Some of them are formal, structured activities, such as trainings or communication skills games. Others are just casual techniques to try utilizing in your everyday interactions with others.

Here are just 8 of our favorite communication skills activities that we recommend.

1. Cooperatively Review Past Effective and Ineffective Communications

One of the most easily accessible communication skills activities is simply to learn from the past with each other.

Get in a group and go around in a circle, having each person describe a time that, in a challenging situation, they communicated effectively and achieved a desirable outcome. Also have people talk about experiences where communication went poorly.

After each, at intervals, or at the end, go around again, this time discussing the patterns people noticed in cases where communication worked well vs. did not work well and what lessons can be gleaned for use in the future.

2. Clarify Desired Outcomes

In nearly all cases, people want something out of a communication. But, if we don’t ensure that the message about what we want or what is wanted from us is accurately conveyed, confusion and disappointment can result. And we can’t ensure this without being skilled in clarifying in our own minds what our desires are, which also helps give us some practice in the skill of considering what the desires of others might be.

For the next few days, practice clarifying to yourself, before each instance of communication that allows some time for thinking before engaging, exactly what it is you’re hoping to achieve.

• Are you trying to get something specific, like money someone owes you or an item that you need to borrow?
• Are you simply seeking some empathy for how you’re feeling?
• Are you just wanting to share something for the sheer fun of it, hoping to receive back a laugh?

Getting clear on your desired outcome can help you decide how best to frame and express your communication. It can help you decide, for example, whether this is a case where you should explicitly ask for what you’re seeking or to let it go unsaid. Different cases call for different approaches. But you will be better at choosing the optimal appproach when you are skilled at clarifying in your own mind what you are after.

Furthermore, as your skill in this area improves, you will find yourself better able to discern what others may really be seeking even when they don’t explicitly ask. This can allow you to reflect back to them in ways that can lead to a more desirable outcome for everyone involved.

3. Communicate in the Language of Multiple Modalities

Most of us are either visual, auditory or kinesthetic thinkers. And we tend to demonstrate our preference in how we speak, as described here.

Another of the most helpful communication skills activities is to practice, so as to become more comfortable, using the languages of all of the modalities.

Create a message that you hope to get across. Then try explaining the same message using visual, auditory and kinesthetic language. This will make you:

• More conscious of the existence of these differences
• More skilled at recognizing your style and that of others
• Better at adapting to effectively connect with a person by using their preferred style or to reach a group of people by using a combination of them

4. Use “I” Statements

Communciation can often devolve when we start accusing others or attributing our feelings to their actions. This is true even when our accusations or attributions are technically true.

For instance, if someone upsets you and you say “You made me angry,” even if they really did do something hurtful, the conversation may quickly turn down an ineffective path.

So, the ability to stick with “I” language is a helpful one that will come in handy, especially in highly charged interchanges. For example, while the difference between saying “I felt angry when I heard what you said.” and “You made me angry.” is subtle, it can nonetheless have powerful consequences.

To practice using “I” statements, choose a controversial topic. Have a conversation with someone about it in which you only use “I” and never use “You.” Of course, this is extreme. Rarely, in an actual conversation, would you have to completely refrain from saying “You.” But going to this extreme can be a good way of practicing how to rephrase messages in the “I” style.

5. Focus on Nonverbal Communication

Some say that nonverbal communication conveys over 80% or more of the message received in an interaction. So it’s important to stay aware of it and include interpersonal communication skills activities that help us do that.

To raise this awareness, try this activity:

Create a script. Then have people act out the same script while pretending to be in different contexts and circumstances. This brings to light how the very same words can take on quite different meanings depending on the tone of voice and body language that stem from the situation in which they are said.

6. Practice Dealing with Challenging Emotions

One of the most difficult things to do is to employ effective communication skills during interactions that involve deep sadness, anger, frustration and other unpleasant feelings. You are most like to handle such engagements well if you have used communication skills activities to prepare for them ahead of time, just as athletes train to prepare themselves for the most difficult circumstances they may face before they actually set foot on the court or step into the ring.

The way you do this is through role playing. Have a person act out a scenario in which they are very upset or mad, especially at you. Think about and practice the most effective ways to respond. Then, when you find yourself in a similar situation in real life, you will be more familiar, comfortable and able to calmly handle it.

7. Intentional Dialogue

This is a wonderful method of communication promoted by the psychologist Harville Hendrix, in his book Getting the Love You Want.

