10 tips to improve your professional communication

We all know that we spend more time at work than with the loved ones. Some of us might be lucky to have unconditional love from our family, but with colleagues, we do need to pay attention on our communication.

After some years of working, I have noticed, when communicating with some people, you feel the encouragement, the productivity and the appreciation; however, with some other people, you have the feeling that you did something wrong, as a result you get offended, hurt, or even de-motivated, even though it is not the intention.

Over the years, I really appreciated the people who has a good way to express their opinions without being rude and aggressive, and I also adopted them in my daily communication. And it is really working well, it saves me a lot of (political) work with others.

I summarized some of the communication words to be avoided and to be replaced with other way of express your opinions in order to improve the communication.
In western professional cultures, it is also very helpful to have a bit of humor, but it is not in the scope of this post.

1. “Why do you do it like this?”
It is very sensitive to ask “why” to a coworker unless you are really frustrated, otherwise it sounds like you are questioning the work of other people.
The truth is, you might just be curious or try to understand the reason.
To replace:
“Is there a specific reason that it is implemented like this?”
“Just out of curiosity, why not…”
“Just for my understanding, can you explain the reason …”

2. “But, However..”
“It looks good, but the picture is not fitting in this document.”
“But” is sensitive here, it usually leads people’s attention to the second half of the sentence.
If you want to emphasis the good work of your colleague, better avoid “but”, and give concrete suggestions:
“The whole document looks good, if you want to make it better, use another picture”

Unless you really want to emphasis the picture not fitting, you might as well just point out “picture is not fitting”.

3. “No you don’t understand..”
This is the worst, saying “No you don’t understand” sounds like “you are stupid, you don’t understand”.
If you could give a bit of patience so that your colleague can express his point, then you would not need to interrupt and say this.
If still you are convinced that he is not following you, you can try “Maybe you are misunderstanding” or take a step back and ask “Are you still with me” during your explanation in order to know which part goes wrong.

Well, it is like teaching.

4. “You never/always do this…”
Rule number one when talking, “never say never”, and here specifically also “never say always”.

5. “Your point being?”
Haha, sometimes I say this(in a joking tone) just to piss off my colleague, in fact, if you say this in a meeting or formal conversation, it sounds like: “You bla bla bla bla, I lost you”
If you are really lost, or trying to guess the point, use:
“If I understand you correctly, you are saying…?”

6. “No that is not correct”
Try “I don’t fully agree because of …” and see if it goes any smoother.

7. “I get it, I get it”
I would go for “I totally understand your situation”, or “I’m with you”.

8. “I don’t care!”
I don’t get it often, but hearing other people saying this really annoys me.
It sounds like you are not interested, and don’t want to take the responsibility, and in a professional world, it does not encourage other people at all.
Even if you don’t care, you can give some tips for others, or rephrase it.

Once I was going to ask a co worker(higher level than me) to finish some administration work, he asked me “How should I do this? What is the other team doing, do they ask some other people?”
My response was “It is really up to you, you can … also … , for me it is only important that it is finished tomorrow”.
And you know what, I got it the next day 🙂

9. “I know, I know …”
The interpretation: “Could you please shut up? I already know this”
You could change it to: Yes indeed, totally agree, I am with you, I have the same experience…

By agreeing with other people, you are giving credit to other people’s opinion, you can add more things around the topic, to show that you actually “know” it.

10. “I have been working here for 5 years, just trust me”
In my opinion, this shows that you are stubborn, not open to question or challenges from others.
Despite your rich experience or years of working, it is more powerful if you could give more explanation of the reason/theory behind. By explaining the reasons behind and convince your peers, they will get motivated to do the work asked by you.

[Updated]11. Yes yes yes, yes yes yes…
This shows you are a person agrees on anything, or pretending to understand everything. As a result, you won’t earn much respect from your peers.
It is recommended to ask some questions, or give some remarks from time to time, this will bring new thoughts and challenges to the team.

I’d like to hear more from your professional experience! Please leave me some comments!

Related movie – 12 Angry Men (1957)

Communication is very important, I would like to recommend a movie called 12 Angry Men, it demonstrates the power of communication, one man managed to convince 11 other juries to change their minds, as a result, powerful communication saved a person’s life.

The movie itself is quite interesting as the only cast scene is in one room, focusing on the discussion of 12 angry men, quite impressive and thrilling. IMDB score is 8.9/10, absolutely recommend!