Based conversation: what its miles and the importance of this soft skill
It's not news that communication is an indispensable skill for your personal and professional life, agree? But do you know what structured communication is and why this soft skill is so important?
When we communicate in a structured way, the person listening to us does not have to work to interpret our speech, and this ends up facilitating relationships and the achievement of our goals. In other words, it makes the exchange of information much more effective.
In this article, you'll learn what this type of communication means, how it happens, and why it's considered an indispensable behavioral skill. Check it out below!
What is structured communication?
Structured communication is an approach that seeks to define methods of communication with the aim of improving understanding and interaction between people.
Through it, we manage to develop arguments appropriately to the audience we are talking to, which makes the exchange of information more assertive.
To better understand, we can say that structured communication works with the prioritization of information. You need to know how to filter and organize them and define the arguments you will present.
For example, if you want to use structured communication effectively at work or in any other environment, you can start by answering these three questions:
Who is the audience to whom I will transmit this information?
What is essential for them to know?
How much do they need to know?
Always try to think about the answers to these questions before your conversations, meetings or presentations. That way, you won't share too much information that could confuse or even make the listener lose interest. Also, this is a great way to stand out on any occasion.
One communication framework you can use to organize information is Pyramid Communication, which works like this:
You speak or write your key point;
You speak or write your subpoints;
You justify each subpoint with data and arguments.
Whenever you are preparing content, especially for lectures, presentations, and meetings, you need to think from the top down. Start by gathering data and then analyzing it to form your logical arguments. From them, you will see your key points emerge.
Why is structured communication important?
We already told you, in general, that structured communication facilitates understanding between people and contributes to achieving good results in more than one aspect of our lives. But the truth is that it can offer other advantages, especially when we talk about the corporate environment.
See below what are the advantages that structured communication can bring.
1 – Organize ideas and thoughts
Using structures in communication like the one we just saw can help a lot in organizing your ideas.
When we use frameworks and order our thoughts through lists and notes, we gather the most important information and topics to communicate in any situation.
By doing this, you will build support for doing well in collaborative projects and processes, after all, you will be able to share ideas more assertively.
2 – Clarifies information
Have you ever noticed how difficult it can be to keep an audience engaged during a presentation? While there can be many reasons for this, one of the main reasons is the length of the content.
When you structure your communication, you simplify the message and reduce unnecessary information that can distract attention and distract from what's important.
With structured communication, you can clarify the most complex details and present the most relevant information to your listeners.
You might think, for example, how the pyramid structure can make meetings shorter and email interaction much more fluid.
3 – Help in decision making
We have already seen that when we put structured communication into practice, our interactions become much more direct and effective, do you agree? But they can also support your decision-making and that of your colleagues.
By using a framework to convey messages to the people you work with, you will provide useful information for the next steps to take.
For example, for a professional who is responsible for making reports, presenting metrics and results, structured communication is essential.
That way, not only your peers but also leaders and managers, will be able to make decisions faster. This will make you seen as an essential professional within the company's processes.