It has 4 basic steps:

1. An initial speaker, known as the sender, communicates something meaningful to a partner known as the receiver
2. The receiver mirrors the communication by restating the message back as he or she heard it to make sure it was received accurately. This is repeated until the sender agrees that the receiver has accurately mirrored them.
3. The receiver then validates the sender by considering and then expressing why what the sender has said “makes sense.”
4. Finally, the receiver empathizes with the sender by expressing, perhaps through a story of their own, how they can relate to what the sender is feeling or experiencing.

Practice using intentional dialogue both in a training type of environment, as well as in your own personal life. It can be a moving experience for the sender and it provides an opportunity for the receiver to work on mirroring, validating and empathizing, all of which are among the most helpful listening skills activities.

8. Games of Description with Limited Communication

There are a number of games in which one person, under circumstances that limit the types of communication available, attempts to accurately describe something to another. They offer a fun way to practice multiple communication skills.

One popular form of these games revolves around one person explaining to the other how to make or do something using only the spoken word.

For instance, the two people may sit back to back, stand on opposite sites of a divider or the listener may wear a blindfold.

The speaker then directs the other person on how to construct an item, for example to create an object of a specific shape out of clay, or carry out a task, such as trying to drop a ball into a certain basket.

Then, they compare how closely the listener was able to match the intention held by the speaker and discuss what worked or did not work in the communication. They can then also talk about how those lessons apply to other situations in life.

Similar popular games like Charades or Pictionary enact the same principle, but limit communication to physical actions, writing or drawing rather than the spoken word.

The important thing for maximizing learning from these communication skills games is to take time after each part of the game or at the end of the game to discuss where communication succeeded or failed and the implications of that.

Conclusion

These are just a handful of the many wonderful communication skills activities available to help you enhance your interpersonal skills. There are many more. In the future, we may bring you others that we find beneficial and recommend.

Communication is involved in almost everything we do.

Mentally review all of the things you take part in each week.

• Go to school
• Work
• Spend time with friends, family and loved ones
• Shop at the store
• Play sports
• Engage in hobbies

Is there any one of these that doesn’t involve communication?

The answer, obviously, is no. They all involve communication. And this is why improving our abilities in the realm of communication can enhance our lives more than doing so in almost any other area.

But, what often gets overlooked is that communication is a skill. Since we can all communicate with at least some degree of proficiency, and do so in some form from the minute we are born, it is easy to believe that communication skills are entirely natural. However, just because we can communicate doesn’t mean that we do so optimally.

Just as some of us are born with tremendous innate musical talent (Mozart was composing as a small child) and other are not, some of us may be less naturally inclined when it comes to communication.

Also, regardless of our innate level of skill with communication, our abilities may suffer from having been raised in a family or environment where we lacked role models that demonstrated and valued healthy, effective communication skills.

Whether due to nature or nurture, some people even end up so terrified of communicating that they develop a phobia. Fear of public speaking is one of the most common fears in our culture.

For those of us who aren’t born with Shakespeare’s talent or lucky enough to have had parents or caregivers with the communication skills of Martin Luther King, Jr. around us in our youth, nurturing whaetver talent we had, some practice may be required to improve. Luckily, that improvement is very possible.

One way of improving communication skills is through media. There are books, computer programs and other resources that we can use. But, while these can help foster a lot of development in our communication, something so active like communication is often best enhanced through doing.

Hence, the usefulness of interpersonal communication skills activities. They allow us, through applying various techniques, participating in trainings and even playing communication skills games, to actively practice getting our message across – and, through listening skills activities, receiving messages from others – in real time, often along with other people.

The payoff from these communication skills activities can be immense.

By becoming better at communication we can:

• Increase our chances of getting the things we want and need and of helping others do the same
• Learn a great deal in areas that interest us or affect our lives
• Improve our relationships – whether with family, friends, romantic partners or colleagues – and bolster our abliity to cultivate new ones
• Become more empowered to influence the world in the ways that we value

And this doesn’t even take into account that communication skills activities can often be quite fun and that we may even build relationships through the activities themselves. Nor does it take into account the many unforeseeable side effects that great communicators can expect.

We all have a certain limit to our potential with any skill. No matter how much practice we engage in, we are not all going to become Shakespeare or MLK. But, fortunately, very few of us need to.

What we can and should expect is to maximize whatever potential we do have. And most of us can move quite a bit further toward that potential by simply learning the fundamentals of communication that great communicators know.

We at CommunicationSkillsActivities.com are passionate about helping people do just that. We’ve seen the impact that better communication can make in people’s lives and relationships and how that impact can spread to affect everyone around them. It’s why we started this website – our very own form of communication. And we hope that you enjoy the site and that it helps you in your quest to attain all the benefits that improved communication can bring.

