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You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Which is just another way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one.

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Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster. Your life will never be the same again.

Project Management - Start Here!

Project Management is a well-established approach to managing and controlling the introduction of new initiatives or organizational changes. 

Projects are finite in length, usually one-time pieces of work involving a number of activities that must be completed within a given time frame, and often on a fixed budget. Common examples of projects are construction of a building, introduction of a new product, installation of a new piece of machinery in a manufacturing plant, creation of a new software tool, or the design and launch of a new advertising campaign.

Estimating Time Accurately

Accurate time estimation is a skill essential to good project management. It is important to get time estimates right for two main reasons:
  1. Time estimates drive the setting of deadlines for delivery of projects, and hence peoples' assessments of your reliability
  2. They often determine the pricing of contracts and hence their profitability.

Risk Impact/Probability Chart

Learning to prioritize risks

Risk management is an important function in organizations today. Companies undertake increasingly complex and ambitious projects, and those projects must be executed successfully, in an uncertain and often risky environment.

Scheduling Simple Projects

Simple projects involve only one or a few people over a short time. Typically, simple projects will have few tasks dependent on other tasks, and will be relatively simple and easy to coordinate. Examples might be coordinating delivery of resources for a workshop session, implementing a small marketing plan, or delivering a simple software enhancement.

Gantt Charts

Planning and Scheduling Complex Projects

Gantt Charts (Gant Charts) are useful tools for analyzing and planning more complex projects. They:
  • Help you to plan out the tasks that need to be completed
  • Give you a basis for scheduling when these tasks will be carried out
  • Allow you to plan the allocation of resources needed to complete the project, and
  • Help you to work out the critical path for a project where you must complete it by a particular date.

Logframes, and the Logical Framework Approach

Planning robust, coherent, successful projects

In practice, even the best project managers can find it difficult to plan major projects without missing important activities, and without failing to spot all significant risks and issues. What's more, once you're immersed in the detail of project planning, it's hard to keep site of the big picture: What are you trying to achieve and why? What are the risks and assumptions? And how you can tell whether the project is a success once it's implemented? 

Planning Large Projects and Programs

The techniques explained so far in this section on Mind Tools support a pragmatic, commonsense approach to planning and managing small and medium-sized projects.
However, this approach will only scale up to a certain extent – as projects get larger, they can reach a level of complexity where ad hoc approaches to project management become wasteful and inefficient.

Kotter's 8-Step Change Model

Implementing change powerfully and successfully

Change is the only constant.
- Heraclitus, Greek philosopher

What was true more than two thousand years ago is just as true today. We live in a world where "business as usual" IS change. New initiatives, project-based working, technology improvements, staying ahead of the competition - these things come together to drive ongoing changes to the way we work.

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts

Planning and Scheduling Complex Projects
Related variants: AOA or Activity-on-Arc or Activity-on-Arrow Diagrams

Critical Path Analysis and PERT are powerful tools that help you to schedule and manage complex projects. They were developed in the 1950s to control large defense projects, and have been used routinely since then.

Stakeholder Management and Planning

Planning Stakeholder Communication

"Stakeholder management is critical to the success of every project in every organization I have ever worked with. By engaging the right people in the right way in your project, you can make a big difference to its success... and to your career."

Influence Maps

Uncovering Where the Power Lies in Your Projects

Also known as: Social Network Analysis

Many people can have influence over your projects. Some influencers are obvious and easy to spot. Others are less obvious, but are no less significant. If you fail to recognize and "manage" these influencers, you'll most-likely experience unexpected resistance to your projects, and sometimes bewildering failure. This is increasingly the case as you run large projects, and as the number of people affected by your projects increases. 

Introduction to Decision Making Techniques

All of us have to make decisions every day. Some decisions are relatively straightforward and simple: Is this report ready to send to my boss now? Others are quite complex: Which of these candidates should I select for the job?

Simple decisions usually need a simple decision-making process. But difficult decisions typically involve issues like these:

Pareto Analysis

Choosing the Most Important Changes to Make

Pareto analysis is a very simple technique that helps you to choose the most effective changes to make.
It uses the Pareto principle – the idea that by doing 20% of work you can generate 80% of the advantage of doing the entire job*. Pareto analysis is a formal technique for finding the changes that will give the biggest benefits. It is useful where many possible courses of action are competing for your attention.

