(1) Get your thinking straight. The most common source of confusing messages is muddled thinking. We have an idea we haven’t thought through. Or we have so much we want to say that we can’t possibly say it. Or we have an opinion that is so strong we can’t keep it in. As a result, we are ill prepared when we speak, and we confuse everyone. The first rule of plain talk, then, is to think before you say anything. Organize your thoughts.

(2) Say what you mean. Say exactly what you mean.

(3) Get to the point. Effective communicators don’t beat around the bush. If you want someone to buy something, ask for the order. If you want someone to do something, say exactly what you want done.

(4) Be concise. Don’t waste words. Confusion grows in direct proportion to the number of words used. Speak plainly and briefly, using the shortest, most familiar words.

(5) Be real. Each of us has a personality — a blending of traits, thought patterns and mannerisms — which can aid us in communicating clearly. For maximum clarity, be natural, and let the real you come through. You’ll be more convincing and much more comfortable.

(6) Speak in images. The cliché that “a picture is worth a thousand words” isn’t exactly true (try explaining the Internal Revenue code using nothing but pictures). But words that help people visualize concepts can be tremendous aids in communicating a message. Once Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative became known as Star Wars, its opponents had a powerful weapon against it. The name gave it the image of a far-out, futuristic dream beyond the reach of current technology. Reagan was never able to come up with a more powerful positive image.

Your one-on-one communication will acquire real power if you learn to send messages that are simple, clear, and assertive; if you learn to monitor the hearer to determine that your message was accurately received; and if you learn to obtain the desired response by approaching people with due regard for their behavioral styles.  

Your finesse as a communicator will grow as you learn to identify and overcome the obstacles to communication. Practice the six techniques I just mentioned, and you’ll find your effectiveness as a message-sender growing steadily.

But sending messages is only half the process of communicating. To be a truly accomplished communicator, you must also cultivate the art of listening.

If you’re approaching a railroad crossing around a blind curve, you can send a message with your car horn. But that’s not the most important part of your communication task. The communication that counts takes place when you stop, look and listen.

We’re all familiar with the warning on the signs at railroad crossings: Stop, Look and Listen. It’s also a useful admonition for communication.

It’s easy to think of communication as a process of sending messages. But sending is only half the process. Receiving is the other half. So at the appropriate time, we have to stop sending and prepare to receive.

A sign on the wall of Lyndon Johnson’s Senate office put it in a down-to-earth way: “When you’re talking, you ain’t learning.”

LISTENING PAYS
Listening pays off daily in the world of business. Smart salespeople have learned that you can talk your way out of a sale, but you can listen your way into one. They listen to their customers to find out what their needs are, then concentrate on filling those needs. Skilled negotiators know that no progress can be made until they have heard and understood what the other side wants.

LISTENING REQUIRES THOUGHT AND CARE
Listening, like speaking and writing, requires thought and care. If you don’t concentrate on listening, you won’t learn much, and you won’t remember much of what you learn.

Some experts claim that professionals earn between 40% and 80% of their pay by listening. Yet, most of us retain only 25% of what we hear. If you can increase your retention and your comprehension, you can increase your effectiveness in the 21st century’s Age of Information.

LISTEN WITH YOUR EYES
If you listen only with your ears, you’re missing out on much of the message. Good listeners keep their eyes open while listening.

Look for feelings. The face is an eloquent communication medium. Learn to read its messages. While the speaker is delivering a verbal message, the face can be saying, “I’m serious,” “Just kidding,” “It pains me to be telling you this,” or “This gives me great pleasure.”

Some non-verbal signals to watch for:
- Rubbing one eye. When you hear “I guess you’re right,” and the speaker is rubbing one eye, guess again. Rubbing one eye often is a signal that the speaker is having trouble inwardly accepting something.
- Tapping feet. When a statement is accompanied by foot-tapping, it usually indicates a lack of confidence in what is being said.
- Rubbing fingers. When you see the thumb and forefinger rubbing together, it often means that the speaker is holding something back.
- Staring and blinking. If you’ve made your best offer and the other person stares at the ceiling and blinks rapidly, your offer is under consideration.
- Crooked smiles. Most genuine smiles are symmetrical. And most facial expressions are fleeting. If a smile is noticeably crooked, you’re probably looking at a fake smile.
- Eyes that avoid contact. Poor eye contact can be a sign of low self-esteem, but it can also indicate that the speaker is not being truthful.