So it is no surprise that we initially think of the speaking or writing aspects of communication when we hear that word.

But communication is actually a two-way activity and, in order to truly be a good communicator, you also have to be able to listen well. In fact, listening is one of the most generally underappreciated vital life skills. While it is certainly powerful to know what to say and how to say it, that isn’t really possible to do without first listening well enough to understand your audience, their values and how they process information.

As a wise man once said, you learn a lot more when you’re listening to someone else talk than when you are talking yourself. The chances of hearing something new from another person are a lot higher than they are of hearing something new come out of your own mouth. Some have jokingly proclaimed that this is why we have two ears, but only one mouth.

Still, listening is something that many people struggle with. Even when they manage to stop talking for a bit, they spend that time busily planning their next response rather than really paying attention to others. Habits like this can be hard to break. That is why improving listening skills takes practice in the form of interpersonal communication skills activities.

Five Basic Listening Skills Activities

Below are five listening skills activities to help you obtain some of that practice:

Noticing and Re-Focusing the Wandering Mind

Often, when listening, the mind goes “elsewhere.” Someone may be telling you about something very meaningful to them or even something that, in some way, is important to you. Yet, as they speak, you are picturing what you plan to do this weekend or thinking about that attractive person you have feelings for. This is perfectly normal and there is no reason to feel terrible about it. It happens to all of us and it doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t care about the other person or their message. But, the fact is, it can seriously reduce our effectiveness as listeners.

People who meditate learn that, when the mind wanders, it isn’t helpful either to berate yourself over it or try to immediately force the wandering to stop forever. Neither of those methods work. The solution, they discover, is to simply consciously and calmly re-focus the mind over and over, whenever necessary. In meditation, the focus is often repeatedly returned to something like one’s own breath. In communication skills activities revolving around listening, the focus would repeatedly be returned, of course, to the face, eyes, hand gestures and voice of the person to whom we are listening.

When you first engage in this exercise, you may have to frequently and deliberately refocus your wandering mind, perhaps even a couple times a minute. But, over time, your mind will get better at unconsciously and habitually paying attention for longer periods and you’ll notice improved focus as a listener emerging.

Reserving Judgment

The Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti often spoke of the wisdom involved in observing without judging. This idea applies to communication skills activities aimed at becoming a good listener, as well. In the next few conversations you have, pay attention to how often you start to very quickly judge what someone is saying. Practice telling that part of you to slow down and be patient so you can hear more of what they say or ask them questions about it before forming a more solid opinion. Remind yourself that there will be plenty of time for judgment so there is no hurry. This will buy you more time to focus on listening as non-judgmentally as possible to ensure that when you do make any assessment, it is as accurate as it can be.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing means repeating back to someone what they said, but doing so in your own words. This is a very useful skill for a listener for a few reasons:

• Knowing that you are going to paraphrase forces you to pay close attention to what someone is saying.
• Putting their thoughts into your own words helps you to really process the meanning of what they said.
• And then actually communicating your paraphrased version to the speaker gives them a chance to affirm that you correctly understood what they meant or to correct any misunderstandings.

If, after paraphrasing, you are frequently being corrected, you can then think about the patterns involved in how you misunderstand, which may point to where you can work on improving your listening for the future.

Drawing Out Feelings and Needs

When someone is communicating with you, there is often some feeling involved and some need of theirs that they are either demonstrating or explicitly conveying. When you improve at the previously mentioned communication skills activities, a good next step is to learn to not only focus and paraphrase generally, but to specifically try to zero in on and attempt to reflect back to the speaker your interpretation of the feelings and needs relating with what they are saying.

Noticing Preferred Modalities

Most people tend to prefer thinking either visually, auditorily or kinesthetically. And they may give away their preference in the types of words that they use most often.

Visual thinkers may say:

• “It looks like things are going to go well.”
• “Hey, picture that!”

Auditory thinkers may say:

• “I hear John is going on vacation.”
• “What does it sound like Jane is upset about?”

Kinesthetic thinkers may say:

• “I just have a bad feeling about this.”
• “Your letter really touched me.”

Pay close attention and see if you can pick up on enough cues to determine which style the person speaking with you prefers. If you can do so, you can then use similar words in response to create rapport, which is one of the benefits that effective communication skills bring.

In the future, we may share some communication skills games for improving listening. But, for now, incorporating these five communication skills activities focused on the listening side of things can really enhance your overall abilities as a communicator.