Paired Comparison Analysis

Working Out the Relative Importance of Different Options

Paired Comparison Analysis helps you to work out the importance of a number of options relative to each other. It is particularly useful where you do not have objective data to base this on. 

This makes it easy to choose the most important problem to solve, or select the solution that will give you the greatest advantage. Paired Comparison Analysis helps you to set priorities where there are conflicting demands on your resources.

Grid Analysis

Making a Choice Where
Many Factors Must Be Considered

Grid Analysis (also known as Decision Matrix Analysis, Pugh Matrix Analysis or MAUT, which stands for Multi-Attribute Utility Theory) is a useful technique to use for making a decision.
It is particularly powerful where you have a number of good alternatives to choose from, and many different factors to take into account. This makes it a great technique to use in almost any important decision where there isn't a clear and obvious preferred option.

Plus, Minus, Interesting (PMI)

Weighing the Pros and Cons of a Decision

PMI stands for 'Plus/Minus/Interesting'. It is a valuable improvement to the 'weighing pros and cons' technique used for centuries.

PMI is an important Decision Making tool: the mind tools used so far in this section have focused on selecting a course of action from a range of options. Before you move straight to action on this course of action, it is important to check that it is going to improve the situation (it may actually be best to do nothing!) PMI is a useful tool for doing this.

Force Field Analysis

Understanding the Pressures For and
Against Change

Force Field Analysis is a useful technique for looking at all the forces for and against a decision. In effect, it is a specialized method of weighing pros and cons.

By carrying out the analysis you can plan to strengthen the forces supporting a decision, and reduce the impact of opposition to it.

Six Thinking Hats

Looking at a Decision from All Points of View



"Six Thinking Hats" is a powerful technique that helps you look at important decisions from a number of different perspectives. It helps you make better decisions by pushing you to move outside your habitual ways of thinking. As such, it helps you understand the full complexity of a decision, and spot issues and opportunities which you might otherwise not notice.

Starbursting

Understanding new ideas by brainstorming questions

When a colleague suggests a new product or idea, and you're trying to understand it and how it works, a typical response is to bombard the other person with questions. What features would it have? How much would it cost? Where would we market it? Who would buy it? And so on.
Asking questions like these is a valuable way of understanding the new idea, and of challenging it to ensure that all of the relevant aspects of it have been considered before any work begins on implementing it. To get the most out of this approach, it's important that the questions are asked in a systematic and comprehensive way. 

Stepladder Technique

Making Better Group Decisions

Making decisions within a group can often be challenging. When things go well, they can go very well. However, when things go wrong, you can end up mired in conflict. Some people may fight for recognition and position, others may be over-critical or disruptive, while others may sit quietly and not contribute anything to the overall effort. Because of this, groups can often spin out of control and make worse decisions than individuals working on their own.

Cost/Benefit Analysis

Evaluating Quantitatively Whether to Follow a Course of Action

You may have been intensely creative in generating solutions to a problem, and rigorous in your selection of the best one available. However, this solution may still not be worth implementing, as you may invest a lot of time and money in solving a problem that is not worthy of this effort.

Cash Flow Forecasting

Forecasting the Viability of a Financial Decision

Cash Flow forecasts help you to build a model of the way in which cash moves within a project or organization. They help you to predict whether the sales or income you forecast will cover the costs of operation. They also allow you to analyze whether a project will be sufficiently profitable to justify the effort put into it.

Cash flow forecasts can also be useful for analyzing your own personal finances. This is useful when you are about to make difficult financial decisions.

Decision Tree Analysis

Choosing Between Options
by Projecting Likely Outcomes

Decision Trees are useful tools for helping you to choose between several courses of action.
They provide a highly effective structure within which you can explore options, and investigate the possible outcomes of choosing those options. They also help you to form a balanced picture of the risks and rewards associated with each possible course of action.
This makes them particularly useful for choosing between different strategies, projects or investment opportunities, particularly when your resources are limited.

Introduction to Problem Solving Skills

The skills you'll learn in this section of Mind Tools help you solve complicated business problems.

These techniques help you conduct a rigorous analysis of the problems you face, by helping you look at them in a structured and methodical way.

As such, these skills give you a good starting point in business problem solving (and other problem solving situations), where other people would just feel helpless and intimidated by the situation.

Appreciation

Extracting Maximum Information from Facts

Appreciation is a very simple but powerful technique for extracting the maximum amount of information from a simple fact.

