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Some people seem to have the gift of gab and are deemed excellent communicators. However, communication includes a lot more than being able to talk eloquently. To be an effective communicator, you need to know how to listen and adopt your communication style based on the listener. Furthermore, by communicating with empathy and emotional intelligence, you’ll be able to win over your audience and touch others with your message. Effective communication is a skill that you can learn and refine. This means that if you’re not satisfied with how you communicate, you can improve. With this series of posts, I give you top tips to bring your communication skills to the next level. So far, I’ve covered: listening to understand, embracing difficult conversations, and learning to respond, not react. In this post let’s look at 3 more tips that will help better your communication for the workplace: considering your own shortcomings / admitting you’re wrong, being solution focused and giving constructive feedback.
4. Consider Your Own Shortcomings and Admit When You’re Wrong to Better Your Communication for the Workplace
Humility is a valuable virtue when communicating with others. This is especially true in conflict situations, when addressing challenges or delivering negative feedback. It’s very easy to point out other people’s weak points and failures. However, it’s difficult to admit when we’re wrong. We tend to expose others and cover up our own shortcomings. Why is this the case and what can we do?
The Neurological Basis
It has a lot to do with how our brain works. Our brain is wired in such a way that it defaults to cognitive biases. In other words, neural networks cause our brain to systematically use shortcuts when processing information. This saves executive working memory. The problem is some of these shortcuts make us think we’re on point, when it’s not the case at all.
For example, the availability bias or anchoring effect may cause us to be overly reliant on the first information that we recall or encounter. As a result, we might make a suboptimal decision. But nevertheless, we confirm this decision by choosing information that supports it and dismissing information that’s contrary. So, we become very confident about our decision. We also feel good about ourselves because in our eyes we made a good decision. If we admit we’re wrong, we may feel that our identity as a competent person would be tainted (our identity is one of our brain’s survival-tools that preserves a sense of self). In general our cognitive biases and desire to maintain our self-image make it difficult to admit when we’re wrong. But is being wrong really so bad?
The Pratfall Effect
In the business world most are taught to always be confident and self-assured. But contrary to what you might think, being able to admit your mistakes can make you a more likable person. This phenomenon is called the Pratfall Effect, first studied by Social Psychologist Elliot Aronson in 1966. He discovered that people who were considered highly competent became even more attractive after committing a small mistake or ‘pratfall’ of low consequence.
This effect can vary based on many factors such as level of perceived competence and gender. However, the takeaway is making mistakes and being able to admit them makes you more approachable, more human and thus more likeable. And let’s be honest: people communicate more openly with folks they like.
Benefits to Your Communication for the Workplace
Admitting when we’re wrong and realizing we don’t have all the answers is condusive to a positive working atmosphere. Let’s say you and your colleagues didn’t reach the team revenue goal. Instead of pushing around blame everyone identifies areas in which they can improve. In such an atmosphere the team members are also able to give each other constructive feedback. As a result, the team becomes stronger and ultimately performs better.
If someone knows you’re not trying to put all the blame on them, they’ll be more open to what you have to say. And when trying to find a solution, you’ll be humble enough to compromise and receive input from others, because you realize you don’t have all the answers.
Furthermore, if you’re aware of your own shortcomings, it’s likely you’ll communicate with compassion. Let’s say you must give a colleague negative feedback. You probably won’t be so harsh, beause you recognize that you could have made the same mistake.
5. Be More Solution Focused to Better Your Communication for the Workplace
Your communication will be more effective if you tend to focus on solutions instead of problems. The following examples show a communication style that is more problem focused:
- Complaining and gossiping about “issues” instead of doing something to improve the situation
- Have you ever presented a potential solution to a problem, and someone just criticized it without suggesting something else?
- Or have you ever had a boss that just told you what you did wrong without letting you know how to improve?
It’s hard to be open to this kind of communication. And to be honest it doesn’t help that much.
One study found that in the context of coaching, solution focused approaches yielded significantly better results than problem focused approaches or even a mix of solution and problem focused approaches. More specifically the solution focused approaches were more effective for reaching goals and enhancing one’s sense of well-being.
Effects of Problem Focused vs. Solution Focused Communication
When you merely focus on the problem, it can lead to negative outcomes. These include ruminating and ultimately experiencing more negative emotions. As a result it’ll be harder to come up with optimal solutions to challenging problems.
Focusing on solutions by contrast can have many benefits including: more self-confidence, more self-efficacy, better mood, feelings of competence, enhanced ability to understand the problem, more goal achievement.
When communicating with others, especially in the face of conflict or challenges don’t just point out what’s wrong. Go one step further and offer a solution. Speak about how to improve and move forward. Such communication will motivate you and others. Furthermore, it’ll keep you from getting stuck in a negative, downward cycle that holds you back from reaching your goals.
6. Give Constructive Feedback to Enhance Your Communication for the Workplace
You might have some reservations about giving others feedback. However, people are open to constructive criticism more than you might think. One study found that in general people consistently underestimate how much others actually want to receive feedback.
There are times at work when you must address a certain problem or give negative feedback. For example, I’m currently coaching a colleague whose performance is not where it should be. Therefore, I need to tell him how he can improve. However, the way I do this makes all the difference.
Both positive and negative feedback can be quite helpful. Through such insights we can enhance our strengths, more effectively work on weak points and become aware of things we’re probably oblivious to. Here are some tips on how to give constructive feedback more effectively.
