- Create more effective meetings. …
- Improve writing skills for memos and emails. …
- Public speaking. …
- Improve nonverbal communication. …
- Providing individual feedback.
Soft Skills – Setting SMART Goals
Why are goals important for improving communication skills?
SMART goals may seem like they are better suited for setting sales or marketing goals because they are easier to quantify, but you can significantly improve your communication skills by using this framework. Setting measurable, specific goals will help you better understand what you want to change. A planned goal, for instance, can assist you in identifying the methods you can use to enhance your office’s weekly meetings or produce more unified quarterly reports for a client.
Setting goals also enables you to adapt your strategy to the circumstances. You can assess each new technique’s effectiveness separately as you use it, keeping the ones that are effective while getting rid of the ones that don’t work for your situation.
What are SMART goals?
Setting reasonable goals can be aided by the acronym SMART. Heres what it means:
Examples of SMART goals for communication skills
Here are some instances of SMART goals for workplace communication. Each example addresses the five criteria crucial to SMART:
Create more effective meetings
You might try implementing a SMART goal to enhance your coworkers’ information retention if you discover they frequently ask you about the topics you cover in meetings. Your strategy may call for a particular method of recording meeting minutes so that others can access them, such as an email summary with bullet points that you send the team right after the meeting. After sharing each list with the team, you then intend to keep track of how many inquiries you receive regarding meeting details. You may be able to evaluate the success of this goal after three weeks of implementation.
This objective is specific as a result of the strategy’s inclusion of a particular action: composing a bullet-pointed email summary. By keeping track of how many questions you respond to regarding meeting material following the distribution of your review emails, you can gauge its effectiveness. Since you can write a bullet list quickly, you can achieve this objective with little effort and time. In a workplace where daily meetings and the questions they raise are a routine part of your day, this goal would be pertinent and timely.
Improve writing skills for memos and emails
You might make a SMART goal that states, “I will create an outline before I write each email” if you want to improve your written communication abilities. You intend to use concise language in each email, then edit any sentences that don’t follow your outline before sending. You intend to use this technique for two weeks in order to develop better writing habits during that time.
This objective is specific and quantifiable because you’ve chosen a method—an outline—and standards that will allow you to assess your writing process. Because it relates to email, a daily routine and specific task, it is both doable and pertinent. The fact that you have given yourself a deadline to use these strategies and practice this skill makes this SMART goal timely.
Public speaking
Making a schedule for a speech’s preparation would be a SMART goal if you wanted to improve your presentation skills. You might spend one week planning and drafting your speech, two weeks practicing it every day, and the final week recording yourself giving the speech and modifying your delivery.
This objective is measurable because you can keep track of whether you are sticking to your schedule and practicing because it includes specific time limits for each step. Making improvements to your public speaking abilities over the course of a month is more feasible than doing so in just one or two days. If you have a speech to give on a specific day, this SMART goal can be timely and relevant because it relates to your job duties.
Motivate team
A SMART goal that states you’ll implement a new incentive strategy is one you might use if you want to boost productivity or office morale. You might select a particular incentive that appeals to your team, a team task that is simple to measure, and a time frame long enough to see results but brief enough to determine whether the incentive is effective. You can combine these components into a SMART goal, such as by implementing a summertime initiative that rewards the employee who turns in the most work each week with a $50 paycheck bonus.
Because you specify every component of the program before it starts, this goal is precise. It is quantifiable because you can compare the rates of completed work to the rates of work prior to the program’s inception. If your business can afford to pay bonuses and you can keep track of how much work each employee puts in individually, it might be feasible. If you have a specific production goal you’d like to achieve over the summer, this may be pertinent and timely information for you.
Improve nonverbal communication
Whether you are working in an office or remotely, nonverbal communication is crucial. It can include body language, movement, posture, speech, facial expressions, and touch. You can use a SMART goal to enhance how welcoming you are to new coworkers in order to improve your professional nonverbal communication. To accomplish this, you might observe others’ body language during conversations for a week while conducting body language research, then use some of these strategies the following week when onboarding new employees.
This goal is particular because there are two distinct research steps and one goal-specific action step. Implementing this objective with new hires will allow you to gauge your success and ensure that your data is entirely based on your new interactions and not on your reputation at work. If you regularly collaborate with new hires as part of your duties, it may be feasible and timely. It may also be pertinent if you soon have new hires joining the team.
Providing individual feedback
Set a SMART goal for a particular step in the feedback process if you want to increase the impact of the feedback you provide to your team members. By setting a written objective with each team member at their first quarterly one-on-one meeting, setting a calendar reminder, and checking in each week for a month to track progress, you could decide to improve feedback for new hires in training.
This objective is particular because it calls for the development of written performance indicators and weekly check-ins. You can assess your progress by recording check-ins on your own calendar. To make the goal attainable within your own schedule, you can devote as much or as little time to each check-in. Throughout any onboarding cycle, this objective can be pertinent and timely.
Improve office communication
An example of a SMART objective to enhance office communication would be to enhance manager reporting of underreported team issues. If problems aren’t resolved after writing them down as they happen, bring them up in your next one-on-one meeting with a manager.
Because there is only one new task involved in this goal—noting issues discussed at work—it is specific and attainable. It becomes quantifiable following your meeting with your manager, at which point you can assess whether disclosing that information aided in finding solutions to problems at the office. It could be timely if you have a one-on-one meeting with your manager coming up and it might be pertinent if your office faces persistent difficulties.
FAQ
What are goals to improve communication skills?
- Create clear communication with no ambiguity. …
- Improve the communication response rate. …
- Establish and improve relationships. …
- Diversify communication delivery. …
- Share your purpose. …
- Create positive change with reinforcement. …
- Use storytelling to be more relatable.
What are the 5 communication goals?
Whether it’s interpersonal or business communication, the main objectives of communication are to inform, influence, inspire, and motivate people as well as to build relationships, learn, find inspiration, market oneself, and socialize.
What are the 4 goals of communication?
Both the sender and the receiver must be sensitively involved for business communication to be successful, but the sender is ultimately responsible for achieving the four fundamental goals of business communication: Receiver understanding Receiver response. Favorable relationship.
What are the 3 types of communication goals?
- Reputation management objectives, which focus on how people perceive and identify an organization
- goals for relationship management, which are concerned with how an organization interacts with its stakeholders
- Task management goals, which are concerned with achieving tasks.
