How to communicate mindfully?

Do you want to improve your relationships and foster collaboration with your stakeholders? Communicate mindfully and adapt to everyone’s needs.

Communication is the key element in relationships and the base for successful collaboration. And still we see information gaps in work environments, teams that do not even know what the other teams do, clients receiving different information or offers… and similar. How to communicate when different stake- and shareholders, cultures and needs come together?

1. Know your audience
   Define the target group in order to adapt your communication style to them. This could be: team members, potential external candidates, clients, collaborators/partners, competitors, etc.
2. Adapt to your audience
   E-Mails, intranet, different chat tools, the info board, organizing a reunion with the team or even company-wide, a corporate newspaper or podcast… there are many ways to reach your audience. The question is: What communication tool does your target audience prefer? If you can, I recommend you to provide them with a multiple choice form and ask them for their feedback. Important: Only include the tools that are actually available/viable.
3. What’s the goal of your message? What’s the call to action?
   This seems so easy but we all know that in many E-Mails, letters and reunions it’s still being forgotten. Think about what you actually want the receiver of the message to take away and what actions you want them to complete after receiving your communication. Is there an urgent to-do? Do you need feedback? Do you need people to share ideas? If you are not sure about your message’s goal then please keep thinking before you draft the message.
4. KISS-System: Keep it short and simple
   Be assertive, clear and focused. Less is more. Say what’s necessary and don’t repeat yourself 5 times. When your message is clear, they will understand if you use easy, short phrases. Think about how you would explain the content to a 9 year old child. This is how you should talk to your audience, no matter their age (unless they are younger than 9 years old but that’s not very usual in a business context 😉
5. Remember to be mindful
   Stop thinking about yourself and concentrate on the other person. Mindfulness is all about being emotionally, physically and mentally present, in the here and now. (You can find more insights in this article: What is mindfulness?) In order to communicate mindfully, it’s key to be as present as possible: Observe and listen actively to the person in front of you. Example: Listen to your team’s feedback without directly reacting to it. Don’t judge the other’s opinion right away or think about the answer you are going to give. Take time to think for a moment how you actually feel about what you just heard. Could it be a great idea? Respect everyone’s opinion and space to share their thoughts. Then you can answer with assertiveness, as clear and transparent as possible: Address what you just heard, sum up what you understood (you can ask: Did I understand this correctly?), and then share your personal opinion.
   
   To sum up: We are all unique in our personality, story, experience, etc. and it’s incredible how every person understands something different, how literally one person can “see” something is blue while another person is 100% sure this is pink. Daniel Kahneman, nobel prize winning psychologist and author of “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, has proved how our understanding and decision taking is impacted by the context and our own, individual perspective. Mastering the art of mindful communication helps us to bring people closer together and brings us closer to those we want to communicate with, whether it’s our team or clients, family or friends. We don’t have to agree with the other person’s opinion, but at least listen to it with our full, complete attention. The more we listen the more we learn and are able to share our personal message in a mindful way.