How to Use the Tool:

Starting with a fact, ask the question 'So what?' i.e. what are the implications of that fact? Keep on asking that question until you have drawn all possible inferences.

5 Whys

Quickly Getting to the Root of a Problem

Why use the tool?

The 5 Whys is a simple problem-solving technique that helps users to get to the root of the problem quickly. Made popular in the 1970s by the Toyota Production System, the 5 Whys strategy involves looking at any problem and asking: "Why?" and "What caused this problem?"
Very often, the answer to the first "why" will prompt another "why" and the answer to the second "why" will prompt another and so on; hence the name the 5 Whys strategy.
Benefits of the 5 Whys include:

Cause and Effect Diagrams

Identifying the Likely Causes of Problems
Related variants: Fish or Fishbone Diagrams, and Ishikawa Diagrams

Cause and Effect Diagrams help you to think through causes of a problem thoroughly. Their major benefit is that they push you to consider all possible causes of the problem, rather than just the ones that are most obvious.

The approach combines brainstorming with use of a type of concept map.
Cause and Effect Diagrams are also known as Fishbone Diagrams, because a completed diagram can look like the skeleton of a fish.

Affinity Diagrams

Organizing Ideas Into Common Themes

Is it ever a bad thing to have too many ideas?
Probably not, but if you've ever experienced information overload or struggled to know where to begin with a wealth of data you've been given, you may have wondered how you can use all of these ideas effectively. When there's lots of "stuff" coming at you, it is hard to sort through everything and organize the information in a way that makes sense and helps you make decisions.

Appreciative Enquiry

Solving Problems by Looking at What's Going Right

Imagine that your organization's order book is full, and you're desperate to expand your business - but you just can't find the staff you need. What's worse, cash is tight, your recruitment budget is stretched to breaking point, and you strongly suspect that some of the approaches you're using just aren't working.

Flow Charts


Understanding and Communicating How a Process Works
Related variants: Process Maps and Process Flow Diagrams

Flow charts are easy-to-understand diagrams showing how steps in a process fit together. This makes them useful tools for communicating how processes work, and for clearly documenting how a particular job is done. Furthermore, the act of mapping a process out in flow chart format helps you clarify your understanding of the process, and helps you think about where the process can be improved.

Risk Analysis & Risk Management


Evaluating and Managing the Risks You Face

Almost everything we do in today's business world involves a risk of some kind: customer habits change, new competitors appear, factors outside your control could delay your project. But formal risk analysis and risk management can help you to assess these risks and decide what actions to take to minimize disruptions to your plans. They will also help you to decide whether the strategies you could use to control risk are cost-effective.

SWOT Analysis


Discover New Opportunities.
Manage and Eliminate Threats.

SWOT Analysis is a powerful technique for understanding your Strengths and Weaknesses, and for looking at the Opportunities and Threats you face.
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Used in a business context, it helps you carve a sustainable niche in your market. Used in a personal context, it helps you develop your career in a way that takes best advantage of your talents, abilities and opportunities.


PEST Analysis


Understanding "Big Picture" Forces of Change
(Also known as PESTLE, PESTEL, PESTLIED, STEEPLE and SLEPT Analysis)



PEST Analysis is a simple, useful and widely-used tool that helps you understand the "big picture" of your Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural and Technological environment. As such, it is used by business leaders worldwide to build their vision of the future.
It is important for these reasons:

The Marketing Mix and 4 Ps


Understanding how to position your market offering

What is marketing? The definition that many marketers learn as they start out in the industry is:
Putting the right product in the right place, at the right price, at the right time.
It's simple! You just need to create a product that a particularly group of people want, put it on sale some place that those same people visit regularly, and price it at a level which matches the value they feel they get out of it; and do all that at a time they want to buy. Then you've got it made!

The Ansoff Matrix


Understanding the risks of different options
(Also known as the Product/Market Expansion Grid)

Successful businesspeople spend a lot of time thinking about how they can increase profits. They’ll typically have hundreds of ideas about things they could do, including developing new products, opening up new markets and new channels, and launching new marketing campaigns.
In the same way, people within organizations often have many different ideas about how they want to progress their careers. Perhaps they want to develop new skills, move into new roles, and even work in new industries.

