Small Business Blog from Atlantic Canada

I am "CA" Atreya (PMP, MBA), the author of this blog. I help businesses in Atlantic Canada achieve their BHAG successfully. You may subscribe to this blog using a feed reader (RSS).

I am generally a bit wary about business books that are not recommended to me. There are too many books out there with so-called experts that provide little value. So it was with apprehension that I picked up the book “Mastering Communication at Work – How to lead, manage and influence” by Becker and Wortmann. By the end of the first chapter, I actually learnt something. Now having read the book, I now wonder why do they not have a formal course on communication in business schools. I digress.

My curiosity piqued, I wanted some stats on the % of time we spend communicating. Didn’t get the answer I was looking for, but found another interesting stat. A survey conducted by the US Department of Labor found that of the total time we spend communicating, 22% goes to reading, 23% speaking and 55% listening. We listen more than we speak? I think we all know a few people where we think the percentages of speaking and listening are reversed. Let’s put some numbers around this stat. Let’s assume that as leaders or managers, we spend 90% of the time communicating. In a typical 8 hour work day that’s 7.2 hours spent on communication. So that’s only 1.65 hours (99 minutes) each day we spend talking; selling our ideas or negotiating or preparing a business case or providing feedback. My impression was that as managers and leaders, we spent more time than that!

Do you now see the need to become an effective speaker, considering we only have 99 minutes daily to win people over? If you question my assumption on the % of time we spend communicating and think this is a high number, well, think again. Any lower percentage will only reduce the amount of time we will spend talking in any given work day. While listening is one of the most important pieces to communication the book, Mastering Communications at Work deals with how to make the most of the 99 minutes you spend talking.

Be it presentations, providing critical feedback, selling, motivating your team or interviewing, the book offers practical suggestions on how to maximize the return on your speaking time. It offers insights into how to build trust, credibility and relationships with everyone within and outside the organization. The book is written in a conversational style and the authors make effective use of case studies and examples to drive home their point.

“Leaders and mangers often say things that send the wrong message and unintentionally bring up topics that distract the teams” (p 57). How often has THAT happened to you?

Here is summary of effective communications as outlined by Becker and Wortmann:

1. Figure out the amount of detail needed by your listener prior to or when you make your point.
2. Speak and act in a way so as to increase your credibility in the eyes of your peers, subordinates and superiors.
3. Figure out what motivates your listener and speak to that.
4. Prepare a context to your message and stay within that frame.
5. Actively listen to feedback provided by your listener. Empathize.
6. Vary tone, pitch, volume and speed to keep your listener focused on what you are saying.
7. The above six lessons are then applied to situations like meetings, presentations, hiring, providing critical feedback and handling passive aggressive individuals.

They could not have put it better: Communication is a hard skill. But it can be learned by conscious effort and diligence.

If you are aware of gaps in your communication skills then this book might be for you. I would value your feedback if you have read the book. Here is the link to Ethan & Jon’s blog. They have some interesting posts on the topics covered in the book.

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