"Communicating with IMPACT" - Patrick Donadio, MBA

Effective Leaders Are Positive. A good leader understands the key role communication skills play in their success. Are you the type of leader that brightens up the room when you walk in or when you walk out?Effective leaders understand the importance of building good relationships. One way to do that is to be a positive force in the organization. Employees will take your lead. Be someone that people want to talk to not someone people have to talk to ACTION: Compliment others - Look for what others are doing right. It is easier to find fault. Find positive behaviors and reward those actions. What is reward is repeated. Write/talk about the success of your team, project, department or the industry in general. I am not asking you to neglect the challenges going on just to make sure you have a balanced view. Encourage others to be positive. Ask questions to elicited the good things others are doing. I will be sharing more areas that can help leaders communicate their messages more

A good leader understands the key role communication skills play in their success. Effective Leaders Summarize. A summary is a good way to close a dialogue. The longer or more complicated the message, the more important it is to summarize what was said. People tend to remember the most recent information presented. So in a longer conversation or meeting be sure to do a brief summary. This is also a great way to check for understanding. ACTION: An effective way to close a conversation or meeting is by going over the key points that were discussed. Either you can summarize or you can ask the others to summarize from their perspective. For any action that needs to be taken, be sure to mutually discuss deadlines for their completion. In the meantime, if you have any successes or questions about leadership communication let me know and I will share them with my readers. E-mail me by clicking here

A good leader understands the key role communication skills play in their success. Effective Leaders Are Other Focused . The most important person in the conversation is the other person. “It’s all about me” is the mantra. The key here is it is not all about you... it is all about the other person . Find ways to focus on the other person in the conversation. For example, ask a question, bring up a current accomplishment of theirs (or their team/department)... ACTION Pay attention to how often you are "me" focused or "other" focused in your conversations. Keep a journal of what you notice. Here are a few questions to ask yourself: What drives me to the "Me" mode? How did I catch myself? How can I catch myself sooner? When I catch myself what can I do to shift to the "other" focus mode? (Hint - revisit this blog series for some tips...) In the meantime, if you have any successes or questions about leadership communication let me know and

A good leader understands the key role communication skills play in their success. Talking is great but listening is where the real learning takes place. Here are five ways to become an Active Listener: 1. Do an Internal Summary - Concentrate on what is being said and try to summarize the main points in your mind. Listen to understand, not to respond. 2. Ask Questions - Yes this is part of being an "Active Listener." If you don’t understand, wait for a break, politely interrupt and ask a question. 3. Take Notes - Engage yourself by taking notes. 4. Timing - If it is not a good time to talk, say so. Reschedule when you will be more focused 5. Listen with Your Eyes - Eye contact helps you stay focused and to see the non-verbal part of the message. Any mismatched signals could give you more insight. (See blog post Effective Leaders Communicate Effectively! ) ACTION Try using some of these techniques in your conversations this week. The key is to catch yourself not paying atten

Effective leaders understand that good communication also involves the ability to give clear direction and productive feedback. Here is another of my leadership communication skills tips to help you communicate your message more effectively: Listen - do you hear what I hear? Our brain can process information three times faster than people can speak. This GAP is what makes us either good or poor listeners. Listening is a learned skill that involves utilizing the GAP between how fast we think/process information and how fast others speak. So next time someone is talking with you, force yourself to use the GAP to stay focused on the other person. ACTION Practice catching yourself drifting off when someone is talking with you. The first step to change is awareness. Once you are aware of the challenge then you can adjust what you are doing with the GAP to be a better listener. Join me next time as I share "Five Ways to Use the GAP to be a Better Listener". So be sure to check b

