When you keep the audience at the forefront of your mind when communicating, there are a number of real benefits.  These include:

Benefit 1:  You respect their time

Imagine you turned up to a presentation which was billed as a 60 minute talk and it was 30 minutes before you offered any worthwhile tangible content.  What do you think the feedback would be like?  Remember that people have a lot of competing demands on their time, so respect this and focus on giving them as much as you can in the time available.

Benefit 2:  Your build credibility

People listening to a presentation live or virtually want value.  If you are delivering value you are building your credibility as someone they can trust to provide them with tools, strategies and ideas to help them achieve better results.

Benefit 3: You fully focus

When you remember your audience and what you wanted to create for them at the end of the communication, you keep your focus on them and the results that they desired from attending.  What this means at a practical level is that you respond to what the audience really needs rather than promoting yourself.

Benefit 4: You get more buy-in

If you are responding to the issues that are important to your audience, you create more buy-in.  For example, if you are a leader or manager, specifically responding to the burning issues that your people are worrying about, you are more likely to get their support in implanting solutions.

Benefit 5: You are open to ideas

Many businesses are having to make tough choices right now.  If you are remembering your audience, chances are that you will build in sufficient time in your communication process to listen to ideas and suggestions that people closest to the point of delivery have.

Bottom Line- Communication is a great opportunity to get your message across and to get input from others.  So what steps can you take to focus more on your audience?

Start Noticing

Chances are that in business you attend a lot of meetings.  It is likely that in those meetings there is a lot of talking but not a lot of listening.  People believe that if they are talking they are contributing.  They therefore make remarks just to feel like they are contributing.

Start noticing how much time you and your team put into listening in the work place.

Avoid Interrupting

How often do you see someone in full flow explaining something important when another person interrupts them?  Chances are that you (and indeed all of us) interrupt from time from time to time.  The problem is:

• The other person is less likely to listen to you

• If you interrupt when another person is in mid flow they lose their train of thought

Set yourself a challenge of not interrupting and see what difference it makes to your contributions and quality of decisions.

Stop Finishing Other Peoples Sentences

Sometimes it can be helpful to fill in gaps for someone if they are stuck.  Do it too often and it becomes a real irritation.  Even worse, you could end up putting your foot in it and reminding the other party of something that they may have forgotten about (like a time the service was not as good as they would not have liked).

Stop Trying To Points Score

How often you have been asked a question and then as you give your answer, the other person starts to tell you what they believe is an even better story related to them?  If you ask someone a question, by all means share your experiences to build rapport, but not to appear superior.

Don’t Jump In Too Quickly

On many occasions people just want to be heard.  They are not looking for your advice or suggestions.  A common mistake that many people make when it comes to listening is to jump in too quickly offering their view.  Make sure that you have given the other person the opportunity to be heard and only then offer your suggestions.

Reflect Back

When listening, it is often useful to reflect back in your own words what you understand from what has been said.  The key benefits of reflecting back include:

• The other party recognises that the listener is trying to understand

• It allows the opportunity to clarify

Listening is a highly sought after attribute in managers and leaders.  By making some simple changes, you can start to excel in this area.   What tips would you add?

Winning the war for talent

In many businesses there is a constant challenge of recruiting and subsequently retaining the best people.  Coaching can help to build relationships in the organisation and also give a strong message to employees and potential hires that people development is taken seriously.

Leadership development

Many employers offer opportunities to employees to gain professional qualifications, masters levels degrees and participate in the in-house development programmes.  All of these will work for employees but for some the opportunity to work one to one with someone else is much more effective.  It allows open dialogue and attention to be focused on those areas of improvement that will deliver greatest impact.

Increasing productivity

The opportunities here are almost endless.  Someone could be work with a coach on work organisation, delegation, time mastery, project planning, process re-design, goal setting, decision making to name just a few.

Communication

Like productivity the opportunities in the area of communication are significant.  It might be presenting a new strategy, getting buy-in to a change programme, asking more effective questions when handling conflict,improving presentation skills, listening more effectively or even how to write in a more compelling way.

So what other areas would you add to the list of challenges that can be tackled by coaching?  Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Speaking

How many times each day do you speak.  Probably quite a few.  As a leader you need to get your message across as clearly as you can.  No matter whether it is a vision, one to one meeting or a presentation of results on performance you need to get your message across.

Writing

Emails, reports, letters to suppliers and customers, presentations, web content are just a few of the types of writing that you need to undertake.  All successful writing relies on you being clear on the purpose and thinking about how to structure it in the best way to make it as easy as possible to understand.

Listening

Listening is probably the most challenging of all the communication skills most likely because most of us are never taught to listen.  When we listen we get ideas, insights, suggestions, understanding and the chance to create even more success. 

You probably know that communication is key to your success.  So what would have the greatest impact when it came to you developing your communication effectiveness as a leader?

1. Check the equipment in advance
2. Make sure you know how to load the presentation
3. Take a few minutes to relax before giving a presentation
4. Don’t try to memorise words, just remember your headline and key messages
5. Pace yourself
6. Try not to be too serious- remember it is not life or death
7. Have fun

What tips do you offer when it comes to delivering a great presentation?