In order to convey your thoughts and ideas you need to communicate clearly, expressing your self really well. It should be quite simple and uncomplicated. It’s a matter of expressing your thoughts in such a way that others quickly understand it without having to take part in a marathon of questions and explanations.

In order to assess whether you express your self well enough you need to examine your past efforts. Read letters, emails, reports or any documents you wrote several years ago to establish how clearly you expressed your self. If you struggle to understand what you meant at the time, you need to improve your communication skills because chances are that nothing has changed. Another way to assess your communication skills is to ask a few impartial people to read your documents and to explain the content to you. You will soon know whether you have the ability to get your message across.

ORGANISE YOUR THOUGHTS AND INFORMATION

In order for your audience to understand the content of your document, speech or presentation effortlessly you will need to organise the sequence of the information well. Your audience should not have to organise the information mentally in order to understand it. Unrelated facts will confuse and overwhelm your audience and will prevent retention and understanding of the information. Information should flow smoothly and freely from one related topic to another and you need to group categories together. Your document, presentation or speech should have one general purpose or main theme and this should be evident throughout the information. Sub themes may be present within each related section of the information.

SPEECHES AND PRESENTATIONS

Record your speeches and presentations with a tape-, or preferably a video recorder to assess your performance. Again, ask a few impartial people to attend one of your speeches or presentations, or to listen to or watch your recorded performance and to explain the content to you. Most speakers need to slow their talks and presentations down. We tend to rush through it in case people get bored or we run out of time. Speak at a moderate pace with well-timed pauses so that people can take the information in.

ONE MAIN MESSAGE FOR EACH TOPIC

Your main message should be very clear (from the start) to your audience. Related messages and points should form part of the main message so that the progression of information makes sense. Refer back to your main point often so that your audience don’t lose sight of the bigger picture and finish one topic before starting another.

CLEAR, CONCISE AND SPECIFIC

Avoid vague generalisations in your documents, presentations and speeches. Be clear, to the point and specific. Repeat the most important information at the end to make an impact.

VISUALISATION FOR RETENTION

Use visualisation techniques to help your audience to remember the information. The more senses you use the better the chances of retention. Use creative language to create strong, vivid memory. Visualisation works because the mind does not distinguish between reality and fantasy. The picture you create in your mind will be remembered as though it really happened.

HUMOUR

It is not always possible to use it, but humour is a highly effective way to hold an audience’s attention. Humour relaxes people and that allows for better understanding and retention of information. Humour should be subtle and certainly not in the telling of a joke. Rather imply humorously than try to be outright funny.

By Elsabé Manning

Elsabé runs accredited Professionalism in the Workplace workshops and Effective Communication in the Workplace workshops - SETQAA decision number 2075. For further information please contact her on elsabe@successfactory.co.za or 011 648 8969 or 084 371 9105

back to Articles list »