If you Google ‘Communication’, this is what it says:

Communication (from Latin commūnicāre, meaning “to share”) is the activity of conveying information through the exchange of ideas, feelings, intentions, attitudes, expectations, perceptions or commands, as by speech, non-verbal gestures, writings, behaviour and possibly by other means such as electromagnetic, chemical or physical phenomena and smell. It is the meaningful exchange of information between two or more participants (machines, organisms or their parts)

Communication requires a sender, a message, a medium and a recipient, although the receiver does not have to be present or aware of the sender’s intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast distances in time and space. Communication requires that the communicating parties share an area of communicative commonality. The communication process is complete once the receiver understands the sender’s message.

Communicating with others involves three primary steps:

• Thought: First, information exists in the mind of the sender. This can be a concept, idea, information, or feeling.
• Encoding: Next, a message is sent to a receiver in words or other symbols.
• Decoding: Lastly, the receiver translates the words or symbols into a concept or information that a person can understand.

Please allow me to simplify this for you: Think about your tone, words and body language when communicating with others.

How many times have you heard the words, but felt something quite different. Tone and Body Language need to match your words.  Good communication takes great forethought on words, tone and delivery. When you walk into a room and introduce yourself, answer the telephone in your department or have a one on one conversation with a customer/colleague/supplier, every conversation can have a double meaning if you don’t watch your p’s and q’s nor dot your i’s and cross your t’s.

Practice the message you want to communicate, ensure the message is the same as it’s received as it is sent!

How do you want to hear a message? Now perfect yours.