It would be unwise to make a decision based solely on these visible signals. But they can give you valuable tips on the kind of questions to ask and the kind of answers to be alert for.

GOOD LISTENERS MAKE THINGS EASY
People who are poor listeners will find few who are willing to come to them with useful information.

Good listeners make it easy on those to whom they want to listen. They make it clear that they’re interested in what the other person has to say.

Because Twitter can be used with ease on both PCs and mobile devices, and because it limits users to very short messages of 140 characters or fewer, it has become one of the largest platforms in the world for sharing real-time data. A number of large businesses and celebrities have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. This includes personalities like Oprah and Ashton Kutcher. JetBlue (JBLU), Whole Foods (WFMI) and Dell (DELL), along with other multinational corporations, are among the most followed names on the service. (See the top 10 celebrity Twitter feeds.)

As Twitter grows, it will increasingly become a place where companies build brands, do research, send information to customers, conduct e-commerce and create communities for their users. Some industries, like local retail, could be transformed by Twitter — both at one-store operations that cater to customers within a few blocks of their locations and at the individual stores of giant retail operations like Wal-Mart (WMT). In either case, having the opportunity to tell customers about attractive sales and new products can be done at remarkably low cost while providing for greater geographic accuracy.

For Twitter to be a part of a company’s efforts to communicate with customers, the customers must be willing to “follow” the company on Twitter. That allows the individual consumer to choose which firms he is willing to get messages directly from. It may not be surprising that “new age” brands like Whole Foods and JetBlue have large followings and older and much larger brands like Kroger (KR) and American Airlines (AMR) do not. Whole Foods and JetBlue have successfully marketed themselves as being “customer-centric” — the kind of companies that would not misuse the access to a customer’s private Twitter information. (Read Ashton Kutcher’s take on why the Twitter founders made the TIME 100.)

While there may be commercial value for using Twitter to communicate with customers, the danger is that the Twitter community could turn against a marketer viewed as being too crass by being relentlessly self-promoting. Twitter users have set up their own rules of conduct when using the service, not unlike those with MySpace and Facebook. These rules were not put together by Twitter itself, which mandates only rules of use. Like many social-network sites, Twitter is self-governed by its members, and companies must take that into account as they join the service.

Twitter is still in the early stages of developing a plan for making money as a company, but plenty of large corporations like Starbucks (SBUX) are already using it as a marketing tool. Twitter will probably evolve into both a community of individuals and a community of companies that provide goods and services for those individuals.

24/7 Wall St. has come up with 10 ways in which Twitter will permanently change American business within the next two to three years, based on an examination of Twitter’s model, the way that corporations and small businesses are currently using the service and some of the logical extensions of how companies will use Twitter in the future. Some of these firms are already using Twitter, but their efforts are in the earliest stages of development. 24/7 Wall St. evaluated other sensible and potentially highly profitable ways Twitter’s real-time, multiplatform presence is likely to be

— Douglas A. McIntyre

In 2008, employees became more motivated to help their company survive. The new company motto of success being business retention. Employees are paying it forward by working longer hours covering multiple desks for the gain of continued employment and health insurance.

If employees are provided with continued status and financial updates; are recognized and are engaged in solutions, they will become more involved. There is strong data that employee engagement substantially contributes to the bottom line. The employee is a valuable key to retaining our customers.

Managers must have greater focus on front line staff and customer service. Quality of product and services are more important during challenging times when customers may be thinking of cancelling purchase orders and/or services. Look to provide webinars, community events and informative social network communications to continually present your company’s value during these times. Provide rewards and thank your customers for their loyalty with complete sincerity. Make it well know that you are dedicated to your business.

Each day managers should continue to look for opportunities to cut costs, continually develop their staff and maximize efforts.  This is not the time to throw in the towel. We should remember that some of the finest companies went from good to great during tough times. Managers should walk with a targeted intensity to meet with employees each day for a daily briefing and check the pulse on the front line. What is the attitude? Is it time for motivation and fun? Are you nurturing your mid-line performers with continue education? Do you provide an incentive for top and mid-line performers?  

