An effective communicator is someone who conveys their message and information to individuals and organizations with the aim of informing, requesting, persuading, and building goodwill. Those who are strong communicators speak in a clear, complete, correct and easily understood language.

Good communicators can be able to produce desired impact on the listener as they frequently ask questions to give people an opportunity to share their knowledge and express their opinions. Good communicators always listen to others; in this way, they understand what people are thinking. They can be able to balance speaking and listening effectively.

Great communicators are highly respected, trusted, successful as they produce more value for their organizations because to them it is much more important to build both personal and professional relationships as a way to create successful communication.

Here are five successful practices to become good communicators:

1.    Clarity of Purpose of Speaking
Good Communicators are competent enough to know about their areas of expertise and also well prepared to show people that their communication is valuable. They make careful analysis of what they are talking about to provide effective and authentic communication because they want to keep an environment of respect and engagement.

2.    Target Audience
Good communicator always knows his audience before going for presentation so that he would be able to make his audience understood his ideas, information and opinions. The desired message cannot produce the desired result unless it is delivered to the right person or group of people.

3.    Active Listener
Great communicators listen more than they speak. They won't dominate a discussion or a presentation. They often ask questions from the audience to provide them an opportunity to share their knowledge and express their opinions. By doing this, they could understand what people are thinking. This makes people feel that their opinions too have some value.

4.    Pay Attention to Non-verbal Communication
Good communicators know the power of nonverbal communication and take care of the tone of voice, body language, and facial expressions of people. As we all know that our actions speak louder than our words. They always pay attention to the posture, hand movements and eye contact of the audience so that he could be able to observe whether they are understanding his message or not.

5.    Aware of Misunderstandings
In any communication there are high chances of misunderstandings. Major communicators observe differences in models (how a person usually reacts), inconsistencies (different reactions of a person) and consistencies (expectations of a person). They also keep an eye on use of words, message, tone and body language. If these aspects of verbal and nonverbal communication lack consistency then communication becomes a disaster. This is generally a neglected factor and is easily preventable.

Dr. Sarika Makol
SIRT MBA