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WRITTEN By
Dr. Michael Burns

• • Communication is so foundational to everything we do, we barely think about it

• • It’s an art and a science

• • My focus is on teaching leaders, students, and entrepreneurs to excel at these foundational skills

Communication is at the core of everything we do. It’s the connective thread that runs through each of us to each other, our culture, our emotions, our physical world, our health, our work and our government. It provides us with meaning and understanding. Without it, we have chaos, misunderstanding, fractured relationships, misguided businesses and leadership, and a deep disconnect with ourselves.

My work and life is focused on communication: the study of messages and their impact and influence on people. Without it, we have no way to explain life’s complexities and no way to understand them. Communication makes the intangible accessible and our survival as a species is based on our ability to connect with each other, and our ability to connect with each other is dependent on communication. Therefore, communication is key to our survival and every community, society, family and business’ survival.

It’s not an overstatement to say that literally everything we do is about and requires communication, so doing it well means better outcomes. 

As a communication expert, I can tell you that most people take communication for granted because we’re constantly communicating and being communicated to, which fools us into thinking we’re good at it. Even when we’re silent, we’re communicating, and the acutely sensitive capabilities of those around us are listening. But because communication surrounds us every hour of the day, we stop being aware of how we’re doing this foundational function of our humanity. This is why I focus on ensuring more of us are doing it well. It’s at the core of who and what we are, and doing it well can mean the difference between obscurity and success. 

We take this set of skills for granted at our own peril, but the evidence of communication failures surrounds us. Communication is more than the exchange of ideas, more than ordering coffee and getting what you asked for and more than telling our teams what we want and expect from them. It’s a complex process made up of quantifiable skills that are studied scientifically and used artistically. 

And when used competently and effectively, communication is more powerful than any other tool we have. Communication is how we influence, persuade, motivate and empower people. It’s how we create change and how we create and maintain culture. In fact, anything that humans have ever created and will ever create involves communication. When it clicks and people realize its power and possibilities, they approach every situation, problem, task and relationship differently. One of the coolest things about communication is that it doesn’t take long to see improvements when you receive proper coaching and training. Think of communication as latent traits, waiting to be brought to the surface. 

I Coach, Train and Advise My Clients in the Skills Required to Communicate Well 

Since communication is core to everything we do, there are nearly endless opportunities for business leaders, entrepreneurs and individuals to learn more about how to do this better. But all communication issues, environments and needs are unique to the people and organizations they impact. Communication is people focused, which means there isn’t a one size fits all solution. Every communication intervention must be adapted to the context, people, problems, culture and needs of the client. This requires a comprehensive approach from me and a commitment to learning from those I coach and train. 

When people and companies realize there is no easy ‘do it once and forget it’ fix to communication problems and commit to taking communication skills and learning seriously, they open the door to possibilities and profit. But this takes work and time because, again, every situation is unique. These are the five core characteristics that I believe are central to communication and central to how I approach my work with every client or student. 

1. Communication Is A Process

• • Communication is the process that leads us to shared understanding. The communication process is made up of senders and receivers who encode and decode messages that are sent via a channel with constant feedback loops. 

• • Within that process, there is plenty of noise and barriers that can get in the way of those messages, resulting in a lack of understanding, or the potential for misunderstanding. 

• • The entire process is dependent on the context in which it takes place.

• • The human communication process is transactional, meaning when humans communicate with each other, there can be constant analysis and adaptation. Communication researchers study this process and think about ideas related to sources like credibility, or how receivers perceive messages and make sense of them. We study appropriate channels for certain messages depending on the context. We know that the channel choice itself communicates a message.

• • Through the study of this process, we become message experts who know how to create and disseminate messages that create understanding and gain our desired outcomes. 

• • Business leaders must understand that communication is a complex process that shifts and changes with every context and situation. When we understand the process, we can begin to make smarter choices on which part of the process to focus, where attention is needed, or where the problems lie. 

2. Communication Is an Art And a Science

• • The communication process, though studied scientifically, also requires an artistic approach. 

• • Competent communicators are able to artfully create and deliver messages that engage our emotions and inspire responses. 

• • It’s through our scientific understanding of communication that allows us to make informed artistic decisions. 

• • It’s the manipulation of the artistic elements of communication where we can generate different outcomes. 

• • Understanding that communication is both an art and a science allows us to make informed decisions about what we say and how we say it. If done well, we can achieve our desired results. 