The Boston Matrix


(Also called the BCG Matrix, the Growth-Share
Matrix and Portfolio Analysis)

Focusing effort to give the greatest returns

If you enjoy vivid visual metaphors for business, then you'll love the Boston Matrix!
Also called the BCG Matrix, it provides a useful way of screening the opportunities open to you, and helps you think about where you can best allocate your resources to maximize profit in the future.

Porter's Five Forces


Assessing the Balance of Power in a Business Situation

The Porter's 5 Forces tool is a simple but powerful tool for understanding where power lies in a business situation. This is useful, because it helps you understand both the strength of your current competitive position, and the strength of a position you're considering moving into.
With a clear understanding of where power lies, you can take fair advantage of a situation of strength, improve a situation of weakness, and avoid taking wrong steps. This makes it an important part of your planning toolkit.

Core Competence Analysis

Get Ahead. Stay Ahead.

The idea of the “core competence” is one of the most important business ideas that has shaped our world. It is one of the key ideas that lies behind the current wave of outsourcing, as businesses concentrate their efforts on things they do well, and outsource as much as they can of everything else.
In this article we explain the idea and help you use it, on both corporate and personal levels. And by doing so, we show you how you can get ahead of your competition – and stay ahead.
By using the idea, you can make the very most of the opportunities open to you:

USP Analysis


The Unique Selling Proposition:
Crafting Your "Competitive Edge"



For years, business trainers have stressed the importance of "USPs" (Unique Selling Propositions). Your USP is the unique thing that you can offer that your competitors can't. It's your "Competitive Edge". It’s the reason that customers buy from you and you alone.
USPs have helped many companies succeed. And they can help you too when you’re marketing yourself (when seeking a promotion, finding a new job or just making sure you get the recognition you deserve.) If you don't have a USP, you're condemned to a struggle for survival - that way lies hard work and little reward.

Critical Success Factors


Identifying the things that really matter for success

So many important matters can compete for your attention in business that it's often difficult to see the "wood for the trees". What's more, it can be extremely difficult to get everyone in the team pulling in the same direction and focusing on the true essentials.
That's where Critical Success Factors (CSFs) can help. CSFs are the essential areas of activity that must be performed well if you are to achieve the mission, objectives or goals for your business or project.

Using the Greiner Curve


Surviving the crises that come with growth

Fast growing companies can often be chaotic places to work.
As workloads increase exponentially, approaches which have worked well in the past start failing. Teams and people get overwhelmed with work. Previously-effective managers start making mistakes as their span of control expands. And systems start to buckle under increased load.
While growth is fun when things are going well, when things go wrong, this chaos can be intensely stressful. More than this, these problems can be damaging (or even fatal) to the organization.

The McKinsey 7S Framework

Ensuring that all parts of your organization work in harmony

How do you go about analyzing how well your organization is positioned to achieve its intended objective? This is a question that has been asked for many years, and there are many different answers. Some approaches look at internal factors, others look at external ones, some combine these perspectives, and others look for congruence between various aspects of the organization being studied. Ultimately, the issue comes down to which factors to study.

Leadership Skills Introduction

“At the age of seven, a young boy and his family were forced out of their home. The boy had to work to support his family. At the age of nine, his mother passed away. When he grew up, the young man was keen to go to law school, but had no education.

At 22, he lost his job as a store clerk. At 23, he ran for state legislature and lost. The same year, he went into business. It failed, leaving him with a debt that took him 17 years to repay. At 27, he had a nervous breakdown.

Leadership Motivation Tools

Increasing Your Motivation to Lead

In the previous article we gave you a tool for assessing your motivation to lead. So what if you want to become more of a leader, but you're finding it difficult to motivate yourself?
The tools in this article will help. First we look at the "Demotivation Demolisher", next we look at the "Need-Effort Bridge" and finally we look at "Passion Propulsion".

Winning Expert Power

Leading from the Front

There are many different power bases that a leader can develop and use.
These include problematic ones such as the power of position, the power to give rewards, the power to punish and the power to control information. While these types of power do have some strength, they put the person being led in an unhealthy position of weakness, and can leave leaders using these power bases looking autocratic and out of touch.

Leadership styles

Using the right one for your situation

From Mahatma Gandhi to Winston Churchill to Martin Luther King, there are as many leadership styles as there are leaders. Fortunately, businesspeople and psychologists have developed useful and simple ways to describe the main styles of leadership, and these can help aspiring leaders understand which styles they should use.

