What critical thinking skills help clients become effective communicators?

Know your audience. Socialize, let them know you from your accomplishments. Be honest, talk clearly, cite the good, bad and failures. Talking about failures your audience learns that empathy, respect is earned and real results take more than 90 days. Assess your people every 90 days, praise and constructively critique, have solutions, build confidence and most of all, you are NOT a counselor, stay out of their personal lives.

Ensure your message is clear and concise. Understand who you are speaking to. Include reflective thinking. Past experiences help to connect. Be open to receiving feedback with an open mind.

One of the best things is to ask relevant questions that can help to gain more clarity. Open-minded questions help to get quick answers and reflect on them quickly.

In my experience, actively listening in the workplace is a simple shift in mindset. While the other person is speaking, instead of thinking about what I’m going to say next, I’m attempting to understand the information they are trying to convey. Then, to ensure both parties are on the same page, I relay the information I understood back to them. This tool has been pivotal in my business to business relationships over the past year and a half!

Here is where helping them work through the options and think about what implementation would be like and the effects that would likely result is helpful. Walking through things with them helps them uncover the areas that are off or need to be strengthened. Helping them understand how to better assess options builds their skills in this area and keeps us from being seen as negative.

I use a three-part strategy. I let the ideas flow so I don't lose an important idea by editing as I write. In the first review, I get rid of non-essential phrases/words as I check for readability (no jargon or $5 words). Then I read it as the recipient and make sure the information that matters most to them is first and supported by the additional details. It's a strategy I have helped others use as well.

Formatting also helps. Use bullets when possible and start them with the action word. Keep paragraphs short. Scan the communication and see if the key points jump out at you. If they don't, you might have extra words you can get rid of.

Say what you mean, and say all of it. Saying what you actually mean is a skill that is much harder to master than you would think. One way to improve it is by writing down what you are trying to say and read it as if you had no prior knowledge and evaluate if you’re getting your point across. Over time, you’ll be able to do this on cue and be a better communicator.