Not all of us are effective in communicating. In fact, when you take a look at the world today, a lot of us have trouble getting a simple message across. We all have a pretty good idea about what we want to let others know, but most of us don’t have the right idea about how to go about expressing it.
However, it’s rather easy to improve our communication skills and the first step to improvement is being able to see what mistakes we are making in the first place. This is the reason people have developed communication skills assessments.
These types of assessments come in two parts: verbal and non-verbal. The verbal communication skills assessment takes measure of how adept we are at the use of words. It assesses the way we use words to convey our meaning and the way we interpret the meanings from them. This part of the assessment does this through written and oral exams.
Non-verbal communication skills assessments take note of the way we say things without the use of words. These take note of how well we are able to express ourselves using gestures, body language and other “symbolic” means. This is usually done through observation and evaluation.
How should one respond to the results of a communication skills assessment?
1) Acceptance
Tests are made to be as objective as possible. The results of your communication skills assessment are designed to be free of any bias. This means that you should just take them at face value so that you can learn and grow from understanding the mistakes you’re making. Becoming defensive won’t help you improve or blaming the test or the test taker will only prevent you from making important improvements.
So, don’t put down the test or the tester, just accept the truth that you aren’t perfect and move on to the next step.
2) Improvement
The next step is improvement. Once you have accepted the fact that you’re not perfect, you must do the work necessary to improve yourself. The main goal of a communication skills assessment is not to criticize you, but to improve you.
Some people, when they get bad results from communication skills assessment, sink into despair. They think they have no hope of improvement. However, here is the truth: communication skills are not fixed from birth. This means that you can take steps to improve them. And they can even be fun to learn.
There are two basic ways to go about making improvements to your communication skills. You can go it alone or choose professional help. If you choose the former, there are a lot of resources available out there for you to use. This means that you only need the will to improve and some time to learn and practice the skills on your own.
If you choose the latter, there are many professionals ready to help you. More often than not, the ones who conducted the communication skills assessment will provide you the help that you need.
3) Observation
Once you have worked on the prescribed improvements yourself, you need to be observant. We always need continuous improvement, so be vigilant and see what improvements you need to work on next. If you continue to be observant about your communication, you increase the chances that you will never need a communication skills assessment again.
A communication skills assessment is like a mirror, letting you see what parts of you need improvement. However, this instrument alone is not enough to make you better. You need to have the right attitude in order to actually improve. Always remember that in life, having the right attitude and a little hard work is everything.