Transcripts

Dianna Booher:
Because they don't do it purposefully - they basically think "I've been talking since I was two therefore I'm a good communicator." And they don't realize that just because you're gregarious and you might have great interpersonal skills that you don't necessarily get your message across.

Dianna Booher, author of the book The Voice of Authority…

And you never know if you are a good communicator until you verify that the person got the message you sent. And what we often mistakenly do is; "Do you understand?" And of course the other person always says, "Sure." I mean who's going to say, "No, I'm stupid I didn't get it?" So what you have to do is ask some specific questions like; "How is this going to change how you intended to do "X"?" Or, "How long do you think it'll take you to accomplish this goal?" Or, "How many people are you going to need to handle this project?" You can tell by what they say if they really did get the message you thought you communicated.

And think about this - people judge your competence and ability mostly by how you communicate, in other words…

Most people can't watch you do your job. You can be a fabulous accountant, a fabulous engineer, software designer - but people only see the results of your work. And that's what's demonstrated as you tell people about what you did.

Tomorrow how to format your communication for maximum impact - I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.