Blake Mouton Managerial Grid

Balancing Task- and People-Oriented Leadership

When your boss puts you in charge of organizing the company Christmas party, what do you do first? Do you develop a time line and start assigning tasks or do you think about who would prefer to do what and try to schedule around their needs? When the planning starts to fall behind schedule, what is your first reaction? Do you chase everyone to get back on track, or do you ease off a bit recognizing that everyone is busy just doing his/her job, let alone the extra tasks you've assigned?

Emotional Intelligence

Developing Strong "People Skills"

We probably all know people, either at work or in our personal lives, who are really good listeners. No matter what kind of situation we're in, they always seem to know just what to say - and how to say it - so that we're not offended or upset. They're caring and considerate, and even if we don't find a solution to our problem, we usually leave feeling more hopeful and optimistic.
We probably also know people who are masters at managing 

Mission Statements & Vision Statements

Unleashing the power of purpose

Vision Statements and Mission Statements are the inspiring words chosen by successful leaders to clearly and concisely convey the direction of the organization. By crafting a clear mission statement and vision statement, you can powerfully communicate your intentions and motivate your team or organization to realize an attractive and inspiring common vision of the future.

Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing

Helping New Teams Perform Effectively, Quickly

Effective teamwork is essential in today’s world, but as you’ll know from the teams you have led or belonged to, you can’t expect a new team to perform exceptionally from the very outset. Team formation takes time, and usually follows some easily recognizable stages, as the team journeys from being a group of strangers to becoming a united team with a common goal.

Belbin's Team Roles

How understanding team roles can improve team performance

When a team is performing at its best, you’ll usually find that each team member has clear responsibilities. Just as importantly, you’ll see that every role needed to achieve the team’s goal is being performed fully and well.
But often, despite clear roles and responsibilities, a team will fall short of its full potential.
How often does this happen in the teams you work with? Perhaps

Successful Delegation

Using the Power of Other People's Help

Even "Super-You" needs help and support. There is no shame in asking for assistance. Push aside the pride and show respect for the talent others can bring to the table.

And, remember that there is no such thing as a single-handed success: When you include and acknowledge all those in your corner, you propel yourself, your teammates and your supporters to greater heights.

Task Allocation

Picking the right player for the right job

In any team sport, a lot of time is spent choosing the players who will play in each game. The selection process also involves deciding the position where each team member will play, based on the player’s skill, form (current ability to perform well) and the likely opposition that the team will face. 

Just as this is true in sport, it is true in business. Leaders need to select the right people for the right jobs, and assign them tasks that fit with their skills and proficiencies. This provides structure.

The GROW Model

Coaching team members to improve performance

One key role of any leader is to coach team members to achieve their best. As "coach", you will typically help your team members to solve problems, make better decisions, learn new skills or otherwise progress in their role or career.

Whilst some leaders are fortunate enough to get formal training as coaches, many are not. They have to develop coaching skills for themselves.
Now this may sound daunting. But if you arm yourself with some of proven techniques, find opportunities to practice and learn to trust your instincts, you can become a better coach, and so enhance your team's performance.

Mentoring: An Essential Leadership Skill

Mentoring from a Mentor's Perspective

Building a high-performing team is a key part of being an effective leader. And this includes helping individuals within your team learn, grow, and become more effective in their jobs; which is why mentoring is such an important leadership skill.

But what does mentoring involve? And what do you need to consider before setting up mentoring relationships? In this article, we'll highlight some things a mentor does and doesn't do, and we'll help you decide how far mentoring is right for you and your team.

Adams' Equity Theory

Balancing Employee Inputs and Outputs

Adams’ Equity Theory calls for a fair balance to be struck between an employee’s inputs (hard work, skill level, tolerance, enthusiasm, etc.) and an employee’s outputs (salary, benefits, intangibles such as recognition, etc.). According to the theory, finding this fair balance serves to ensure a strong and productive relationship is achieved with the employee, with the overall result being contented, motivated employees.

Avoiding Micromanagement

Helping Team Members Excel - On Their Own

You've assigned an important task to a talented employee, and given him a deadline. Now, do you let him do his work and simply touch base with him at pre-defined points along the way - or do you keep dropping by his desk and sending e-mails to check his progress?

If it's the latter, you might be a micromanager. Or, if you're the harried worker trying to make a deadline with a boss hovering at your shoulder, you might have a micromanager on your hands - someone who just can't let go of tiny details.

