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Communication: An Essential Part of Professional Development
During your career, you’ve probably attended a workshop, conference, or training session to gain new skills and insights you need for your job. After all, most industries either require or encourage professional development.
Maybe you’ve pursued professional development by getting a certification in your field or by taking a workshop that applies directly to your position. Maybe you’ve gone to a huge conference and chosen which presentations you wanted to attend based on your professional growth needs. The truth is, all of these methods of development are fantastic because they lead to a stronger resume and an increase in knowledge and skills in your field.
Now, what if I told you that professionals across all industries and in all positions — from administrative personnel to high-level executives — could benefit from communication training?
According to Indeed.com, communication training is among the top 10 goals professionals should set for their career development.
Communication skills go beyond writing grammatically correct emails and reports; they also entail speaking clearly and empathetically to colleagues, clients, customers, and anyone else you work with on a day-to-day basis.
Since it’s still early in the year, it’s the perfect time to kick-start your professional development. So, let’s dive into the benefits of communication training so you can consider investing in it in 2021.
It Teaches You How to Create Connection
Now more than ever, human connection is essential in most careers. After all, people are beginning to crave humanity-plus business — business that embraces empathy and compassion.
Communication training is an unexpected way to learn how to promote humanity-plus business because it gives you tangible tools to use empathy successfully in your business relationships.
For example, without communication training, you may accidentally use sympathy instead of empathy, which could cause miscommunication because instead of coming across as understanding, you could come across as pitying the other person.
You could also accidentally use passive communication because you think you’re being nice. Passivity leads to the miscommunication you want to avoid because when people are passive, they typically leave out essential information that the other person needs to know.
Let me walk you through what I mean...
I recently had a conversation with an employee about how to avoid passive language. In her emails, she wanted to come across as nice, so she would often ask others if they were able to complete timely tasks. This often led to miscommunication because the person who received the email assumed the task was optional, even though it wasn’t. Once it clicked in her head that being passive is a disservice to everyone, she was able to begin communicating more assertively, while still being kind and empathetic.
Communication training combats all of these issues. When you have more communication knowledge, you’re truly able to learn how to be empathetic and kind in your professional conversations without being passive.
It Benefits Your Personal Life
Once you learn to avoid these common sources of miscommunication, you'll also begin to create real connections in your everyday work scenarios. After all, you’ll be communicating effectively, and you’ll be empathetic, which will allow you to create a sense of trust with colleagues, supervisors, and other business relations.
Since I created my online communication training program, The Collection Advantage, several people have shared similar stories. Communication training has transformed their relationships with friends and families, not just their work relationships. These people are going to work each day and creating fantastic connections with co-workers, customers, and clients. In turn, their everyday professional communication habits are bleeding into their personal lives, which has actually helped their personal connections.
For example, one of my clients shared that he struggled at first to buy into the power of communication. He made sure to use the communication principles I trained his agency on while he was at work, and that was the extent of it. That is, until he saw the fantastic results.
He noticed that he wasn’t just making connections with consumers; he was seeing real, positive changes in his personal life. And, his employees were seeing similar changes in their lives as well.
In fact, one of the new hires at his agency who is only 18 years old said the communication training has allowed him to mature in her personal life and become a mentor for others.
Ultimately, communication training is something that will benefit you in all aspects of life, which is why investing in this form of professional development can truly be life-changing.
It Gives You a Leg Up at Work
If you complete a communication training, you’ll instantly have an advantage at work. For example…
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Any common pain points that arise during your workday will be easier to handle because you’ll know what to say when.
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You’ll be better equipped to de-escalate difficult phone calls, emails, or in-person conversations.
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You’ll be able to connect with your colleagues and supervisors on a deeper level while still remaining professional.
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You’ll gain new strengths in other areas, such as leadership, because you’ll feel more confident sharing your opinions with your supervisors and colleagues.
Having increased confidence to tackle everyday tasks with your newfound communication skills will ultimately benefit your overall professional development.
Having enhanced communication skills is almost like the gift that keeps on giving because once you learn to communicate in a way that works, you’ll be able to handle situations that you had struggled to handle in the past.
Maybe you struggle to share your thoughts during work meetings because you’re afraid you won’t articulate them correctly. After completing communication training, you’ll have an increased sense of confidence when it comes to sharing your thoughts because you’ll now know how to share them in a way that people will understand.
At the end of the day, you will definitely stand out at work if you invest in communication training.
What Are You Waiting For?
If you haven’t already, put communication training on your list of 2021 goals. You definitely won’t regret the amazing benefits that effective communication brings to the table.
Want to learn more about the power of effective communication? Order my book Conscious Communications on Amazon today! Also, you can book a free strategy call with me here to bring communication training to your company. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn for many more communication tips and tricks.
To see this post as it was originally written, visit maryshores.com.