7 Ways to communicate effectively

According to Dale Carnegie, author of the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, 85% of success on the job is due to one's ability to lead people and personality. Only 15% of success is due to one's technical knowledge (18). Therefore, the ability to communicate with people is vital from engineering to business, and is essential in increasing your success tremendously. For this reason, having proper communication skills is not something you should leave to chance in your business career, as well as in your personal life. So following are seven ways/tips that will help you to succeed in communicating with others.

1. Have self-worth

It's impossible to communicate effectively unless you feel valuable yourself. With self-worth you can move mountains. Without self-worth you'll be trudging between the valleys. If you don't feel good about yourself and about what you're doing, or if you don't have self-confidence, then how could one make someone else feel good and confident about themselves?

2. Get interested in other people

I know this 'way' may sound like a paradox but it's not. You would think that you have to be interested in other people in order to want to talk to them. However, most people when they speak are plainly interested in themselves and in what they have to say.

The only reason to have a conversation should be to have some sort of exchange. Although we're not talking money all the time, there should be an exchange such as love, friendship, caring, companionship, etc. The main reason most people don't communicate effectively and don't get anything out of their conversations is that they overly-concentrate on the getting and not the giving.

3. Open up a person's heart

This can be done in five ways. (1) Ask probing open-ended questions. What made you get into the field you're currently in? What do you like to do? What's on your mind? How was your week? How was your day? These are all questions you should ask. Don't just ask obvious questions, ask less obvious personal questions, that really will get them thinking and relating to you. The more, you open up their heart and yours, the more they'll want to be with you, help you, buy products from you, etc. Warning: Don't just ask questions. Interject some of your own comments, opinions and especially life experiences. If you don't interject some of your own comments, they will feel annoyed as they'll think you're interviewing them.

(2) Compliment them. Tell them things like you look great. You do a great job; you're a great writer, composer, pianist, waiter, waitress, etc. (3) Remember a person's name and say it often. A person's name is one of the first words a baby hears. Therefore, a person's name is magic to his or her ears. (4) Smile. (5) Use humor.

4. Listen at least two times more than you talk

You were given two ears and one mouth for a reason. You should be listening twice as much as long as you speak. Part of listening effectively means asking follow-up questions. Asking follow up questions shows the other person that you're listening effectively. For instance, if a person tells you they're in a band, you can ask them what instrument they play, where they play, how often they play, how they like it, etc. A lot of times, we are so much in our own heads, thinking about what to say next, when the next question is right in front of us - if we only listen.

5. Diversify yourself

Try doing different things such as sports, dancing, volunteer work, reading, etc. This will give you subjects to talk about with people as well as chances to meet people, sans reading, but you can join a reading group. Being diversified will overall make you more charming. Lastly, being diversified also gives you a form of status. People generally like people who are active, not someone who just sits on his couch all day.

6. Understand that your worth never changes

If I had a million dollar check and I were to crumble it up, you would still want it. If I were to then put it on the floor put grease on it and proceed to step on it, you would still want it. My friend, you are worth much more than a million dollars.

Whenever you go into a conversation, you are worth over a million dollars. When you step out of the conversation, out of the date, or out of the sale whether won or lost, you are still worth over a million dollars. Your internal worth never changes. Therefore, never be afraid to take risks, and work outside of your comfort zone as far as engaging in conversations is concerned. No matter what, your own internal $1,000,000+ worth never changes.

7. Follow the step-ladder to success

You can read this article and theorize all day with friends about proper communications, but until you get up 'on bat' or initiate a conversation, you're not progressing. Think of a heavyweight boxer, before challenging the champ, he's got to beat the contenders. The contenders or low-rank fighters, give a boxer the experience and self-confidence he needs to face the champion. The same thing goes with communications, in order to talk to that top-level executive, or get that perfect date, you have to have the experience and self-confidence which comes from talking to your second choice of date, or low-level manager. Of course, if you don't try at all, you won't go anywhere either, so you must have the attitude of try, try, try, and not succumb to fear.

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Word of warning, with this knowledge you must not tell people what to do. Doing this will ultimately alienate people from you. Instead, be humble with this knowledge, don't let people know you know it, but like Benjamin Franklin would, practice these virtues or 'ways' daily. The key word here is practice. You can theorize all day but until you practice these skills, you will not see any results or grow any bigger as a person. Like in school, you had textbook classes and laboratory classes. You better get out of the textbook and apply these ideas in the lab, in this case, in this laboratory called life.

Carnegie, Dale. (1981). How to Win Friends and Influence People. United States. Simon and Schuster.