Conflict Resolution

Resolving conflict rationally and effectively

In many cases, conflict in the workplace just seems to be a fact of life. We've all seen situations where different people with different goals and needs have come into conflict. And we've all seen the often-intense personal animosity that can result.

The fact that conflict exists, however, is not necessarily a bad thing: As long as it is resolved effectively, it can lead to personal and professional growth.
In many cases, effective conflict resolution skills can make the difference between positive and negative outcomes. 

Public Speaking Topics

The public speaking speech has to be emphatic. Going by general standards the speaker is usually informed of the crowd, their expectations and the topic to be discussed. Rendition is based on developing confidence by gaining the positive response of the people. Expression is an oratory skill that comes with the flow of words. For a difficult topic, research is very much essential. Facts, years, quantity and percentages add value to any kind of speech. The articulation has to be matter of fact and justified.

Public Speaking

A charismatic personality has the essential qualities of winning the hearts of people. This goes in all ventures in life whether professional or personal. When it comes to performance and that too in an age of information, the bar is high on the ability to communicate. With increasing seamless integration brought in by technology, the pressure to effectively go about a work profile becomes more demanding. Here the accentuation is on written as well as verbal communication.

Confidence During Public Speaking

The art of eloquence is a gifted talent. There are various public speaking techniques which occur as we expose ourselves to a gamut of interactions but the most important quality is to muster confidence. Rehearsals may seem important if we are not internally gifted with the quality to wax eloquent. Like all other talents, public speaking also develops into an activity which is unique and denotes a personal style.

Overcoming a Lisp

Communication is vital for expression and receiving feedback. This is the pace for any business and also required for normal routine functioning. The public speaking training program is scheduled by experts who will guide you on also formulating presentation skills, writing a speech, expression and correct the subtle mistakes which all of us follow unawares. There are certain pronunciations that need to be corrected even if we have mastery over the language.

Effective Public Speaking

Effectively speaking in public means winning the vote of the audience. Verbal communication has to be effective. The essential part about a conversation is to register effectiveness. The art of public speaking is truly a gift by itself but for those who would love to develop this creativity they can join reputed classes that coach people to speak well. Communication is vital for existence whether business or personal life.

Improving Public Speaking

Whenever we embark on a project our knowledge skills initiative is very important. A few tips on public speaking are usually self learnt while making mistakes whereas there are other cardinal rules that we observe or value as a listener. Voice modulation is important for improving public speaking. It is important to understand the volume control on the mike and also other acoustic tones that the mike usually catches. Facial expressions during a formal occasion can be maintained in a very formal style.

Public Speaking Skills

Skills are usually latent in each person. Even if one is talented in a particular area, it is important to go in for different styles of speaking to increase the skill. In case you wish to go in for a public speaking course then choose one that is convenient to your time. Investing quality time is important while learning something new. Rehearsing is also an important concept of public speaking.

Addressing a Crowd

Gumption is often the result of confidence and sincerity. While facing a crowd it is natural to be overwhelmed. But it is essential to positively partake in the session while communicating. Inhibitions about the crowd have to be overcome. Firstly it is better to write down the speech in correct English and read out the same in front of the mirror. The correct body language is very important while rendering the subject.

Fear of Public Speaking

Cultivating social skills is important to erase the phobia of public behavior. People who are introvert in nature can also go in for public speaking lesson plans or personality development classes that enroll students of all ages. The fear of public speaking is more of the mind and it is important to gather skills that enhance confidence. Usually any kind of interaction initiates response or opinion and this actually makes it important for a person to overcome the shortcomings.

Body Language and Posture

People are usually drawn towards a good personality. The public speaking course in Mumbai also involves the concept of personality development and initiates you to begin a new way of improving your confidence. Body language requires practicing a pose that also gives a message of speaking with conviction. Often eye contact is a means to register interest and sincerity which has to be maintained with all the participants.

Understanding the Audience

Public speaking opportunities are many. At times it calls for a sudden volunteering during a rally or managing a crowd. Speaking articulately means sending a message across and actually making a statement. To learn public speaking in Mumbai one can do a few enquires on the best course available. Ideally it would be fine to club personality development along with the same in case you have the time. Most of the skills are developed by also adapting to latest styles in speaking.

