Transcription
The right business communication skills can mean the difference between success and failure for your international team. And today, you'll see how just three of these communication skills can make your team more confident, more efficient, and improve their working relationships. Let's go.
Hi, I'm your English coach Christina, and welcome to Business English with Christina, where you become better at business and better at English. And before we get into this lesson, remember to subscribe to my channel so that you can get more business English lessons that'll help you with your communication, your confidence, and your career.
Are you great at active listening? What about your team? Now before you say, "yes, Christina, I know active listening, I do it all the time, I'm very good at it, et cetera, et cetera." Really think about this question because active listening, it's one of those skills that it's not so natural for us. It's just not intuitive, but it is something that makes a major difference in your communication style. And think about your team. Would you describe your team as dynamic, competent, outgoing, experts, et cetera? Then there's probably a good chance that they like to talk a lot, but maybe they could use some help becoming active listeners. If you want your team to feel confident and to be able to really build rapport with their coworkers, with clients of your company, uh, with prospects, whoever, you'll really want to encourage active listening.
And one simple way that you can improve active listening is actually not with your ears, with your body. It's your body language. And one way to show that you're listening is to tilt your head a little to the side, to keep your posture open, and to look at the person that is speaking to you. Here's a tip that it sounds easy, but in practice, I mean, try it. You'll see that it's, it's a lot harder than it sounds. And it's simply when you're listening to someone speaking, don't interrupt them and don't respond right away. Instead, after your teammate finishes speaking, try to rephrase what they just said like this: "You know, there's a conference coming up in the States in a few months, and I feel like we should really send some people from our team because a lot of the people in our target market are gonna be there." So you're saying that it's worth it to invest that much money to send some of our team to a conference in the US? And if you notice, you don't have to agree or disagree, just show that you listened. And that creates a lot of confidence and trust between the two people.
Communicating, also, taking care about how you communicate your goals with your team can build confidence, but also it's a huge boost for efficiency. And think about it. When you know what you're supposed to do, what the goal is, what you have to do to reach that goal, you're way more likely to get it done. I mean, I know that if I've got my day planned, I've got my to-do list, I am usually quite efficient at getting it done. And if I wake up and I start the day and I'm like, "all right, what are we doing today? I don't know," like it's a guarantee that I will waste probably half of the day. Plus, when you or your team, you're not exactly sure what you're supposed to accomplish, that creates resistance, which means it's hard to get started. It means you go and check your email before you actually do something that's more important, and that slows down your efficiency and your progress.
So here are a few tips to make your goals clearer: Talk about your goals in formal conversations dedicated to that. I mean, you know, it's great that your team sits and talks around the coffee machine or the water cooler, but you don't want those important conversations about your goals to just happen, you know, in a casual conversation. So hold an official meeting, dedicated this to this, and it can be a meeting in a fun place. It doesn't have to be like sitting down at a table in a gray room with a PowerPoint or something. Just make sure that someone is taking notes because that's gonna help you to do something else that is also really important and that is follow up. So maybe you send out an email or you share a document with your team, uh, with a summary of your shared goals. Maybe you check in personally with your team members to see how they're doing on their goals and actually taking the time to talk to them, to ask questions and to listen. And especially in an international context where people are working hard to communicate in different languages, then following up is even more important to make sure that everyone is on the right track and everyone understands everything.
Now, here's an idea that maybe is not the most obvious when you think about improving your business communication skills, but it's essential, especially if you're working in an international team. And that is take stress into account and manage it. I mean, think about it. Maybe your team is really good at speaking in English and communicating when they're relaxed, like when it's, uh, a casual conversation or they're with their friends or they're, I don't know, just speaking English on their vacation, whatever. But as a neuro-language coach, I can tell you that when you're in a situation where there is pressure, where there are some high stakes, where there is stress, your communication skills will suffer because you're stressed out. And that sort of creates this feeling of, you know, feeling blocked. And if you're trying to communicate in a, like a high-stake situation in a different language, that is just going to amplify the stress and you can't avoid stress, it's a natural reaction, but you can plan for it. You can practice the situation with your team so that it feels more familiar and more comfortable. You can encourage your team to adopt practices like meditation, going out for sports regularly, maybe going out for a team workout, um, the morning of that big meeting to really evacuate some of that stress. Or if you don't have time or it's just not possible, just take a minute to calm your breathing. You know, it, it sounds cliché. I mean, we say it so much: "Take a deep breath." Um, but it really does work because what it does is it slows down the brain waves, it slows down your, your heart and the blood that is pumping fast through your body. And that helps to create a situation of calm. So the minimum, go and hide in the toilets a little bit and take a few deep breaths before this big meeting. And that is going to help you to manage that stress.
And if you need help planning and preparing for your next challenging business communication situation, did you know that I have some live free interactive workshops every month for key business situations? You can get your invitation to these workshops in the link that's below this video. It's absolutely free. It's once a month and it can really help you make a difference. And if you don't use it, you lose it.
So here's how you can use some of the things you learned today. In the comments below, tell me what is a communication situation or an event in your business that makes you feel stressed and how do you manage that stress? Tell us about it in the comments. I'm just curious to see what your own stress management techniques are to help you be better at business and at your English. And if this lesson was helpful for you, there are three simple ways that you can tell me and I would love to know. You can give this lesson a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to my channel to get the future business English lessons. You can go over to my blog and read a very nice, very thorough, very complete, um, article about business communication skills and stress management and doing all of that in English. And you can watch this next lesson, "How to Get Unstuck, nine practical Expressions for English Conversations." Thank you so much for improving your English and your business with Business English with Christina, and I'll see you next time.