topic.
It helps to accept that people may not view the world through the same lenses as we do. We don’t have to agree with everyone, but we respect that everyone has a right to their own viewpoint.
2. Empathy
This means to be sensitive to other people’s feelings. If a colleague just got demoted (and is upset about it) whereas we received a pay raise, this is not the best time to go to that colleague to ‘share’ our good news.
Some might argue and say that we should express our happiness no matter what – and the other upset colleague should automatically be ‘happy’ for our good news.
Let’s do a role-reversal: Would we feel better or worse if a colleague flaunts her pay raise to us when we just got sacked? It probably feels terrible as much as we want to be happy for our colleague.
Human beings are complex in nature. In theory, we know that we should feel happy for that colleague… but in reality, we’ll most likely feel down in the dumps.
Emotions tend to drive most of our decisions as human beings.
Being empathetic means being able to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. And being able to decide which questions are appropriate to ask and which aren’t. How to give negative feedback. And when to stop talking about a certain topic and move on to the next.
3. Active Listening
What is active listening? In simple terms, it includes paraphrasing and asking questions.
Paraphrasing is a common technique used by counsellors. Basically, you summarise your partner’s story in your own words. This means that a) we need to listen closely and b) the other party will feel understood when talking to you.
Asking questions is another way of showing your interest in the other person’s story.
You can ask close-ended questions, open-ended or specific questions. The best questions to ask are definitely open-ended and specific questions.
Example of a close-ended question (or a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ question) : ‘Did you go to work today?’
Open-ended question: ‘What do you like about the food at that new Italian restaurant?’
Specific Question: ‘You mentioned that you started a consulting business. What is your niche area?’
I think the examples above are pretty self-explanatory.
4. Positive statements
It’s easy to criticise and pass negative judgement about something or someone. That’s because our brains have a ‘negative bias’ – a tendency to focus on the negative aspects of life to ‘protect’ us from harm.
Having effective communication skills means that we utter more positive statements than negative ones. In fact, according to research, the ideal praise-to-criticism ratio is 5 to 6 positive remarks to 1 negative remark.
If you are a leader of sorts, you might want to consider giving your colleagues 5-6 affirmations before giving that 1 constructive criticism.
This makes it more likely for your colleagues to listen to you and be open to your suggestions. This high praise-to-criticism ratio is a characteristic of high-performing teams.
(The low-performing teams have a praise-to-criticism ratio of 0.36 positive comments to 1 negative comment).
People are also more motivated to perform well when they are affirmed or acknowledged to have done something right.
The R.E.A.P. Formula is a basic but practical start to attain some good communication skills.
As mentioned above….
Effective communication skills + Good Grades or Work Ethic = Big achievements
Have a good week!