What NOT to Do When Giving Constructive Feedback
1. Criticize other’s personality or character
If you directly criticize a colleague, they’ll probably reject or react to what you have to say. Worse yet they may feel demotivated and withdraw – mentally, emotionally or even physically. Instead of giving criticisms that cause people to feel devalued, use behavior critical language.
For instance, telling someone that they’re lazy is person critical. It’s more effective to point to a specific behavior. You could say, “I noticed that you left out some important points in your report. In the future please schedule enough time to cover every item that we discussed. Would you feel ok about using a checklist to help you keep track of what needs to be done?”
2. Blame others
When something doesn’t go well, we tend to blame others for what went wrong. However, we often don’t know all the details of the situation or fail to consider what we did to contribute to the outcome. In reality the person receiving your feedback may not be fully at fault. If others feel like you’re putting all the blame on them, they won’t be very receptive to what you have to say. As I mentioned before, it’s better to be solution oriented.
For example, let’s say a colleague did not finish their part of the project on time, so the team was not able to meet a deadline. They probably already feel bad about what happened. So instead of saying, “Get it together, it’s your fault we missed our deadline!” You can say, “In the future let’s get things done ahead of schedule so that we have enough time to do some finetuning. If things get tight, please let me know early enough so that I can support you.”
3. Use judgemental language or belittle others
Talking down to others or having an arrogant attitude towards you colleages damages team cohesiveness. Communicate with others at eye level — as peers and adults. This fosters mutual respect and thereby a cooperative working relationship. There is no need to be rude or harsh in your communication. Choose your words carefully and be respectful towards others.
4. Give the impression there is only one “right” way to do things
Don’t give the impression that you know everything and things can only be done your way. As mentioned earlier in this article it’s hard to admit when we’re wrong. We like to preserve our self image and hate it when our competence is threatened. However, by being humble in our feedback and being open to what others have to say we promote an environement full of psychological safety. Others will know that they can actively contribute to a solution and present their view of things. This inclusive approach will yield better results, because all parties actively contributed to the feedback process.
Let’s say a colleague gave a presentation that was not optimally sturctured and they ask for your feedback. You could say, “Your presentation would have been a lot easier to follow if you structured it like ….” However, such feedback gives the impression that only your suggestion would be ideal. It would be more effective to say something like, “I think it would have been easier for me to follow if you structured your presentation like …. But could you let me know why you decided to order the slides the way you did?” With this kind of feedback you’re direct and honest. At the same time you let the other person know that you recognize you might have missed something. You also give them the opportunity to respond to what you said.
5. Use the sandwich model
The sandwhich model is a rhetoric technique by which you deliver critique sandwiched between praise in order to make your critique more acceptable to the receiver. Giving feedback in this way may come across as manipulative and inauthentic — especially if the person you’re giving feeback to prefers straightforward communication or your praise is not genuine.
When giving feedback to others it’s more effective to be straightforward and at the same time make your positive intentions clear — even when you have to deliver negative information. Some researchers refer to this approach as benevolent honesty. You deliver negative information truthfully and directly but make sure the recipient knows you have their best interests in mind. For example, you can say, “I know you are capable of delivering excellent results” or “I’m giving you this feedback, because I have very high expectations and know you can achieve more”.
What to Do When Giving Constructive Feedback to Better Your Communication for the Workplace
Here are four steps to give feedback that can help others develop personally and professionally:
1. Don’t beat around the bush — deliver the feedback in a straightforward and kind way.
- Be direct
- Speak clearly
- Try to be as accurate as possible
- Be specific
- Use concrete examples
- Be honest and genuine
2. Relay what the result of the other person’s behavior was and how it impacted you.
3. Listen to what the other person has to say. You probably don’t have all the information or fully know why the other person did what they did.
4. Make a concrete suggestion to solve the issue at hand and then ask for feedback. You could also work on a solution together with the other person. Such an approach ultimately reinforces behavioral change.
Summary
In this post I covered my next three top tips to help better your communication for the workplace.
Consider Your Own Shortcomings and Admit When You’re Wrong
Especially in conflict situations or when giving negative feedback, it’s helpful to consider your own shortcomings and learn to admit when you’re wrong. This is extremely difficult because our brains default to cognitive biases that make us think we are right even when it’s not the case. However, realizing we do make mistakes can help us to communicate more compassionately with others. And as a result, we’re more likely to find solutions that work for all involved. This naturally encourages a cooperative, positive working environment.
Be More Solution Focused
My next tip is to be more solution focused than problem focused to improve your communication for the workplace. Focusing on the problem can cause you or others to ruminate and experience more negative emotions. This ultimately makes it harder to come up with optimal solutions to challenging problems. Research shows that being solution focused can have the opposite effect. Benefits include more self-confidence, more self-efficacy, better mood, feelings of competence, enhanced ability to understand the problem and more goal achievement.
Give Constructive Feedback
People are more open to feedback than you might think. However, when you give positive or negative feedback, do it constructively so that the other person benefits from what you have to say. This means you avoid using judgmental language that blames and belittles others. Instead, address behaviors in a clear and specific way. Furthermore, relay what effect the other person’s actions had on you. Finally, listen to what the other person has to say and work on a solution together.
If you would like to explore these tips in a deeper way to better your communication for the workplace, reach out to me here for one-on-one coaching. I look forward to hearing from you!
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