Improve Your Communication Skills: Simple Tips, Killer Results

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In this course, you'll learn how to:
Master exactly what to say after someone speaks
Stop rushing to offer advice when others just need to be heard
Develop the focused presence that keeps you engaged in any conversation
Improve your personal and professional relationships

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FREE 10-page PDF listening guide
Early-bird discounts
Exclusive listening resources
First access when enrollment opens

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NEED IMMEDIATE HELP WITH A HIGH-STAKES CONVERSATION?

If you're facing a mission-critical communication challenge that can't wait for the course launch - whether it's a difficult team conversation, complex negotiation, or crucial presentation - I offer a limited number of Strategic Communication Intensive sessions each month.

These 90-minute one-on-one sessions provide personalized guidance from decades of research in high-stakes healthcare communication. Due to my university commitments, availability is extremely limited.

Learn more: https://listeningleap.com/strategic-c...
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This video teaches you how to develop your communication skill across all situations by improving your map of the social world.

https://www.howcommunicationworks.com

Skip to 15:20 if all you want is the exercises.

Related Blog Entries:

https://www.howcommunicationworks.com...

https://www.howcommunicationworks.com...

List of Emotion Words: https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/supple...



HOW TO IMPROVE?
The key to improving your own communication skills is to improve your representations of the social world.

-- Study lists of descriptive adjectives (e.g., bohemian, pensive, deliberative, ponderous). Learn what they mean.
-- Learn their opposites (e.g., introspective/shallow).
-- With each person in your life, ask yourself whether the adjective applies to them.
-- Read more Jane Austen novels or other literary fiction.
-- Cultivate a curiosity about other people's interior lives: their plans, their goals, their intentions, their thoughts, and their feelings.

MEASURING COMMUNICATION SKILL
One of the most studied measures of communication skill asks people to think of one person they know well and like and one person they know well and dislike and then, in no more than 5 minutes each, to describe them in as much detail as possible.

A less skilled communicator might produce a description like this (these are both real examples):

“Kind, intelligent, passionate”

A highly skilled communicator might produce a description like this:

“amazing, intelligent, kind, loving, accepting of all, great mother and grandmother. always says and does the right things. supportive, interested and interesting. never too much to ask. growing old and wiser in a very graceful way. accepting of change and diversity. rarely slows down and always there for others. self sacrificing and confident. does not sweat the small things. always dressed perfectly but comfortable in anything. Never met a stranger. best friend to all. loved and respected and admired by her peers and students and their families. invited to every event and more weddings than imaginable. Throws best parties, dinners, sleep-overs and bonfires. Best grandmother ever. loving and devoted wife for over 40 years. best travel friend....”

Counting up the number of different adjectives people use in these descriptions turns out to be a valid and reliable way of measuring communication skill.

The person who produced the second description sees the social world in high resolution technicolor. The person who produced the first description has a much less detailed map of the social world.

We shouldn’t be surprised when the person who produced the second impression also tends to produce better messages, and is a more skillful communicator in general.