YOU’RE NOT AN IDIOT
How can you know if your communication skills are weak or strong? No, it’s dumb, and deadly, to defend your weaknesses or deny your strengths. Also, you’ve learned first-hand from the school of hard knocks that you can make a mess or a miracle of communication. If you answer “yes” to most of the questions below, take your communicator car in for a tune-up to a communications coach near you:
1. I try to do everything on my own.
2. I don’t like to ask for help.
3. If something goes wrong, I try to fix it myself.
4. If people are not speaking to me, I won’t speak to them.
5. If people are in a bad mood, I’m not going to go out of my way to talk to them.
6. I guess I don’t express my opinions on things as much as I should because I don’t want to create conflict.
7. I go along with what is said or done to stay away from hurting your feelings.
8. I don’t communicate with my co-workers to get things done because some of them are very sensitive, and I don’t want to act pushy.
9. Some sensitive workers wrongly think I’m trying to boss them around, which isn’t true.
10. If something needs done, I’m more likely to do it myself, rather than confront someone who was supposed to do it but didn’t.
Is it very hard communication-wise where you work or live? Weak communication is costly. No communication or mixed messages from your manager or supervisor can reduce your performance by as much as 50%….
ABOUT COMMUNICATIONS COACH DENNIS E. O’GRADY, PSY.D.
Dr. Dennis O’Grady is the “Talk Doc,” providing leadership communication coaching and corporate training, using the results-driven Talk To Me© positive and effective communication system. Dennis is president of the Dayton Psychological Association. His “talk textbook,” Talk to Me: Communication Moves to Get Along With Anyone, recently won the Axiom Business Book Awards Silver medal. You can contact Dennis O’Grady at (937) 428-0724.