• Executives must effectively receive feedback from throughout their organizations and transmit the desired vision and values back to them.
• Relationships must be fostered and maintained with shareholders, suppliers and customers.
• Managers must become familiar with the strengths, weaknesses and preferences of their workers and guide them with clear directives.
• Co-workers must coordinate and cooperate to best carry out their respective duties.

How can we ensure that all of these communication channels – and the many others not even mentioned – operate as smoothly and successfully as possible? Here are some principles that apply to optimizing communication in the workplace in just about any industry or setting.

Account for Diversity

We live in a globalized world and economy. Many, if not most, workplaces will consist of people from different nations, cultures, religions and even languages. While it’s impossible to tailor every communication to every individual difference, a general mindset of tolerance and respect and an understanding that some clarification will be necessary from time to time can go a long way.

Educate about Personality Types

There are a number of different systems for assessing personality types, including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Enneagram. Understanding the nature of these different types and knowing who identifies as which type can do wonders to bring about greater understanding. When people recognize their own type and that of the person with whom they are communicating, they are more able to bridge gaps that would otherwise lead to distractions or develop into frustrating disagreements.

Consider using books such as Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence and Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery as guides or hiring an expert on the topic to work with your organization.

Teach Conflict Resolution Skills

The most difficult communications in most workplaces come at points of potential conflict. These points will inevitably arise. If handled poorly, they can be disastrous. If handled well, they are opportunities for strengthening relationships and the organization as a whole.

There are experts who have studied how to have difficult conversations in the most effective ways. Set up retreats or seminars to focus on this extremely important topic. There are great books, like Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High and Crucial Confrontations, that you can use as guides. Or you might even consider hiring a consultant to come in and do hands-on trainings.

As is also true of learning about personality types, this is one of those topics that, when covered well, people find highly valuable because it can enhance their lives not only in regards to effective communication in the workplace, but in all areas.

Focus on Key Values

In any organization, there are hundreds or thousands of communications that take place every day. But there are really only a handful of truly core principles and values that underlie the organization. Make sure that, at the very least, everyone in the organization is aware of what these few most important ideas are. Communicate these to them in the most concentrated way regularly so that they can be communicating them in their work with each other and the public.

Set Up Well-Functioning Communication Systems

Systems, when used regularly and appropriately, keep various functions operating at the highest level. Communications are no exception. Communication systems that you might want to set up and maintain include:

• Technological systems – Use up-to-date computer, Internet, telephone and voice mail, public announcement, audiovisual and other information technology hardware and software systems that facilitate communication tasks.
• Time Management systems – Regularly scheduled times for meetings or just check-ins can assure that people are kept on the same page and any potential issues are addressed proactively.
• Documentation Systems – Using standardized forms for documenting various procedures can help make sure that all necessary information about particular processes is communicated throughout the organization. These documentation systems should also be kept updated. Forms should be reviewed regularly and changed when necessary. And paper systems can be upgraded to electronic systems.

Here are 5 of them that we really find helpful and highly suggest because they focus on the fundamentals of communication.

Fundamental Communication Exercise #1: General vs. Precise Instructions

Give each person in a group a piece of paper. Then announce to the group a sequence of instructions, such as:

• Fold the paper in half
• Tear off the top left corner of the paper
• Fold the paper in half once more

After completing several of these instructions, have the group compare the appearance of their pieces of paper. Point out that even though they all received the same instructions, their papers do not look identical and may even look quite different.

The point of this is to show how important precise communication can be. You told them to fold the paper in half, but not in which direction. You told them to tear off the top left corner of the paper, but you didn’t tell them how much of the corner to tear off.

After this exercise, people should be more conscious of how not only miscommunication, but imprecise communication, can lead to people literally not being on the same page. Try it again, using increasingly specific instructions. How specific do they have to get before people’s papers turn out the same?

Fundamental Communication Exercise #2: Mirroring Practice

The very heart of active listening is the ability to hear what someone says and understand it well enough to paraphrase it back to them in such a way that they confirm that your understanding matches their intended message. This is known as mirroring and is a fundamental skill very worth practicing.

Start simple. Just have people in pairs and have one person tell the other something very basic, such as what they ate for breakfast today. The other person should be able to repeat this back to them quite accurately. Then gradually have the speaker share more and more complicated ideas and concepts.

The listener needs to remember that his or her job is not to try to resolve issues that the person raises or judge their communication in any way. It is simply to understand it well enough that the other person will agree with their verbalized understanding.