According to Modern Survey’s Employee Engagement Index in February 2009, more employed Americans than in August 2008 responded that they took pride in their company, see a more promising future, and go “above and beyond” for the company’s good.

Perhaps one can assume that we have gone back to the days when our parents and grandparents struggled to put food on the table, they appreciated what they had and lived with greater appreciation because of it.

As managers, we need to Keep the faith and walk the talk. We must look for pockets of people in our organization not receiving communications and make it a point to communicate more globally? All eyes are on us as we walk into work each day. We are a great part of the team’s motivation!

There are two common employees: 1) Happy to there people and new employees 2) Hard workers but not working to their fullest. Telecommuters are more engaged than office employees but there are challenges such as the dark that barks at the wrong time and temptations of household chores.

J.C. Penny studies note 10% per square foot of their stores have engaged employees. Best Buy engaged employees are at .10 on a 5 point scale equallying $100,000 in sales last year. A study by Blessing White demonstrated 1 in 3 employees are fully engaged in the U.S. Many companies such as these that employee incentives are key to motivating engagement and success.

Engaged employees stay for what they give disengaged employees stay for what they get. An engagement approach uses a) An emotional approach b) Cognitive approach c) Behavior approach. Results from global studies tell us that organizational health, culture and policy and procedures are imporatnt to employees including; management excellence, job design, workplace readiness, extrinsic reward which considers pay and stability on the job.

In China, diversity and challenge toped the list with their employees. What employees felt was working is work itself, confidence and trust, organization and communication.

Engagement across cultures considers consistency that is possible across the world. From upper management to layers down to employees for maximum outcome. China’s retention includes: pay, comp package, development, creative work, retention, work/life balance.

China’s challenges are surveyed to be 87% of interest in building leadership abilities, 66% key talent recruiting and retaining talent.

In India surveys indicate recruitment, balance, youth and experience, engagement cross culturally and insurance. In India 25% of 3 million graduates are considered to be highly employable. In the year 2010 there will be a shortfall of 500,000 that will be actually qualified women in the workforce. There is a system to gaurantee a job in engineering and government to assist with recruitment.

Culture might be described as a collective human behavior distinguishing one individual from another. For example in India lines are not formed to buy items from an outside vendor and there are no lines at the airport, it is not their culture. A lack of understanding another’s culture was experience in Africa when Gerber baby food entered the market with non-readers seeing a picture on the baby food jar labeled Gerber which in many languages in Africa means vomit. Understanding each others behaviors and lifestyle is becoming increasingly important in our global economy.

Regardless of where you live and work, we all want to feel loved and appreciated. Employee incentives are notable opportunities to demonstrate sincere appreciation for hard work, cleaver money saving idea or part of a benefits package.  Follow the following step to ensure that your employees understand your recognition program and that all benefit from it.

• Determine budget remembering that is crucial to retention and recruitment
  Recognition Strategy
• How will you measure results from contests and determine ROI
• Communication plan to introduce and reinforce the incentive plan throughout the incentive period
• Plan a celebration for public notarary

Point reward programs offer an online shopping mall for employees to earn points with a predetermined point values and shop at over 300.  It is also easy to administer because it is automated and you can run multiple incentive at one time using only the employee’s email address. The best incentive really is the gift of their choice.

Discipline is that great quality few people use that enables them to be constructively busy all the time. Even in discouragement and defeat, discipline will rescue you and usher you to a new place to keep constructively busy while you forget about doubt, worry and self-pity. Oh, that more in this day would realize the absolute necessity of discipline and the degree of growth and happiness to be attained from it.

Most people think that loyalty is to a thing or to a person when actually it is really to one’s own self. Some think that it is to a goal or an objective, but again it is to one’s own convictions. If loyalty has to be earned then it is deserved and is hardy, more than devoted emotion based on a temporary feeling. No, loyalty is the character of a person who has given himself the task before him and he will always realize that out of a loyal heart will spring all the other virtues that make life one of depth and growth.