Art of Ex-pression

There are different facets of expression. Public speaking is an art of expressing a point, suggestion or also a medium of gentle persuasion. The motive is to give something to the discerning audience so that they can imbibe the skills in the speech. For the same, the timing of speech with relevant facts is highly important. In case the audience is hearing the methodology for the first time, then it becomes necessary to support the speech with pictures or supports. The art of expression can be a talent or there is much scope for improvement through observation.

Preparing to Speak in Public

Homework’s are essential for any kind of presentation. A bit of research, identification and improvements works wonders to effectively communicate and win the confidence of people. Preparation means primarily have a clean thought process. Confidence can be mustered by focusing on the qualities required for delivering a speech. It is important to gauge the knowledge level of the audience and tailor the speech to suit the understanding of the audience.

Public Speaking Tips

Knowledge and researched information is very important to draw a speech. The sentences should be grammatically free and apt to the context of the topic underlined. Every speech or an essay has a central meaning which is supported with passages or other explanations. Inorder to create an impression it is very important to have the thoughts focused and avoid distractions. The crowd may be imaginative, expressive or disinterested by the speaker must possess the ability to work hard on garnering attention

Five Common Mistakes During Speaking in Public

Continually improving skills are learning a new craft is necessary to go on with the competition faced to be successful. It is important to assess your own self while speaking and also have a keen interest in learning new ways to improve your talent.

Poor appearance is one of the downers when it comes to ascertaining a personality. This is not about good looks but the need to look presentable is very important. Dressing in a coordinated manner, a neat haircut, confident body language and an immaculate appearance does well to the self esteem and improves confidence. This also one way to impress the crowd a pleasing personality is essential to convey a forceful message.

Soft Skills

The driving force behind every company is its employees. It is for this reason that almost every company is taking steps towards helping their staff to perform better. They realize that better performance is not just a matter of timely upgraded technical and domain-related knowledge, but also the other aspects that are overlooked, such as soft skills. According to Human Resource heads of various leading enterprises, regular training in soft skills, helps the company as a whole, as the result of such a training is to motivate the staff members.

Spoken English

In order to be able to learn any language whether spoken or written, one needs at least 60 hours to 72 hours teaching-learning time. This is the principle followed by every language trainer. Where spoken English is concerned, one needs to undergo an entire language learning course. This course is designed in such a way that one understands the essentials of grammar, sentence construction and vocabulary.

Call Center Training

One of the basic requirements for a call executive is effective communication skills, more so in the area of attending calls. Thus, while employing executives each company puts their new incumbents through rigorous training in the process, as well as in a subject known as voice and accent.

Customised Corporate Training Workshops

The range of training options provided by most training solution firms includes the likes of customized workshops, phased interventions in the classroom or outdoor setting, in order to carefully structure Executive development Programs. The company provides a comprehensive range of learning solutions and services to help companies make their business strategies happen.

Corporate English Training

When it comes to training in corporate English there are two important aspects:

Written English Skills
Spoken English Skills

Here, we will look at written corporate training. This mainly includes writing emails, business proposals and presentations, as well as varied other written communications required to develop business. Given here is a list of rules to help one improve their corporate writing skills:

English Speaking

The basic underlying factor for learning any language - written or spoken - is its grammar. Thus, any trainer involved in teaching English speaking prepares are module, wherein grammar is the larger chunk of learning. What follows here, is a typical English speaking learning module...

Presentation Skills

"Conversation... is the art of never appearing a bore, of knowing how to say everything interestingly, to entertain with no matter what, to be charming with nothing at all." Thus, communication is best achieved through simple planning and control. To ensure efficient and effective conversation there are three prime considerations:

Public Speaking

Speaking in public tends to become a rather stressful task for many. In fact, even the best of speakers tend to go through those few moments of anxiety and stage fright just before getting onto the stage or podium to address their audience. One of the main reasons can be language, which for instance could be lack of English speaking words. But then how to improve English speaking can be looked at, as a different subject, all together.

Body Language

Non verbal communication includes the following aspects:

Facial expressions
Voice culture
Gestures
Eye contact
Spatial arrangements
Patterns of touch
Expressive movement
Body language

Personality Development

Personality is generally defined as the deeply ingrained and relatively enduring patterns of thought, feeling and behavior. In fact, when one refers to personality, it generally implies to all what is unique about an individual, the characteristics that makes one stand out in a crowd.

