Effective Communication — Part 3

Delivering the content

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Welcome to the final part of Effective communication in which we will discuss content delivery. If you haven’t read the first two parts which include “Know your audience” and “Preparing your content”, I highly recommend you to read them. It shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes of your time.

Effective communication is all about conveying your thoughts, ideas, and content to the next person without loss of information and it doesn't matter “how good your content is?”, or “how patient and understanding your audiences is?”, if you fail to deliver the content properly then you have wasted the opportunity of creating a positive change in this universe which you are not going to get again. Before you go ahead and present your content to anyone the first thing you need to make sure is “Are you ready?, Do you want to use this opportunity with this content and preparation?”. If the answer is “yes”, then okay else you need to stop and first prepare yourself before you go ahead with the information sharing.

1. Information Sharing via Writing

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It is the easiest form of information sharing. You don’t need to dress well before you share an email or post a letter. Your expressions, mood, and language capabilities don’t create much influence on the already written content. However, this is difficult for someone who doesn’t know about language, grammar, proper use of words and phrases. Unlike speaking, the quality of writing is visible by the words. The reader will spot the errors you made in writing and before you know they will take it as a sign of incompetence. The biggest benefit is “Irrespective of your mistakes, the readers will be able to see the central idea and information that you wish to convey and if that information is important to them, they will remember it and praise your work.”

Before you share any thought, idea, or information (even if it is a casual message between you and your friend) try to make sure that you use all the words properly. Don’t use vague terms and phrases, make it a habit of putting everything clearly with a clear indication of what you wish to convey. This practice will strengthen your writing skills. See the grammatical errors, check the words that you have used, and if they make perfect sense. Try to be uniform in the selection of words and make sure the reader finds it easy to understand and connect. If you are showing off your vocabulary and the reader needs a dictionary to understand it, you might have created an influence of being a highly literate person but the aura of “information” is lost. Before you do so, ask yourself “Whether the central theme (idea, information) is more important or the words?”

Pro tips:

1. Use words that are easy to understand and popular at that time
2. Always check your work to spot any issues with spelling, grammar, incorrect use of words, etc.
3. Use examples to highlight your idea and support it
4. Don’t create complex situations. The information should be clearly identifiable.

2. Information sharing via conversation (telephonic/ audio conversations)

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We are doing it on regular basis. The majority of such information is casual talks and professional conversations. The key here is “your tone matters”. The information is hidden in the tone of your speech. The confidence, fast and anxious breathing pattern, repeated words, incorrect use of words, and every other minor detail is being observed by the reader. So, before you start the conversation, please check your surroundings, the equipment you would be using during the conversation (phones, mic, etc.).

A silent environment where there are no background noises, a simple uniform tone that is neither fast nor slow (depending on the comfort of the audience), clear & correct sentences is all you need. You might not believe it but the quality of speech of a person who is standing, sitting, and lying on the couch is different in each situation. Thus, you better sit and focus before you start saying something. Focus on your breath, give ample time to the audience before starting the next sentence so that they can absorb whatever you have said.

Pro tips:

1. Sit with correct posture before speaking
2. Don’t rush. Use a calm, composed and settled uniform tone
3. Always start the conversation by greeting the audience, introducing yourself and creating the initial bond
4. Try to engage the audiences by asking in between if they are following what you are conveying
5. Don’t use this form for the long form of conversations
6. Having a written note of what you want to cover in this conversation is important because mostly the audio conversations end up with the speaker losing track of what is covered and what remains
7. Rehearse

3. Presenting your idea yourself

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This is the final form. Here you are presenting your idea yourself. You can either use a recorded video to covey your content or talk in person. The listener is not only listening to you but also your observing your body language. He/ she can see you pacing on the stage or twisting your fingers. Your lousy style of standing, rapid blinking of eyes, jumping while walking, etc. is visible to the listener. And these things affect content delivered. Even if you have really good content, if you are not a good presenter, your idea won’t have much acceptance among the audiences.

You can always improve by practicing but it is also inherent and influenced by your own personality. Some of us are terrible in public presentations and need a lot of presentation for 1-minute introduction than others who can present an hour-long topic after preparing for 5 minutes.

I belong to a class of people who struggle to speak in front of more than one. What I do is:

1. Prepare whatever I wish to convey. My preparation is thorough and includes everything (from the greeting to the goodbye). I keep coming back to it while presenting to make sure I am not missing anything because of my anxiety.
2. Rehearse it (I speak in front of the camera and observe my reactions). I do it a couple of times. There are times when I have rehearsed 10–12 times for my introductory lines of 2 minutes.
3. Use of PPT, Visual content that can hook my audience and take their focus from my body language to the content.
4. Greet them & Smile even when I am about to piss (Why should they know what I am going through?)
5. Using humor to create an easy environment for both the audience and for me. One two minor jokes here & there which suit the content that I am presenting.
6. Always focus on my content and spend my extra effort on it. If you have a good content, people excuse your minor mistakes.

There are no shortcuts to presenting your content. It needs a lot of practice and requires patience. Sometimes the audience will encourage you and sometimes you will indulge them. But once you understand that the value of an idea is more than you, you won’t ever want to step back and that’s what communication is all about “Sharing ideas that are worth sharing”

If you have liked reading it, please support, follow, share and comment. I wish you a happy learning.