This sounds like a simple exercise, but people unused to mirroring can be surprised at how difficult it is. Our tendency is often to want to ask further questions (besides ones solely aimed at clarification, which are allowed)  or tell a story of our own or offer our opinion in response to being told something. It may be a challenge at first to just consider, understand and paraphrase and do nothing else. But the rewards of building that communication muscle can be great.

Fundamental Communication Exercise #3: Empathizing through Stories

Another skill at the very core of effective listening is the ability to express empathy. One of the most effective ways to convey empathy is through stories. It’s one thing to simply tell someone that you connect with how they are feeling. But it’s even more powerful when you can share a story that demonstrates that.

Have a speaker share with a listener a story that is emotional for them in some way. It isn’t important which emotion the story brings up for them, only that it brings up some emotion to some significant degree.

Next have the listener respond by telling a story from their own experience that evokes for them a similar feeling.

Bonus: There are two ways to take this exercise to an even higher level

• Require that the speaker explicitly name the emotion the story evokes, rather than simply allow it to be reflected in the story.

or

• Require that the speaker not name the emotion and instead that the listener attempt to name it. The listener will only continue with a story of their own once the speaker agrees that they have correctly identified the emotion in question.

Double Bonus: To really take this exercise to the highest level, try the bonus steps above, but involve not only naming of feelings, but also naming of needs.

You can refer to the Center for Nonviolent Communication’s Feelings and Needs Inventories to help with this exercise.

Fundamental Communication Exercise #4: Pictionary or Charades

These games could both be considered nonverbal communication exercises for groups. In each, one must rely on means other than verbal to get a message across.

In Pictionary, a person uses drawing to try to convey to their team a particular subject they have in mind. The teammates then try to guess what the subject is using only the drawing to guide them.

In Charades, the idea is similar except that the person uses body language/acting without speaking, rather than drawing, to try to convey the subject they have in mind.

Both games can help surface a lot of lessons about communication. And, as a bonus, they are very fun and help build camaraderie so they are wonderful to use in situations that involve breaking the ice or team-building.

Fundamental Communication Exercise #5: Practice Nonviolent Communication

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a method of communication devised by Marshall Rosenberg specifically to facilitate connection and compassion. Using NVC forces people to be very precise in how they communicate.

The point of practicing NVC is not that people must always speak this precisely or even that NVC is useful in every situation. It’s simply that doing it consciously for periods of time will make them aware of aspects of communication that they might otherwise not even realize exist.

There is a great deal of information about NVC on the website of the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC). And it is explained comprehensively in Rosenberg’s book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life.

But, in brief, speaking in this language involves 4 steps:

1. Observation – Express a specific observation you made that led to a response in you. It is crucial that this be something you actually sensed with your 5 senses, not something you presumed or read into the situation.
   For instance: When I saw Bob frown and heard him sigh…
   Not: When I realized Bob was unhappy…
2. Feeling – Name the feeling that that observation brought up for you. This should include a feeling word, not a thought. Use the CNVC Feelings Inventory to help.
   For instance: …I felt sad
   Not: …I wondered what was wrong with Bob
3. Need – Name the need in yourself that was met or unmet, leading to the feeling. Use the CNVC Needs inventory to help. The need should be that of the speaker, not of the person they are observing.
   For instance: …because my need for harmony was unmet
   Not: …because Bob’s need for appreciation was unmet
4. Request – Make a request relevant to meeting or reinforcing the meeting of the need in question. This should be a specific measurable request so that there is no debate over whether it is or is not carried out.
   For instance: Could you please ask Bob if we can help him? (This is a clear request. You will be able to tell if Bob was asked.)
   Not: Can you do something about this? (This is too imprecise and there could be debate over whether it was carried out sufficiently or not.)

In response, the listener can try mirroring and empathizing with what was expressed and then, once it is agreed that the message was received accurately and fully, the two can switch roles.

Conclusion

If you and your peers or colleagues practice these 5 communication exercises regularly, your communication skills are bound to improve. In any area, it’s tempting to focus on flashy or extreme activities, but investing consistently in the fundamentals is more likely to really pay off and that’s what these 5 exercises are all about.

In An Integrative Theory of Leadership, Martin M. Chemers describes leadership as “a process of social influence in which one person is able to enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.”

In its Guidelines for Meeting the Communication Needs of Persons With Severe Disabilities, the National Joint Committee for the Communication Needs of Persons With Severe Disabilities said that communication is “any act by which one person gives to or receives from another person information about that person’s needs, desires, perceptions, knowledge, or affective states.”

To lead is to influence others toward a shared goal. Communication is how we transmit and receive the very information of which influence consists.

Influence is the common thread that binds leadership and communication.