• • This balance of artistry and scientific methods keep us grounded in prediction and explanation, while also allowing us to constantly adapt to the specific contexts and needs of the people and problems we address.

• • Communication is vital to all business operations because business is both art and science, all dependent on communication. 

• • Business leaders often forget that there is more to people and their behaviors than hard data or dollars, and the study of communication doesn’t omit the power of the artistic variables impacting human behavior. 

3. Communication Is All About The Message (what and how)

People who study communication are message experts. But it’s more than the words we speak and write – we also study nonverbal messages. We study eye contact, body movement and positioning, gestures, facial expression, vocal tone, and how we use time and touch to influence and engage other humans. I teach people how to be aware of their own and others’ verbal and nonverbal messages. 

• • We study both types of messages because language-based verbal communication is representative of content, and nonverbal communication is representative of emotions. It’s content and emotions in combination that create meaning and understanding. 

• • In fact, nonverbal communication is responsible for around 90% of all emotional meaning in a conversation, and so much of it is observed unconsciously. Think about it this way: when hearing ‘I love you’, we can always tell when someone means it or not. I describe this as the what we say (verbal) and the how we say it (nonverbal). 

• • Many of us are unaware of our tone, and it’s fascinating to me how often I point out to my clients that they’re providing their employees mostly lip service, because their nonverbal messages are contradicting their verbal messages. 

• • Contradicting messages degrade a trusting culture, and lead to the ‘people problems’ I hear about from diverse business leaders, nearly all of which can be fixed.

• • Communication experts not only recognize the value of each type of message, they also understand how powerful they are when they work in tandem.

4. Communication Is Made Up Of Skills, And Skills Can Be Learned

Among the components that make communication research and theory so fascinating, is that skills are always attached to it. We can get better at communication because it is skill-based, and it’s not as hard as one might think. 

• • Improved communication – composed of behaviors and actions – creates shared understanding and connection. This means that the more we practice our communication skills, the more competent a communicator we become. 

• • What are communication skills? There are a lot of them. Some are obvious like public speaking, writing, managing groups and teams, giving and receiving feedback, or conflict management. 

• • There are many skills people don’t realize are communication skills. Basically, anything organizations refer to as “soft skills” or “people skills” are communication skills. For example: 

• project management 
• time management
• creating and maintaining culture
• problem-solving 
• Listening
• Leadership
• audience analysis
• strategic planning
• training and development
• event planning
• creating and organizing plans
• relationship management
• Sales
• critical thinking, and the list goes on. 

To the untrained eye this list seems to have quite a lot of breadth and no common theme. But the common theme that connects this list is communication. Every one of these skills involve every part of the communication process described above. These skills require people to create and send effective messages that make sense and incorporate both the social science and artistic elements of my field. These skills demonstrate the power of communication and why it is at the core of everything we do. 

5. Communication Is Other-Oriented

The final core characteristic may be the most important. No matter what the communication situation or context is, a competent communicator must be other-oriented. This means they must think of their audience first and all of their decisions about the messages should be made with the audience or other person in mind. 

When we are other-oriented, we have more productive conversations and produce more effective and meaningful plans. Other-orientation helps us be empathetic and encourages us to constantly adapt what we are saying and doing so we can reach shared understanding and create meaningful experiences and relationships. Competent communicators approach every situation with the audience in mind and make choices based on the audience to increase the likelihood of reaching the desired effect. Being other-oriented should guide all of our communication choices. 

Unfortunately, we have never been more self-focused, and this is proven regularly by the amount of aggressive communication we experience everyday. This aggression is how people respond when we lack human interaction and are constantly connected to our devices. Technology forces us to look inward and instead of outward, that is why we often forget about others when we are communicating. 

These five characteristics appear in every talk, class, workshop, training and consulting meeting I deliver, but the way these characteristics are utilized changes with every person and organization. Many researchers argue that we spend 45 minutes of every hour we are at work communicating. Think about how much time we’re wasting if we’re not doing this foundational work well. 

There are thousands of research studies that support positive outcomes to competent communication. Communication experts know that people are more likely to be retained when their boss is a competent communicator. Communication experts know that relational quality increases when people communicate openly and honestly. Communication experts know people work harder and are more motivated when leaders use social forms of power. 

Developing your communication skills will not only benefit you personally, it will also benefit everyone around you and everything you do. The problem is that most communication experts are in college classrooms not in boardrooms. I am here to bridge that gap. 

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