The Lost Art of Communicating: How to enhance your oral, written, non-verbal, and active listening skills to produce clearer focus, build consensus, and eliminate misunderstandings.

By Edward J. Murphy

This book is about COMMUNICATING.

Communicating is your ability to enhance your oral, written, non-verbal, and active listening skills to produce clearer focus, build consensus and eliminate misunderstandings.

Communicating is also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business:

Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training,
Motivating and Character-Building.

This book will give you a far better understanding of Communicating, its definition, importance, and how to do it successfully.

Communication is the glue that holds it all together.

Good communication is a continuous process intended to produce clearer focus, assist collaboration, build consensus, build trust, relieve stress, reduce rumors, reduce confusion, ensure shared understanding, reduce misunderstandings, and most of all - get things done!

As an executive coach for over 20 years, I know what your boss and customers expect. Effective people know that their ability to communicate is critical to their effectiveness at work.

By learning, using, and sharing these best practices, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the one person who adds the greatest value to the team - making you essential.

Here, you’ll learn how to use the most actionable tactics, techniques, and tools needed to master the Art of Communicating.

How can you reduce Miscommunication?

Interpretations, like assumptions, create miscommunication, which can stop or delay the successful completion of your projects.

Here are the most important steps to identify and reduce miscommunications.

Step 1. Find out What's Going On!

Here are the most effective ways to find out what’s really going on.

Create a Blog. Post questions that you'd like members to answer. Ask for feedback.

Break Bread Together. This means having a meal with members with whom you work frequently.

Use MBWA. This is Management By Walking Around. Spend one day a week visiting different locations unannounced to talk to members.

Have Skip-level Sessions. Meet with members, selected at random, at different levels, and from different departments, to ask for problems and solutions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edward J. Murphy
• Release date: May 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310856174

Edward J. Murphy

Ed Murphy considers himself lucky. From age 7, he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. He wanted to be a Soldier. In 1964, four days after graduating from High School, he joined the US Army and found himself in Basic Training and Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Dix, New Jersey.A year later, Ed became a Cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1970, he graduated as a 2d Lieutenant headed to Airborne and Ranger School, then off to Viet Nam for a year.In 1978, Ed returned to West Point to teach Military Science and earned a Master’s Degree from Long Island University in night school. His greatest achievement during his time in the military was helping 1400 soldiers begin their college education during his last two years in West Germany as a Battalion Commander. He wanted to give his soldiers something of real value - something that no one could ever take away. After 23 years as a US Army Officer, from Viet Nam to Desert Storm, he retired in 1993.Ed then decided, with a little help from Anthony Robbins, that his second career would be as an Executive Coach. For the next 21 years, he worked for four of the largest consulting, outplacement and e-cruiting companies in America from Seattle, San Diego, to Kansas City.In 2012, Ed retired a second time and decided to document everything he learned from those he admired and willingly followed over his 50+ years in both the US Military as an Army Officer and Corporate America as an Executive Coach.Since many of them aren’t alive today to tell their stories, he wanted to pay tribute to them before their lessons were lost forever. Thanks to them, he’s collected thousands of small and simple things (tactics, techniques, and tools) that have helped and will continue to help future generations to maximize their true career potential by becoming more effective at work and in life.In 2014, Ed created TheCAREERMaker.com, a site dedicated to providing the best-in-class wisdom, knowledge, and advice on how to maximize your true career potential by teaching three simple things; how to become absolutely essential and irreplaceable to any leader, how to become more effective tomorrow than you are today, and how to find and build the career you were meant to have. His greatest joy comes from helping others avoid or overcome the problems he’s faced during his lifetime.In 2016, with the help of two partners and co-authors Lee O. Lacy and Jason Bowne, he finally completed The Effectiveness Guide, which teaches how to become more effective tomorrow than you are today by consistently producing excellent results; treating others with dignity, respect, and kindness; and helping others to do the same.Today, Ed considers himself fortunate to get to live in Phoenix, AZ, where he enjoys writing, eating sushi, genealogy, and watching movies with family, friends, and his best friend and wife, Diana.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

"Intelligence, knowledge, or experience are important

and might get you a job, but strong communication skills

are what will get you promoted."