Let’s consider how effective communication is indispensable to those in positions of leadership in a variety of areas.

• Politics – Political leaders must communicate well with others not only in the course of doing their duty, but to even be in a position to be elected or appointed to leadership positions in the first place. We have often seen that, in the political world – for better or worse – even those with subpar vision and policies can still rise to powerful positions if they have great communication abilities.
• Business – Business leaders must communicate well in order to coordinate colleagues, attract and inspire workers and ensure that key tactics and strategies are understood throughout their organizations. They must also have some understanding of how the organization can best gauge the needs and desires of its suppliers and customers and then communicate with them in order to facilitate their satisfaction.
• Education – Educational administrators must gain insight through feedback from others in their systems, communicate with each other as they use that information to develop plans and strategies, and then make the resulting policies clear to teachers and students. Teachers must be able to express themselves with and understand their students in order to best help them learn.
• Sports – Those in front office positions in sports organizations must communicate like any other business leaders. Coaches and trainers must communicate well with the athletes on their teams to bring out their best.
• Family – In order to optimally nurture children, parents must be able to skillfully elicit and interpret the particular needs of each child and discover ways to communicate such that each child can best relate.

Another way to look at this connection between communication and leadership is to consider some of the specific leadership tasks in which communication is crucial.

• Assessment and Evaluation – One must possess strong communication skills in order to assess strengths, weaknesses, positions and trends involving individuals, groups and organizations as a whole.
• Strategy – Developing workable plans requires the ability to draw information from a variety of sources and share it with teams of people working on various parts of what eventually becomes an integrated map for the future.
• Management – In order to most effectively coordinate and deploy people and resources, communication is essential. Strong ability to gather feedback on the fly and express clear, actionable directives is the heart of successful management.
• Mediation – Every human system will, at times, develop some form of conflict. Mitigating or resolving these conflicts requires very strong communication skills such as listening, empathizing and diplomacy.
• Sales and Marketing – Helping potential users of one’s products or services attain a realistic and accurate knowledge of them is all about inquiring into and recognizing their values and expressing the compatibility between what you offer and what they need or want.

These are just some of the social areas and tasks that help reveal the integral link between communication and leadership. There are many more.

Where do you see the importance of communication in leadership most strongly evident? Share your ideas in the comments below.

Here are some of the people we think many would agree were or are some of the best public speakers in recent memory.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is remarkable to think about what the singular powerful voice of this one man was able to accomplish. Through his profoundly inspiring speeches, King helped move an entire nation from violent segregation toward brotherhood.

King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is one of the most moving and memorable in history and will continue to be considered an iconic event for centuries to come.

Bill Clinton

Whatever you think about his politics or character, it’s hard to deny that Clinton is a masterful speaker. After a time out of the direct political spotlight, Clinton’s speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention reminded the country that there is perhaps nobody in American politics that can match his pure rhetorical ability.

Anthony Robbins

Robbins is a motivational expert and strategist who has been working to help people fulfill their potential for decades. His speaking style exhibits commanding presence, not only due to his imposing physical size, but how he uses his voice and body language and engages his audience with demonstrations and participation.

Winston Churchill

Churchill’s distinctive voice, spirit and wit have echoed down through history. It was his public speaking that helped shepherd the British people, as well as much of the world, through a time of great turmoil.

Ronald Reagan

Reagan, in his younger years, was an actor. And he took his performance skill and put it to work in a political career that would catapult him to the most powerful position on the planet. As we have both Clinton and Reagan on this list, we can see that no political party or value system has a monopoly on communication talent. Reagan was so gifted in this area that he has come to be known as “the Great Communicator.”

Adolf Hitler

Having great skill as a public speaker can be used for good or evil. Unfortunately, Hitler applied his immense talent to bring about some of the most horrific acts in history. But his ability to captivate an entire nation and lead them to such extremes leaves little doubt that he possessed formidable skills as an orator.

The “Official” Best Public Speakers

While you may recognize the names of these very famous public speakers, some of those officially labeled as best public speakers are lesser known. To whom are we referring?

Well, each year Toastmasters – an organization devoted to improving and promoting public speaking and leadership skills – holds its world championship in public speaking. Each winner could be considered among the best public speakers in the world. You can see the names of these champions on the Toastmasters website.

Learn from the Best!

One of the most effective ways to improve any skill is through modeling those who are already adept. Communication skills are no exception. So head over to YouTube and watch some of the videos of these and other great public speakers, ask yourself what made them so effective and see what tricks and tips you can borrow to apply in your own public speaking.

