Avoid These 3 Communication Mistakes That Hurt Your Credibility

The importance of communication skills in our day-to-day life cannot be underestimated." -- Mahtab Alam Quddusi, The Scientific World

Credibility is your most important asset. Communicating with skill fuels credibility.

It's clear that the impact of your communication is powerful, affecting even your relationships, within and outside the workplace. When we think about this simple fact, we realize there is a striking interdependence between our quality of life and the quality of our communication.

Whether you're communicating by speaking or in writing your communication affects the way people perceive your believability.

Building credibility takes time, but, as we know, it can be damaged or even lost due to even a single inaccuracy, misunderstanding, or a different breach of trust.

3 Credibility-Damaging Mistakes

Providing inaccurate information, muddling the delivery of communication resulting in unclear or confusing messages, and inadequate follow-through to prevent a breakdown in communication are 3 recognized mistakes that have the potential to severely damage credibility.

You can avoid making these 3 mistakes by prioritizing and focusing on 3 qualities that are critical to effective communication:

1. Accuracy
2. Clarity
3. Continuity

1. Accuracy

Accuracy is vital. Accuracy is about truthfulness and factual correctness. Relaying inaccurate information is putting your credibility at peril. We take unnecessary risks when we don't take the time to fact-check our information before we deliver it.

Accuracy also includes details. Grammar is important for both oral and written communication. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation need to be among your communication priorities. Small mistakes often lead to miscommunication and misunderstandings. Further, these types of errors imply a lack of caring about accuracy.

To ensure Accuracy, take steps such as these:

• Verify the truth and correctness of what you're going to communicate.
• Confirm and improve your knowledge of grammar by taking a course or purchasing using an educational workbook such as "The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation," by Jane Straus, Lester Kaufman and Tom Stern.
• Use tools such as Grammarly to check spelling, grammar and punctuation; use a plagiarism checker such as Plagiarism Detector to make sure you haven't used any quotes that require permission.

2. Clarity

Keeping our communication free of ambiguity and mixed messages will help ensure people can interpret your words with confidence that they understand your message fully. Communicating concisely and focusing on expressing your key points helps you to effectively provide your audience with take-aways they are looking for, quickly. Rambling can defeat your purpose by causing the important points to be lost among other details and can cause your audience to become distracted or stop listening.

Tailoring your communication to your audience makes it interesting and easily understood. Tailoring includes using vocabulary and/or terminology they know well, and sharing content that they view as relevant and useful to know.

Don't assume that others process information the same way you do. For example, do you prefer people get to the point first then follow with the background information? This is deductive thinking. The opposite is inductive thinking, where the person prefers being given all of the background information, being taken through the thought process first, leading up to the bottom line. Organize your communication to fit their preferences. At work, consider shaping your message to add value for people who have different needs and expectations as well as different uses for the information.

To ensure Clarity, take steps such as these:

• Prepare in advance. Write down your purpose in communicating; be specific. What is your central idea? What key messages do you want them to hear, understand and lock into their minds?
• Consider your audience. How will they use the information you're sharing? Do they need you to include context or background information? Is there specialized language such as acronyms or terminology that they may not know?
• Once your message is written, review it for conciseness. Remove filler and clutter by cutting out unnecessary words or details. Consider using an editing app, such as the Hemingway App.
• When writing, use formatting such as bullet points and headings to make it easier to read as well as to highlight important information and action items.
• If you will be communicating orally, practice, to help express your thoughts out loud as well as listen to your voice. Practicing is essential. It helps to organize your thoughts, speak from the heart and mind, and polish your speech. Practice will cue you to speak at an effective volume and to avoid speech mannerisms that detract from your message, such as mumbling or talking too fast.

3. Continuity

Communication needs to flow adequately and smoothly in all directions. The right amounts of repetition and frequency create consistency and open doors to two-way dialog. Continuity ensures mutual understanding and provides opportunities for discussion of questions and concerns. It enables people to build awareness of and participate in addressing unexpected issues or obstacles and to enjoy recognizing progress together. It keeps people connected.

To ensure Continuity, take steps such as these:

• When you're leading or managing people, don't be afraid to repeat your key messages. Repetition is a good tool to keep people on track and continuously aware of what's important.
• When you're working on tasks and projects as a member of an organization, remember to provide updates on status and progress to others who work with you.
• Communicate regularly, at a frequency that people agree will work well.
• Respond promptly and be proactive in your communication. This shows you are accessible to others as well as committed and competent.
• Be open to and ready to listen to reactions and concerns.

What's Next

Credibility is a basic survival tool." -- Rebecca Solnit

Now, you're equipped and ready to move forward with your communications, confident in three things:

1. You have the information and tools you need to avoid 3 of the most typical mistakes that have been found to inflict serious damage on credibility.
2. You can build and strengthen your credibility through your communication.
3. You have a more systematic process for communicating with credibility, one that will serve as a framework you can use and build on in the future.

Please share your thoughts, experience, suggestions, questions and comments along with your opinions!

Links to Tools - Note: Using these links will take you away from this webpage.

"The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation," by Jane Straus, Lester Kaufman and Tom Stern LINK: “The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation,” by Jane Straus, Lester Kaufman and Tom Stern

"Grammarly" LINK: https://www.grammarly.com/?transaction_id=1029f24f784292b9a504e9184c1b93&affiliateNetwork=ho&affiliateID=57175

"Hemingway App" LINK: https://hemingwayapp.com/

"Plagiarism Detector" LINK: https://plagiarismdetector.net/

P.S. It can be very helpful to ask a friend or colleague to review and provide feedback on your communication during your preparation. They can provide helpful feedback that helps you to improve it.

I'm pleased to thank Anthony Cheung for telling me about the Hemingway App, Plagiarism Detector as well as other writing and editing tools. Anthony is a writer on Medium.com who has generously given me feedback in the past.