Note To Management: Communication Skills Can Improve Your Bottom Line

In the current economic market all businesses are seeking ways to streamline costs and improve their return on investment. A common belief is that people are the most valuable resource. However in many companies this is not followed up by action and investment. Effective communication skills can make or break a business and this can be an area of complacency for organisations.

Communication skills training delivers return on investment in many ways. Communication skills often bear the label 'soft skills' and this term can be misconstrued as less important than its more tangible counterpart 'hard skills' or technical skills.

However, as senior managers and those responsible for learning and development in organisations assess training needs, many have come to the conclusion that it is these softer skills that are more vital during the downturn. Reports show that budgets are being diverted from areas such as compliance to leadership and people management skills.

Investing in people works on many different levels and must include a complementary mixture of both hard and soft skills. Communication skills are vital to the effective running of any business, ensuring both productivity and staff morale are high. Every year massive amounts of money are spent within organisations on the reactive management of situations which could have been avoided if a pro-active approach was taken to investing in the communication skills of their people.

Any manager will testify a certain proportion of their time is spent on tasks which they might deem frustrating or unnecessary. These can include poorly managed or unnecessary meetings, conflict management, and incorrect channels of communication. Most managers will be able to relate to one or more of these symptoms of ineffective communication skills.

By definition, these symptoms of ineffective communication skills are costing your organisation a great deal of money. A manager's role in an ideal world is not to reactively plug leaks, but to strategise how productivity can be maximised and to create an environment where the optimum amount of people can work to their creative best. Communication skills are the key to creating such an environment.

Within the current economic climate employees are generally more aware and even more defensive about their role and job security within their organisation. This can lead to an escalation in conflict as management sees a trend of blame culture and defensive mentality within the work place. Extreme cases aside, many internal conflicts come from basic misunderstandings that can be avoided through instilling basic communication skills within your team.

A hypothetical example could be that an impending deadline is the source of pressure within a departmental team; team member A needs an update from team member B in order to carry on with their work, so A sends a curt email as A feels that it is saving time by doing so and not distracting B. However the email has the opposite effect on B which leads to the development of a conflict which potentially results in a reduction in productivity.

This is an archetypal situation where basic communication skills could have avoided this initial conflict by simply choosing the correct method and style of communication. Communication skills are based around considering others and their personality when communicating with them, knowing the team around you, not reacting hastily to something and knowing how you communicate with others, adjusting your style to suit them.

All these communication skills (along with more client-facing skills such as presentation skills, sales skills, negotiation skills and influencing skills, are fundamental and make a positive impact on your bottom line.