If you’d like a recommendation on a way to learn directly from one of these best public speakers in the world, Darren LaCroix, the 2001 World Champion of Public Speaking, offers a “Fast Start Speaker Pack” program in which he helps you incorporate the skills that have been instrumental in his success.

How can we organize our thoughts about these verbal communication skills? It can help to break them down to their basic elements as we’ve done below.

Voice Tone

Voice tone is so basic that it can come into play even when you’re not uttering words, per se. Even when you simply make a sigh or laugh, your voice tone modifies how it is likely to be interpreted. When you do use words, the tone in which you say them can make all the difference.

Voice Speed

Speaking fast can convey an excited or agitated feel. Speaking slower can convey a steady, reliable feel. Speaking very slow can let someone know that you’re either bored or tired. If you’ve ever experienced someone speaking at a speed that is incongruent with the content of what they’re saying, you know how this can stand out.

Voice Volume

Volume can range from a whisper to a scream and everything in between. A very quiet voice can represent that you are sharing something you don’t want overheard, that you are being mischievous or that you are depressed. A very loud voice can express great joy or terror.

A humorous demonstration of the importance of using appropriate voice volume can be found in the skit below, in which Will Ferrell plays Jacob Silj, a man who was born with “voice immodulation,” a disorder that leaves him unable to modulate the volume of his voice.

Language

According to Wikipedia’s page on Language, there are an estimated 6000-7000 languages spoken in the world. How many of these do you know fluently or at least in part? The more languages in which you have some level of competency, the more ways you can phrase things and the more diverse the audience to which you can connect. Depending on your position in the world and what you use communication for, you might want to put in the effort to learn a new language or two. But it can also be helpful just to know some of the key phrases in some of the most commonly spoken languages around the world.

Vocabulary

Notice that it is only after focusing on some of the modifying verbal communication skills and contexts that we even arrive at a discussion of the actual words themselves. But make no mistake. The particular words you use do matter a great deal. As a verbal communicator, your words are your toolbox, your palette, your set of ingredients. The more broad and diverse your vocabulary, the more effective you can be in expressing yourself to others.

Courtesy of lel4nd on Flickr

Some people go as far as reading the dictionary to really flood themselves over time with new insight into vocabulary. But you also could consider things like using a word-a-day calendar or signing up for a word-a-day email to learn at a more slow and steady rate. At the very least, as you go about your day, if you hear a word that you don’t quite know, take a few seconds to look it up. Over time your vocabulary will gradually improve.

Grammar

Grammar is the set of rules for how words connect into phrases and phrases into sentences and so on. You could employ the most impressive vocabulary on earth, but if you put the words into an order incompatible with the rules of grammar, you will not sound very credible or convincing. And grammar varies from one language to another.

So whichever language you plan to use, make sure to learn the grammar rules that it requires.

Effective Communication Tip #1: Pay Attention to Your “Non-Verbals”

We harp on this point a lot on this website and there is a reason that it is the first of our effective communication tips that we wanted to reiterate. That is because it’s so important. By far the majority of communication is non-verbal. What you wear, how you stand, the gestures you make, whether and how you touch others – these things speak volumes. Just think of how differently the same phrase can come across when whispered vs. yelled or spoken by a man in a suit vs. a man in a ski mask.

Always be conscious of the messages you’re sending with your “non-verbals” or the words you say may be overridden by contradictory messages from the rest of your communications.

Effective Communication Tip #2: Adapt to Your Audience’s Values

Another point that we make a lot is to make sure that you consider what matters to your audience, not just yourself, when communicating. If you are speaking to a very conservative audience, don’t be surprised if they react unhappily to radical ideas. On the other hand, if your audience is freethinking, don’t be surprised if a very tame message bores them. If your audience is from another culture, make sure to find out what that culture considers offensive and what they consider respectful.

The idea here isn’t that you have to cater completely to your audience’s viewpoint. In fact, you are welcome to challenge them. But this should be done as a conscious choice, not by accident. Get to know the background and values of your audience as much as you can so that you can make an informed decision about how you want to approach them.

Effective Communication Tip #3: Focus on Sensation Words

The fact is that just about everything our minds process involves sensory experience. We see images. We hear sounds. We feel bodily sensations, smell aromas and savor tastes in our mental lives. Even when dealing with words, many of us experience the words or their meanings by transforming them into sensory experience.

A very interesting field known as Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) focuses on the interface between these neurological sensory experiences and language. You might find it interesting to study NLP. But even if you don’t choose to go into great depth, you can still incorporate one of its main lessons: speak in ways that provoke these sensory experiences in your listeners.