Effective leaders understand that good communication also involves the ability to give clear direction and productive feedback. Here is another of my leadership communication skills tips to help you communicate your message more effectively: Communicate both priorities and deadlines. Sure you can walk up to an employee and ask for a list of tasks to be done. But without context, the employee might not do the tasks in the order you expected or might not complete them in the timeframe you wanted. Effective leaders communicate priorities and/or help employees prioritize. Effective leaders also are not afraid to ask, “When can you get this done?” Whenever possible, it is a good idea to create deadlines together. An employee might have several other projects going at the same time, and while you might not want to compromise time, you don’t want to sacrifice quality. ACTION During the next few weeks pay attention to how often you communicate priorities and deadlines. 1. Are you communicat

Effective leaders understand that good communication also involves the ability to give clear direction and productive feedback. They also know when to ask questions and how to encourage new ideas among their employees. Here is another of my leadership communication skills tips to help you communicate your message more effectively: Use Questions to Uncover Information. “Effective leaders use great questions.” When an employee comes to you with a challenge, instead of giving them an answer (the default mode for many leaders) ask them a question instead. Questions allow you to collect information before you give the answer (diagnose before you prescribe). Questions can empower employees by helping them think through a challenge and forcing them to search for answers or new ideas on their own. If they uncover the answers, employees are more likely to embrace them. Leaders can also use questions as a check for understanding and to see whether the listener got the essence of the message. “

Effective leaders understand that good communication involves sharing the bigger picture! Here is another of my leadership communication skills tips to help you communicate your message more effectively: Explain the “why” behind the message. More and more, people want to know the reasons behind what they are being asked to do. Not explaining the “why” often means employees won’t be engaged with what you are saying. By taking the time to explain why something needs to be done, you create an atmosphere of understanding and engagement. The more engaged the better result. ACTION During these challenging and hectic times, after you communicate a decision, a new policy or a change in existing procedures... take a few minutes and explain the “Why” behind the decision. Over the next few weeks I will be sharing a few areas that can help leaders communicate their messages more effectively. So be sure to check back. In the meantime, if you have any successes or questions about leadership commun

Effective leaders understand that good communication also involves the ability to give clear direction and productive feedback. They also know when to ask questions and how to encourage new ideas among their employees. Here is the first of my leadership communication skills tips to help you communicate your message more effectively: Adjust your message to the personality of the listener . When having an interpersonal conversation it helps to know the person's communication style. There are four communication styles. For today's discussion I will look at two - 1. Introverts 2. Extroverts . Based on where the person falls on this continuum you can adjust your conversation style to improve communication. Here are a few practical tips for dealing with each these two styles: ACTION If they are an Introvert ? You may want to ask open ended questions to draw out their thoughts. Also be patient. They may need a little time to think before they respond. If they are an Extrovert ? Yo

Communication skills are a fundamental tool to becoming a great leader. While simple tasks can often be communicated in a traditional way, the majority of communication is much more complex. In today’s work environment we are getting away from linear communication. Instead, our communication has shifted to being a two-way street, embracing situations involving teamwork and dialogue. Over the next few weeks I would like to talk about some key communication skills that leaders need to lead in these challenging times. Today let's start with the three components to interpersonal communication : 1. Words 2. Voice 3. Non-verbal action Words tend to be the focus of most people who are trying to communicate, but in reality they may make up only 7-15 percent of the message. The rest of the message is communicated through vocal inflection, tone and body language. ACTION - So during these hectic times before you communicate be sure to stop... and ask yourself... what tone and body language

Work smarter not harder in 2009! I help my clients grow their business by working “smarter not harder”. Here is one of the techniques I teach my clients in my new workshop, The Business Attraction Factor . One secret to working smarter not harder is to “systematize” your business. One area to systematize is your sales/marketing process. Here is how you can create your own sales/marketing system: First, choose your top 15-30 best clients from the past 2-3 years. Then, by looking backwards, analyze how you obtained them and what you did to help them make this list. For each client, begin asking and categorizing the answers to these three questions into three sections: 1) Before - What did you do to get them? 2) During - What did you do while you were servicing them? 3) After - What did you do after the sale to keep them or sell more to them? After dissecting each client you will begin to notice certain patterns you are repeating --common denominators. Write these common denominators on