Voice Culture

In the case of verbal communication skills voice plays an important role. After all, one maybe knowledgeable in their domain area, but conveying their knowledge may seem like a mammoth task. This is the reason why, as a part of communication skills training there is ample emphasis laid on voice culture.

Communication Barriers

No matter how good and effective a communicator one maybe, yet the fact is that one does face certain barriers, from time to time, which forces them to work on becoming even more effective in their skills to communicate. Given here are the communication barriers that occur while listening, speaking and in the case of non-verbal communications...

Improving Communication Skills

When one is required to communicate complicated ideas, one needs to first and foremost work on improving their skills in communicating. Firstly, one needs to overcome all language related barriers by first seeking how to learn English speaking. This is essential, because most people find it difficult to convey their thoughts, because of a strong influence of their national language, regional language and mother tongue.

Basic Communication Skills

Basic communication skills are essential for continued success, whether personal or professional. At the very base one needs to understand the communication process.

Thus, one may ask what are communication skills? To answer that simply - Basically, communicating is like a two-way street, which entails the relation between the sender and the receiver. In this process, a cycle of communicating messages is formed between the sender and the receiver. The sender is required to conceive the message he/she wishes to send, encode this message and then transmit. The receiver then is required to receive the message, decode is and clarify his/her understanding of the message.

Communication Skills Training

Training has become an important aspect of corporate development and progress. In fact, an increasing number of companies have been identifying various areas where training is required; and the leading among them has been communication skills.

Management across the various industries have realized that improving communication skills amongst their staff not only helps them in communicating and negotiating better with clients, but also helps in maintaining better interpersonal relations at the workplace, which in turn brings about a harmonious and productive working environment.

List Of Communication Skills

The ability to communicate effectively is a trick learnt by many, but practiced perfectly by not too many. This is because for most communicating is simple process. However, it is not so, it a rather simple-complex-networking system that has varied undercurrents flowing between the speaker and listener/s.

Good Communication Skills

The way one communicates does not only have an impact on their own profession and personal relations, but also an effect on others. Those who do not have appropriate communication skills are usually ignored or simply kept at bay. Where are those with good communication skills are looked upon and well respected. After all a good listener and a good orator are popular in their groups - professional and personal.

Verbal Communication Skills

Everybody has interesting thoughts floating in their mind, however only a few are able to communicate them effectively, and bring about a resounding impact on their audience. This is because they have probably sharpened their verbal communication skills. Many feel that this skill does not need any training, as every individual is able to communicate. Yes, every individual can communicate, but the problem is that every individual cannot effectively communicate.

Examples Of Communication Skills

More often than never, most people consider themselves to be good and effective communicators simply because they feel they can speak fluently.

While speaking fluently is an important aspect of communicating, yet it is not the only requirement. One should be able to listen effectively, speak fluently and clearly, write well and read in the language/s they are familiar with.

Effective Communication Skills

While it is an undisputable fact the communications forms one of the essential basis of human existence, yet most individuals overlook the need to refine their communication skills, from time-to-time. Effective communication skills is a must whether it is individual or then effective team communication skills.

According to the experts one can communicate effectively when they understand the stages of interpersonal communication, which are explained below :

Importance Of Communication Skills

"Identification is one of the key ingredients of effective communication. In fact, unless your listeners can identify with what you are saying and with the way you are saying it, they are not likely to receive and understand your message."

The quote above is the underlying factor that explains the importance of communication skills.

In fact, there are other such quotes, which are as follows that explains the importance of effective communications skills:

Types Of Communication Skills

Communication is generally classified into a couple of types. The classifications include:

Verbal and non-verbal

Technological and non-technological

Mediated and non-mediated

Participatory and non-participatory

Definition Of Communication Skills

Every individual needs to be well equipped with the tools to communicate effectively, whether it is on the personal front, or at work. In fact, according to the management gurus, being a good communicator is half the battle won. After all, if one speaks and listens well, then there is little or no scope for misunderstanding. Thus, keeping this fact in mind, the primary reasons for misunderstanding is due to inability to speak well, or listen effectively.

Communication Skills

The ability to communicate is the primary factor that distinguishes human beings from animals. And it is the ability to communicate well that distinguishes one individual from another.

The fact, is that apart from the basic necessities, one needs to be equipped with habits for good communication skills, as this is what will make them a happy and successful social being.
 

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