How Strong Interpersonal Communication Boost Productivity?
From a sociological perspective, as human beings, when we are born, we are fitted within a social and cultural environment built with norms and morals that society expects each and every one of us to follow.
According to research done by Ipsos, 57% of people use social tools to improve collaboration in the work environment.
So, let us imagine we belong to a family that values feedback, and regardless of age, we can be straightforward and vocal about our feelings and issues, leading to improvement.
Communication in the workplace is essential to boost productivity whether we work online or face to face. The lack of effective interpersonal communication can be disastrous.
This article will discuss the relationship between communication and productivity and how we can use it to boost productivity.
How can we build strong communication skills?
When we have strong interpersonal communication skills, we mostly have conversational interactions (with random people or friends).
Each part is respectful enough to listen and inquire what is being said, the person who is talking is precise with his words, strategic about the information is being given, and provides feedback.
“Quality listening occurs when participants silently listen not only to what is being said but also to what is not being said. Making eye contact and reading each other’s facial expressions help understand what the other person is experiencing and feeling.”
Yaakov Lieder
If we want to communicate effectively, we need to: be evident not only with the type of language we use, who we are using with it, and for what purpose we are saying it; after all, communicating is not only pass information.
Instead of just combining words, we should be inquisitive if we are making ourselves understood.
We can exemplify as an illustrative form to make sure that happens somehow and ask for feedback with the message we are giving our perception may not be the same as the other person has.
In a professional environment, we always want to bring the best results, and for this need, there is internal communication (with colleagues or collaborators) to achieve productivity.
HIGHLY Recommended Article: Communication Skills Guide – Developing Yours!
What is Productivity?
In the Industrial Revolution context, productivity was translated into the amount of production per factory or per worker for a given day; these days, the discussion revolves more about personal productivity.
It relates to how much work we can get done in the smallest amount of time possible.
A productive person is not the one who works 24/7 all the time. Nor is it the one who runs with the current activity to engage the next; being productive is knowing how to organize our responsibilities and have the discipline to follow what was settled.
Most times, we read and hear about productivity:
- People talk about the importance of managing our time and accomplishing them.
- Yes, they do matter because we get to learn and set urgent tasks from important and immediate ones with them.
However, productivity is also a matter of ENERGY. Energy is a willing power that comes from things we like, from an idea we listened to somewhere, with an individual or a group of people, well-rested nights, and knowing when to focus on each of those.
In a fun and fast way, psychologist Shawn Achor comments in the video below how happiness can be an excellent engine for productivity; check it out.
7 Tips to Achieve Productivity
- Choose three tasks and write them down.
By writing every morning the three main tasks that we should accomplish in the day, this attitude can help us maintain focus and assess whether our goal has been achieved at the end of the day or not.
- Start from the easy one to hardcore.
We should start with faster tasks to engage our productivity; we could reach for the hardest ones when we feel focused.
- Better done than perfect
Being a perfectionist consumes a lot of time; it’s best to do a task well enough and move on to the next one on our list. If we have time, we can always go back and improve what we did formerly at the end of the day.
- Disable social media notifications on your smartphone.
With each notification, we will be tempted to know what it is, and the trend is to lose focus and take our time picking up the pace.
If we work online and use smartphones as a working tool, we can use quiet or focused mode that prevents access to specific applications by a certain amount of time.
- Work on one task at a time.
When we choose to fulfill our goals by multitasking, we do not give the same attention when we do one thing. And by doing one thing at a time, we can pass an impression that we are being slow and will not deliver in time.
A lot of times, doing many tasks at the same time means that we are efficient and somehow professional, however:
A study ran by Hewlett-Packard explored the impact of multiple tasks on the performance of their employees and concluded that IQ decreases by 10 points, equivalent to much more than the 4-point loss of a person who smokes marijuana or loses sleep nights.
- Take short breaks, preferably between tasks.
Getting up, stretching our legs, have a snack, have a coffee or tea as we prefer. A 5-minute short break can do much to regenerate our energy and our power concentration.
- Decrease bureaucracy
If you are a businessman and would like your employees to be more productive, decreasing bureaucracy would be one way. One of the leader’s roles is to keep abreast of every step taken and every decision made by their team, but this cannot translate into a dependency of employees to perform actions quickly without necessarily going through a lengthy approval process before your superiors.
Employees need a certain level of autonomy to be creative and consequently productive.
How Strong Interpersonal Communication Boost Productivity?
Strong interpersonal communication can boost productivity because it can make things easier; not only do they make people seek to understand each other more, but also generally it leads to collaboration where two or more individuals share experiences and discuss better ways to achieve the best result in a particular topic.
An example that illustrates how communication helps increase productivity is the work of a team; for this to grow is necessary:
a) Actively listening to each member;
b) Accept new ideas;
c) Be open to receive feedback and give as well.
There is a whole communicative cycle, which is one of the ways responsible for raising productivity since individuals with different experiences can put their perspective on a particular subject and achieve goals.
When there is no well-formulated information sharing system, each person involved in the project may have different information, which results in work done in the wrong way.
With efficient communication, everyone involved knows every detail of the project, facilitating the execution without delay and inconsistencies.
Communication problems can generate various wastes and unnecessary costs for the company. Among them are:
- Double work: when two (or more) employees end up doing the same task;
- Rework: when the employee does not accomplish something as it should be done because it was not explained;
- Idleness: when employees are left without functions because they have not been given anything.
And everything leads to a loss of time and energy if we only have invested in improving our communicational skills.
Thus, an efficient communication process makes activities happen in due time and according to the proper instructions; this avoids problems, such as generating costs and waste to the business.
Conclusion
Productivity increases with a solid ability to communicate because people with numerous backgrounds share experiences, discuss their goals clearly and comprehensively. Both begin to collaborate to achieve the best result and often end up being more effective.
Reference and Further Reading
