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Lack of Communication Skills Can Break your Business
What sets the successful high-achieving businesses apart from those who struggle? What is the secret behind their success? The secret begins with the foundation of great communication skills. If your business wants to achieve high levels of success, have happy customers and employees that don’t want to leave, then good communication is the crucial key.
Having a team with strong communication skills (both internally and externally) can increase productivity and ensure employees have positive work experiences. Not only that, but it can also improve the teams’ relationships in every aspect of life.
Good communication begins with the ability to listen attentively and possessing empathy. It is important to have an open mind and to learn how to give helpful feedback. To have a harmonious team, you need to have confidence and sometimes get a little vulnerable. One of my favorite quotes from author and shame and vulnerability researcher Brené Brown is “Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.”
Effects of Having Poor Communication in a Team
One of the impacts of poor communication in a team is that the overall stress levels can be high. If leadership does not communicate well, everyone in your group can feel that every task is urgent. This can cause them to get anxious and finish it faster but often with mistakes. It can also make them experience feeling overworked, which is bad for job satisfaction and mental health. If this continues, it can cause deadlines to be missed, tasks to be forgotten, and the overall team dynamic to decline (OR employees to leave).
Not only can poor communication affect the productivity of the team, but it can also affect their relationships. Having poor communication can lead to erosion of trust and contribute to dangerous work culture issues. Emails and text messages can be misunderstood leading to coworkers blaming one another when mistakes occur. This poor communication can lead to poor performance and high staff turnover. Even beyond the impact on your staff, it can also affect your clients. They will become dissatisfied with the group’s adherence to deadlines and the quality of work.
Importance of Having Good Communication Skills in a Team
Good communication is the key to having harmonious relationships in the team and achieving success in your business. Here is how you can help foster good communication in your team.
Make Your Goals Reachable
Good communication will mean the work is divided evenly. Having effective communication can make working for deadlines peaceful. They can also reach the targets easily with high-quality output. Goals are clear, communication is easy and everyone can bounce ideas around and help each other out.
Lessen the Conflict
Conflicts are typical to happen in a team. Whether it is due to unfair treatment or misunderstanding, it has a large impact on the completion of the project. This is where good communication skills come in. Good communication can give them the power to speak up about their thoughts or feelings while feeling safe. With this, the team can create solutions together to solve the problem and lessen the conflict.
Improve the Team’s Efficiency
The advantage of knowing their role in a team can help in improving efficiency. Employees can stop worrying about others since they have their tasks and know what is expected of them. When one of the members of your team is not able to finish their task, the other team members can help them. They can think of a solution before the problem escalates further. To be able to do this, the team needs good communication.
Related: Importance of Investing in Public Speaking & Presentation Skills