- Mireille Guiliano

This book is about COMMUNICATING, which you’ll learn about in the next chapter.

However, before continuing, it’s important to understand that this book is just one of a ten volume set of books that constitute a revolutionary new program called LEADERSHIP MADE SIMPLE.

It’s a real-world, Leader Training Program designed to help you achieve the effectiveness and success you deserve by mastering these ten core competencies:

Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating,

Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating,

and Character-Building.

I’m Ed Murphy, the founder of The Effectiveness Institute and the creator of LEADERSHIP MADE SIMPLE. 

This training is for you regardless of your occupation,

position, or level of authority.

My goal is to help you rise above the crowd, to be the best at what you do, and to stand out, rather than just fit in.

For my first career, after graduating from West Point, I served 24 years as a US Army Officer, during two wars, Vietnam, and Desert Storm, traveling all over the world. 

After the military, I spent the next 20+ years as an Executive Coach in Corporate America working with hundreds of business executives, small business owners, and teams, in Seattle, San Diego, Kansas City, and Phoenix.

During my career, I was always searching for why some people are more effective and successful than others. 

As a result, I discovered that the most effective people were able to achieve extraordinary success by:

Consistently producing excellent results.

Adding greater value to all those who helped them produce their results- especially their boss.

Treating all those with whom they worked with respect and kindness, regardless of how they were treated.

Currently, I’m the author of over 30 books and create online video training courses on each of the ten core competencies.

I created this special program from all the best practices I’ve learned from the best and brightest people with whom I served over my 77 years on the planet.

What makes LEADERSHIP MADE SIMPLE so unique is that it provides these three things you won’t find anywhere in academia or corporate America:

First, it gives you the most actionable best practices needed to consistently produce excellent results. 

Second, it teaches the most critical success skills used by the most effective people in their field, which you were never taught in school.

Third, it provides step-by-step instructions for each core competency explaining what should be done, and how to do it, and provides the tools needed to make it happen.

These are all things you can easily learn today and use tomorrow.

I know that as you learn, use, and share what you’ll learn here, you’ll be adding greater value to your boss and team - making you irreplaceable.

Remember, we’re all a work in progress. So, no matter how good you think you are, you can always be better.

Join us and discover why our readers come away saying, "I wish I knew this stuff years ago."

This program is my legacy: to make a difference in some meaningful way to those I must leave behind.

Enjoy the book!

Also, if you feel this information could help someone else, please let them know. If it turns out to make a difference in their life, they’ll be forever grateful to you, as will I.

To your SUCCESS!

Sig 2

Founder of The Effectiveness Institute.

The LEADERSHIP MADE SIMPLE Series of books is available only from Smashwords.com.

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Stop wishing you were better and do something about it today.

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1

THE ART OF

COMMUNICATING

"Communication - the human connection - is

the key to personal and career success."

- Paul J. Meyer

This book is about COMMUNICATING.

Communicating is your ability to enhance your oral, written,

non-verbal and active listening skills to produce clearer focus, build

consensus and eliminate misunderstandings.

Communicating is also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business:

Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing,

Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training,

Motivating and Character-Building.

This book will give you a far better understanding of Communicating, its definition, importance, and how to do it successfully.

Communication is the glue that holds it all together. Good communication is a continuous process intended to produce clearer focus, assist collaboration, build consensus, build trust, relieve stress, reduce rumors, reduce confusion, ensure shared understanding, reduce misunderstandings, and most of all - get things done!

As an executive coach for over 20 years, I know what your boss and customers expect. Effective people know that their ability to communicate is critical to their effectiveness at work.

By learning, using, and sharing these best practices, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the one person who adds the greatest value to the team - making you essential.

Here, you’ll learn how to use the most actionable tactics, techniques, and tools needed to master the Art of Communicating.

Important Notes:

To make this book more useful for, and actionable by, everyone in the workforce, it’s important to point out that I’ll be using the term boss, throughout this book, instead of leader, manager, or employer. 

