Communications Skills – How Can You Tell If You Need Additional Training?
Posted by: admin in Consulting Skills, Consulting Skills Training, tags: Communications Skills, Consulting, Consulting Skills, Consulting Skills TrainingWhat’s the most important thing you’d need to know if you wanted to become a great hockey player?
If you said “how to skate really well”, you’re on the right track.
If you don’t skate well, you have no business even stepping on the ice and pretending to be a hockey player!
The same is true of consulting and communication skills.
If there was ever a career where your success hinged on your ability to successfully communicate one-on-one with people of all learning styles and personality profiles, it would have to be consulting.
Communications skills are probably the most important of all consulting skills… just as important as your industry knowledge.
Unfortunately, communications skills are also one of the most commonly ignored and under-trained consulting skills of all!
So how can you tell if you need additional communications skills training? And what sort of consulting training should you look for in this area?
Take a look at this blog posting on consulting skills for consultants.
It’s got a nice 10-point questionnaire that lets you rate your own skills as a consultant, and decide if you should be taking on additional consulting training in this area.
If you decide that you need additional training, here are a few things to consider:
- There are a number of really good books on communications skills, presentation and public speaking skills. Here are a few hand-picked books on communications skills from Amazon.com.You can buy any number of books (some of which are even available in audio/CD format) and brush up on your skills in your spare time, while you’re stuck in traffic, or as you exercise.
- The best way to hone your presentation skills is to take a live, in-person course that forces you to prepare and present your materials to an audience (of other students), and seek feedback from them.Start with your local colleges, universities, and professional development companies. Find a course that includes a lot of hands-on presentations.
The more you practice your art here, the better you’ll be at it.
- Consider enrolling in a comprehensive, consulting skills training program. Good training programs usually interweave the communications skills training with other consulting training activities.This is a better approach than just learning those communications skills by themselves because it puts you in situations that will feel much closer to what you’re going to face in real life with your clients.
Regardless of what you decide to do about your communications skills, don’t forget that consulting skills in general are you most important assets (and competitive advantage).
With the US unemployment rates the highest they’ve been in a number of years, your consulting skills can help you remain highly competitive.
Given all this, how important would you say communications skills are in your particular case to staying competitive?
Share your thoughts!
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