In our culture, competition, winning and importance of being right are taught. These behaviors are not conducive to good communication and teamwork. Therefore, employer may need to evaluate importance of good communication and teamwork and teach these concepts. One additional concept that partners well with these is benefit of diversity. A group with differing opinions and backgrounds, listening well and asking questions without assumption, with same goal in mind, will ALWAYS have a better result than individual – no matter how intelligent and experienced s/he is.

Listening is half of communication, but is not usually given half of attention in perfecting communication skills. A great exercise to use for improving listening skills is ‘mirroring’. This involves having a conversation about a non-confrontational subject. As first person states his position, second person repeats back what she perceived was communicated. Using this exercise really helps participants recognize how much their beliefs influence what they perceive.

Other important components of excellent communication include ability to let go of ego and need to be right. This does not happen overnight and is often an evolution. Also, this ties in with taking comments personally and working in a team. When one understands that a great result is more important than being right or being star, great result is achieved much faster and easier.

For example, let’s say you’re a member of a project team created to solve a problem. If there is not a listening, team focus on your team, you may be hesitant to bring up ideas for fear of being embarrassed. Or, when you bring up what you believe to be best idea ever, you hold onto it for dear life. If team then wants to change your idea to improve upon it, it becomes an insult. This is not conducive to creating best possible solution and implementing it with full support of team.

Respect is another critical component in effective communication. By treating others as you would wish to be treated, you can learn a great deal, make better decisions and build relationships. For example, say you are trying to have an important conversation with a co-worker, but they seem distracted. At this moment, you have two options. You can continue to try to have conversation immediately, which is what’s important to you, or you can not have conversation right then, and consider why your coworker is distracted. Respecting others’ time can build great relationships, which benefits everyone in long run.

Business communications is complex. A great way to begin improving communications in your workplace is to pay attention to all that’s going on around you and motivations behind current behavior. Ask questions and listen to answers without judgment – you can learn a lot.

Third, show accountability to yourself and your constituents. At Commissioners hearing, while everyone was moved by heartfelt human impact stories, I was struck by lack of hard facts about outcomes, especially for human services non-profits struggling to keep their funding. Non-profits not only need to operate at highest level of efficiency, but they also need to measure results they produce. How many people does your organization help place in jobs annually? How many people are kept out of criminal justice system and what is savings for society? How much money is saved by keeping a child out of foster care system? While non-profits hate to think of themselves in terms of dollars and cents, those appealing to cash-starved government entities, foundations, and businesses that care about bottom lines, need to be able to provide this type of information.

Finally, non-profits should never let down their guard. A collective sigh of relief is often uttered after annual budget review is done and funding has been secured. But that generally leads to a false sense of security for a year. Like businesses, non-profits need to be constantly surveying their environment. What national economic trends are likely to affect them next year? Who are major constituents today and who are they likely to be tomorrow? Are there any new competitors and what does that mean? What are current internal strengths and where can new opportunities be leveraged? Are there other agencies duplicating services with whom you might forge a partnership? Surveying landscape and anticipating change is key for ongoing success.

Organizations in crisis mode are generally not as effective in fulfilling their mission. Looking at all of these areas and taking steps to make improvements can give any non-profit a little more breathing room to face up to their next funding challenge, and most importantly, continue serving their target populations.