The Cost of Poor Communication Skills

Yesterday I was speaking with a Toastmasters friend from the eastern U.S. and he told me that the Toastmasters clubs in his area will be soon benefitting from some press coverage, sadly at the expense of some other worthy membership-based organizations.  He said that a newspaper columnist decided to write a series on the theme of New Years resolutions and she contacted organizations that people often turn to in order to act on these resolutions, for example, gyms, yoga studios, and others.   My friend had an interview with the columnist and at the end of the interview the columnist said she’s had trouble getting a response from many organizations but when she contacted toastmaster clubs each was very quick to respond.  Why do you suppose that is?

Is Public Speaking A Core Skill?

Are Toastmasters clubs better at public relations than other small organizations?   While Toastmasters is a large organization operating in 149 countries, each of the 16,000 clubs is a small organization, and in essence a very small business.  I’d like to believe the clubs are especially strong at PR but I don’t think so.  However, I know that the club members are confident about expressing their thoughts and ideas, and I speculate this is why our club members are prompt to respond to requests for interviews.  As a result of this confidence, more clubs will be featured by the columnist.  This is an opportunity lost for some organizations, and an opportunity gained for these Toastmasters clubs.

Do we treat public speaking as a core skill?  We should. It’s difficult to persuade a team, or make a sale to a prospect if you can’t communicate clearly. Related to this, yesterday I attended a briefing from a U.S. university about a program I have some interest in.   The session started with an introduction by the administrative lead, and further details were provided by the professor who delivers the program.   The professor was a clear communicator with simple, short sentences and well-organized thoughts.  The administrative lead was a poor communicator.  His presentation was not well organized and filled with ums and ahs.   At one point he uttered ah three times in a row as he struggled to gather his thoughts.  Silence would have been preferred, and fine. I found his speech habits terribly distracting in working to receive his message

Efforts Of A Listener

When someone is not skilled as a communicator, a listener will usually make the effort to interpret and organize what he or she is hearing.  And we’ll fight through unhelpful utterances like um and ah – to a point.  If we determine the information isn’t pertinent, or interesting, or too difficult to interpret, we stop making the effort, and this was the case for me yesterday.  I listened to the professor and enjoyed her content, but when the administrator resumed the session towards the end to make the pitch to signup, I listened briefly but then wasn’t willing to endure more of his poorly communicated speech.  That is likely my loss.  

So yesterday I heard the story of how some Toastmasters clubs will get some press coverage because they were prompt and confident to communicate their story. And I experienced a sales pitch so poor in its presentation that I disconnected from the session before hearing the full pitch.

There are benefits to good communication, and costs to poor communication.  Sometimes those costs aren’t readily recognizable.  Is this lack of skill in public speaking holding back you or your organization?

A Perspective from SHRM on The Cost of Poor Communication

Here is a perspective from the The Society for Human Resource Management

https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/behavioral-competencies/communication/Pages/The-Cost-of-Poor-Communications.aspx