In a recent survey featured in David Grossman's book "The Cost of Poor Communication", 400 companies with 100,000 employees determined their annual losses exceeded 62 million dollars compliments of bad communication.

I have personally experienced the tragic consequences of poor communication.

Dealing with clients, employees, and eager individuals on LinkedIn attempting to assert themselves at my expense has often revealed how poorly most people communicate.

When people fail to express their concerns, speak up to prevent misunderstandings, employ empathy, exercise compassion, articulate indifference, assumptions are made and relationships are ruptured.

The ramifications in business and our personal life are incalculable.

Never has this divide been more apparent than watching American politics today.

Both sides eager to advance their agenda at the expense of listening, cooperating, and considering what’s best for the American people.

When the allure of power and control becomes an obsession, leaders often lack the self-awareness required to prevent the cascading effects of “control”

With the challenges confronting business today, leaders can’t afford to be deficient in this critical area of importance.

Mastering the art of communication is essential to keeping our businesses on course and keeping our people stimulated, valued, appreciated, and highly engaged.

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."

--HELEN KELLER

TO BE A GREAT COMMUNICATOR LEADERS MUST DO 8 THINGS:

01. LISTEN

Despite all the chatter about active listening, most people still do it poorly, including the people offering that advice. Listening to understand is a skill that takes tremendous effort and involves fighting the temptation to focus on our response not hearing what’s being said.

02. ASK

Asking hard questions is a great way to extract deeper insight from our conversations. If our meetings aren’t frequently interrupted with great questions, our environment is likely sanitized with group thinking and poor engagement. Asking questions forces meaningful discussions.

"Teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability."

-- PATRICK LENCIONI

03. CLARIFY

Seeking clarity is key to understanding the essence of what’s being said. Understanding our audience and truly valuing diversity of thought is different than indoctrinating people in fashionable ideas that don’t improve corporate ecosystems.

04. OBSERVE

Great friends see the sorrow in our eyes and aren’t fooled by the smile on our face. The same is true with great leaders. They understand their people and pay attention to the nonverbal messages being sent in conversation. Most of what people say is nonverbal and better understanding how to interpret these cues is mandatory for great communication.

05. DIG DEEPER

There is a new generation of younger workers that have learned to communicate using social apps and text messages. I would argue, there’s plenty of room for improvement in how we engage with this demographic. Digging deeper and challenging people to communicate better is a leader’s responsibility, and coaching, mentoring, and modeling for our teams is imperative.

06. CADENCE

Great communicators keep people engaged by staying positive, energetic, and informative. They start and begin each social encounter with powerful questions, stories, quotes, statistics, and insight that forces people to think and stay involved. Keep the energy level high and stay focused on saying what needs to be said, not saying a lot.

07. VULNERABLE

Some conversations are awkward, uncomfortable and require honesty and vulnerability. Most people avoid these discussions and prefer to avoid tenuous conversations. Great leaders don’t have this luxury. We need to be comfortable addressing difficult topics, leading with self-awareness and challenging sensitive subjects.

08. ENJOY

Finally, work is supposed to be fun. Many leaders are uptight and too serious. This creates an atmosphere of boring team members that fear saying something "offensive". Great communicators understand humor, levity, fun and taking ourselves less seriously.

"If you want to lift yourself up, lift someone else up."

-- BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

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