I do this because,

We all work for a boss, whoever pays us for our work.

Even if you’re self-employed, or a small business owner, your boss is your customer, client, guest, or patient; whoever pays you for your services. 

I’ll also be using the terms member or team member instead of worker, employee, or associate to reinforce the power of teamwork.

So, let’s get to work!

How can you reduce Miscommunication?

Interpretations, like assumptions, create miscommunication, which can stop or delay the successful completion of your projects.

Here are the most important steps to identify and reduce miscommunications.

Step 1. Find out What's Going On!

Here are the most effective ways to find out what’s really going on.

Create a Blog. Post questions that you'd like members to answer. Ask for feedback.

Break Bread Together. This means having a meal with members with whom you work frequently.

Use MBWA. This is Management By Walking Around. Spend one day a week visiting different locations unannounced to talk to members.

Have Skip-level Sessions. Meet with members, selected at random, at different levels, and from different departments, to ask for problems and solutions.

Step 2. Assess the Commonly Used Terms.

One of the biggest problems I noticed as I spoke with members from different levels in the same organization was that they lacked a common language. They all had different definitions for the same term, which led to serious miscommunication.

The solution was simple. All they had to do was create a list of commonly used terms with one mutually agreed-upon meaning. Then, they circulated the list through all members for their concurrence/non-concurrence (Chapter 26).

Step 3. Conduct a Backbriefing (Chapter 20).

A Backbriefing is a briefing you give to your boss BEFORE your project, explaining how you plan to accomplish his objective.

Step 4. Don't forget Murphy's Law.

If you do, it will surely ruin your day. Remember,

If anything can go wrong, it will, at the worst possible time.

Don't let this happen to you! To avoid this, anticipate and mitigate everything that could reasonably go wrong (Chapters 28-30, and Appendix C). Reasonably go wrong means what has gone wrong in the past during similar projects.

Step 5. Eliminate all Unresolved Issues.

List any question, unknown, concern, shortfall, obstacle, or problem that could slow or stop your progress (Chapter 23). Each issue can only be eliminated when it’s both "known for certain" and "acceptable to you."

Step 6. Anticipate the Unintended Consequences.

Unintended Consequences are outcomes not expected from your project (Chapter 24).

Step 7. Anticipate the 2nd and 3rd Order Effects.

2nd and 3rd Order Effects deal with how your project affects others, like your fellow team members, vendors, customers, and suppliers (Chapter 24).

Step 8. Avoid using Unclear Words and Phrases.

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Step 9. Avoid leaving Unclear or Incomplete Voice or Email Messages.

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2

BY GATHERING

ASSUMPTIONS AND FACTS

"Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions

are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every

once in a while, or the light won't come in."

- Alan Alda

Do you know how to gather all the assumptions, facts, and truth needed to persuade others to support you to enhance your probability of success?

By identifying the Assumptions

An ASSUMPTION is information accepted

as true in the absence of facts.

However, acceptable assumptions must pass two tests.

They must be VALID, which means that they’re likely to be true.

They must be NECESSARY, which means that they’re essential to moving the work forward.

If the process can continue without the assumption, discard it. If the assumption is both valid and necessary, then treat it as a fact. Effective people continually seek to confirm their assumptions by testing.

If you assume that the weather won't be a problem for your company's outdoor picnic, you better have a Contingency Plan - just in case.

Better yet, if it rains and you've reserved an outdoor picnic site with overhead cover, now you're the hero of the day.

You know the old saying about assumptions, right?

Whenever you assume anything, you risk

making an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me.’

So, be careful! People aren’t mind-readers. Never assume that all understand your expectations. It doesn’t matter how much experience you have or how long you’ve been in your position.

If you feel there’s a chance of a misunderstanding, clarify all your expectations by asking better questions.

What’s an Unconscious Assumption?

Sometimes assumptions are made unconsciously. So, be careful!

Here’s an example:

Bob walked into a Problem-Solving Session where one of his Direct Reports, with his entire team, tried to select the BEST vendor from two similar companies.  As the process was almost over, Bob asked, "What assumptions are you making