You’ve heard about the communication skills all employers are looking for. Presentation skills, public speaking, delegating, listening skills, and empathy. Every hiring manager has a list like this in their head when they evaluate you.
But there are some skills that employers don’t actively think about during interviews. They are the underlying skills that enable you to communicate clearly and concisely. These are the skills that will set you apart from your peers throughout your career. They will make learning and using the more commonly talked about communicate skills so much easier to master.
Here is a list of the 15 communication skills you need at work – no matter where you are in your career.
How many of these do you really know how to do? No matter what job they have, or what industry they work in, great communicators know how to:
1. Make the purpose clear
People pay more attention when they know why you are talking. Learning how to make the purpose of your message clear is critical to get the focus and attention you need from other people. Learn more about this here.
“If it’s not clear why you’re talking it’s not clear why I should be listening.”
2. Make intentions clear
Making your intentions clear is a critical part of clear communication at every level of your career. If people don’t know what to do with your message they are unlikely to do what you want them to. Learn more about this here.
“If you don’t make it clear what you’d like me to do after you finish talking, you can’t be surprised if I don’t do it.”
3. Get to the point
Rambling messages that don’t get to the point are boring. Not only that, they are difficult to understand.
If your audience is bored or doesn’t understand, do you think they will pay attention? If you can’t get to the point people won’t pay attention to you. Learn more about this here.
“You’ve been talking for 5 minutes and I still don’t know what you want.”
4. Structure a message
Unstructured messages are difficult to understand and it won’t be clear what you need to happen next. Even if you can get to the point that doesn’t mean your whole message makes sense.
A good structure helps you make a point, stay on topic, and guide your audience through the topic. Learn more about this here.
“You gave me a lot of information but I don’t know how it all fits together.”
5. Make things relevant
Even if the message is important for me you need to make that clear. You might be talking about something critically important but if the relevance to me isn’t obvious I’m not likely to give it the attention it deserves. Learn more about this here.
“Just because it’s important for you doesn’t mean its important for me.”
Phew, that’s the first 5 of the 15 communication skills you need at work. How many do you think you’ve already mastered?
6. Make things relatable
For your topic to make sense it has to connect to something the audience already knows.
If you don’t describe things in terms the audience can relate to they won’t understand your message. They won’t know why it is important, or how it connects to what you want them to do. Learn more about this here.
“What you said doesn’t connect to anything I know about.”
7. Keep things simple
It’s rare that someone needs to understand all the ins and outs of a topic to then understand what you are trying to achieve in your communication.
Unless you are teaching someone how to do a complex task you don’t need to give a lot of detail. Summaries, a few bullet points, and high-level information is usually as much as someone can absorb on a new topic. Learn more about this here.
“The solution you’ve describes sounds like I’d need a PhD to be able to use it.”
8. Understand the audience
Communication is about getting an idea from your head into someone else’s head. If you don’t consider how they think or what’s important to them your message won’t get into their head in the way you want.
It is much harder to transmit a message clearly if you don’t know what the other person cares about, how much they know about the topic, and what part of your message impacts them. Learn more about this here.
“Everything you just said sounds important, but what has it got to do with me?”
9. Consider different perspectives
We have our own perspectives; it’s how we view the world very day. The thing is, everyone else has their own perspectives too.
If you only transmit information from your perspective, you will be less persuasive, the relevance of a topic may be unclear, and the value of your ideas may not be appreciated. Learn more about this here.
“That sounds great, but what does the customer think?”
10. Use appropriate language
Clear communication requires us to speak a common language. Adapting our words to fit with what the audience understands increases the chance of communicating clearly.
If you talk to someone outside your fields you can’t use expert language. Users communicate with a user centric language, and business leaders use a business centric language. Adapting your message to fit these languages increases the chance of clear communication. Learn more about this here.
“That all sounds like business buzzwords.”
“What a load of techno mumbo-jumbo.”
10 down, five more to go. Are you still keeping track? How many of the 15 communication skills you need at work are things you need to work on?
11. Describe complex topics
Complex topics don’t need complex descriptions.
The time it takes to fully explain a complex topic is usually greater than the time available for a conversation or presentation. If you can’t explain a complex topic simply and quickly you cannot succeed as a leader. Learn more about this here.
“I thought I understood but it makes even less sense now you’ve explained it.”
12. Not use jargon
We all know words that relate to our own area of expertise. This is true for marketing analysts as much as it is true for software developers.
Every expertise has acronyms, phrases, and word specific to that topic. If you use these words when communicating with someone outside your field of expertise, they are unlikely to understand you. Learn more about this here.
Jargon kills clarity, so you need to learn how not to use it.
“That could have been in Korean for all the sense it made to me.”
13. Identify what’s most important
There is no shortage of information we can share. But there is a shortage of time and attention from the people we want to share it with.
You need to make you’re your messages focus on what is most important to you, and most important to your audience. Anything you share that isn’t important is taking time and attention away from the things you really need to focus on. Learn more about this here.
“You gave me a lot to think about but I don’t know what you want first.”
14. Know when to stop
Whether you are excited about a new idea, not sure the audience is onboard, or are trying to explain a tricky issue, you need to know when to stop.
This might mean knowing when to stop because you are talking too much time. It might also mean knowing when you’ve pushed a topic too far, or you are fighting a losing battle.
Knowing when to stop can avoid embarrassing situations, frustrating others, and turning a clear message into a rambling one. Learn more about this here.
“Okay Phil, I think we’ve heard enough.”
15. Respond when they don’t know the answer
There will come a time when you don’t know the answer to a question. That’s ok, no one knows everything. What isn’t ok is if you hide the fact you don’t know.
Great communicators understand how to say they don’t know. They can do it in a way that doesn’t cause embarrassment and keeps the conversation moving in a positive direction. Learn more about this here.
“Look, if you don’t know just say you don’t know. Stop pretending you know.”
Conclusion
So there you have it, 15 essential communication skills you need at work.
These skills don’t get the same attention as the popular skills of public speaking, influence, and storytelling. But, none of those other skills is possible without first knowing how to do these 15 things.
A speaker that can’t read the audience or keep things simple isn’t effective. Telling a story without a structure or a clear point will quickly turn off the audience.
Learn these 15 skills and you’ll be a successful communicator in any situation.
