Ten core skills for communicators

Ten core skills for communicators

How do you get the best from yourself and your workforce? By developing these core skills, you should be well on your way to communication heaven.

1. Face-to-face
You need to get the best from your most effective communication channel by knowing precisely how and when to use it. This will involve listening, understanding nuance and even knowing when not to communicate.

2. Writing skills
Good writing never goes out of style, because it maximizes the impact of messages. All communicators should optimize their technical skills and work on a style which compels and motivates their audience to change its behavior.

3. Business literacy
Fluency in business jargon will earn the respect of senior management. Key competency areas are budget balancing, financial awareness, marketing theory and practice, business law, quantitative analysis and brand management.

4. Working in a wired world
Communicators need to understand the rules of new media: an understanding of why writing for the web is different and an ability to take control of e-mail to exploit its benefits and avoid its pitfalls. Use the corporate intranet to achieve wins for communication.

5. Strategic insight
Link your strategy with your organization's. It starts with crafting a communication plan which tackles the key issues facing the organization. It requires an understanding of both cross-functional strategy and how the audience applies communication to achieve strategic goals.

6. Building strategic models
This is how you breathe life into your communication plan and get key messages to stakeholders through the most effective channels. Use communication mapping to promote corporate strategy and models, which help to identify opinion leaders and pinpoint issues. This skill will require an understanding of how people use models.

7. Issue identification
Recognizing danger zones before they become problems for your company is a truly indispensable skill. Today's communicator needs to be media savvy and must understand the emotional and rational aspects of the brand. Look at both internal (e.g. employee surveys) and external (e.g. web activity, proposed laws) sources of intelligence.

8. Coaching
This could mean anything from helping managers with a presentation to identifying weak points in skills and processes. Coaching demands a wide-ranging skill set including presentation and motivational skills, training needs analysis and an understanding of how people learn. Remember, top-level support precedes high-level counsel.

9. Influence
Strategic alliances benefit the communicator and add more value to the business. If a communicator can't influence people, he or she will never change the way they work. Key characteristics of influence include focus (for impact), awareness, judgment, accessibility and trust.

10. Measurement
Communicators need to apply data to solve business problems and demonstrate cost-effectiveness. The challenge is to know what works and achieving that means measuring as you go. Focus on outcomes and use executive interviews and feedback management in addition to basic tools like surveys and focus groups.

source: the HUB