Dear Bob ...In a recent KJR ("Iacocca's alliterative leadership list," 6/18/2007) you wrote "Effective communication is the result of planning, not blurting. It focuses on the audience's vocabulary and cares, not the leader's. Anything else is self-indulgence." What is the best way to develop the skills required for effective communication? Like the ability to identify the audience's cares. Is this something I c Dear Bob …In a recent KJR (“Iacocca’s alliterative leadership list,” 6/18/2007) you wrote “Effective communication is the result of planning, not blurting. It focuses on the audience’s vocabulary and cares, not the leader’s. Anything else is self-indulgence.”What is the best way to develop the skills required for effective communication? Like the ability to identify the audience’s cares. Is this something I can learn from a book or do I need a personal coach? – BlurterDear Blurter …Mostly, you need empathy – the ability to put yourself in their place and anticipate how they’re likely to feel about whatever-it-is. So if you’re about to introduce a new piece of software to replace one that’s cumbersome and hard to learn, put yourself in the place of the employees who have mastered the old system. They’re going to:* Feel grief over the loss of prestige. The new software will make hard-won skills they’re proud of irrelevant.* Feel anxiety regarding their ability to master the new software, and perhaps the new way of doing business that goes with it. * Feel more anxiety over the possibility that the real reason for the project is to layoff some employees – namely, them or some of their friends.Pretty easy, once you change your perspective.The other tool you need is listening. Establish open lines of communication where you make it clear you’re genuinely interested in what they know and what they’re thinking. Once you’ve done that, you can explain what you’re planning to do and why you’re planning to do it, and ask how that strikes them. Talk with some employees one-at-a-time and with others in small groups. Some people need the freedom of not being overheard. Others need the moral support of their peers. Doing some of each maximizes your chances of hearing what you need to hear.Once you get in the habit you’ll find it isn’t very complicated. It does, however, require real effort to explore the different ways to communicate a point, in order to find the one that fits each situation best.– Bob Powered by ScribeFire. Technology Industry