This is only the most basic explanation of one of NLP’s concepts. But consider phrases like:

• “Can you see what I mean?”
• “Believe me, I hear you.”
• “Your letter really touched me.”
• “Does it leave a bad taste in your mouth?
• “Something smells funny about this.”

What takes place in your mind as you consider these phrases? Do you see how you can communicate in ways that stimulate sensory experience in your listener?

Effective Communication Tip #4: Incorporate Stories

In addition to the fact that it works on sensory experience, another fact we know about the mind is that it has evolved to process and extract emotion and meaning from stories. For most of human history, there was no writing. Information was remembered and shared through the generations orally. And one of the main ways that was done was through story.

It’s remarkable how telling a story with a certain lesson can get the point across and make a memorable impact even in cases where just directly stating that same message would not have. Almost any communication situation offers some opportunity to use story in a creative way. Use your imagination to discover how story can enhance any particular interaction.

Now, optimally, you can put these effective communication tips all together to really enhance your communication skills. Next time you interact with someone, try to match your “non-verbals” to your message, tailor your approach to account for their values, and incorporate sensory language and stories and see if you get better results than you have in the past.

If you do try this, let us know how it works for you in the comments below.

So here are just a few brief case studies to demonstrate 3 particular communication skills.

First in our examples of communication skills in action is…

Adapting Your Message to Your Audience’s Values: Bob Asks for a Raise

Bob works hard at his job, but he hasn’t had a raise in a couple of years. He feels he deserves one and he has decided to approach his boss to ask for it. Bob’s boss, Mike, is a “by the numbers” guy. He is very focused on using statistics to judge how productive people are in the company. Bob knows this because he is required to turn in various statistical data to Mike regularly.

Bob’s first instinct was to have a meeting with Mike and tell him about how badly he needs the raise. He was going to tell him how he needs to put away more money for his kids’ college funds and to pay for a new car. But then he stopped and remembered the principle of considering the values of the person to whom you are communicating.

Bob remembered how important numbers are to Mike. So he changes his plan. Instead of focusing the conversation on his own needs, he goes over the numbers and puts together a solid case showing that he deserves the raise based on the productivity he has provided over the years.

Second in our examples of communication skills in action is…

Active Listening: Steve Connects with His Wife

Steve was exhausted from work when his wife, Sally, came home. So he was quite annoyed when she began bothering him with a list of complaints about her day. He was about to respond with frustration and tell her to leave him alone when he remembered reading something about active listening. It had said that simply naming how someone is feeling, repeating it back to them and showing that you’ve heard them can go a long way in helping ease tensions and creating a sense of understanding.

So Steve took a deep breath and focused in on naming what emotion Sally seemed to be expressing. He finally zeroed in on “overwhelmed” and replied “It sounds like your day was pretty overwhelming.”

Then he remembered that another step he had read about was to validate and empathize with the person’s feelings by expressing understanding of why the person might feel that way and sharing a similar story from one’s own life.

So Steve took another deep breath and said “I can understand you feeling overwhelmed. It sounds like you had a lot on your plate. In fact, I completely understand because I’m feeling the same. I had a long day at work with a lot of challenges.”

Suddenly, Steve realized the irony. He had been about to react with frustration to Sally precisely because he himself felt just like she did. Instead, they both ended up feeling heard and cared about and they settled in for a nice relaxing dinner together without the tension or fighting that might otherwise have ensued.

And the final vignette in our examples of communication skills in action is…

Using Body Language: Mary Comforts Her Daughter

Mary was working on some paperwork when her daughter came into the room upset. As the child expressed her feelings, Mary continued facing her computer and going about her work as she said comforting words such as “It’ll be OK honey” and “We’ll make things better.” She was confused when the child only continued to become more and more frustrated. Why weren’t her calming words having any effect?

Suddenly, Mary remembered that the majority of communication is non-verbal and realized that her non-verbal communication – staring away from her daughter and using a disinterested tone of voice – was conveying exactly the opposite of the calming message she hoped to transmit. She stopped her work for just one minute, turned toward her daughter, gave her a hug and, in a very soothing voice, told her again that it would be OK. This time, the effect was nearly instant as the body language and voice tone reinforced, rather than contradicted her words. Her daughter smiled and ran off to play.

Hopefully each example of communication skills in action has given you a little bit of insight into improving communication skills in situations that confront you in your own life. As you can see, the overarching principle is to be conscious about how you communicate. Stop and give some thought to how you approach each interaction and how you can make it as effective as possible.