Knowledge is not intelligence. Knowledge is something you obtain after repeatedly performing a skill or being trained in a skill. Knowledge has nothing to do with intelligence. You can have an IQ of 212, but you would never have the knowledge about everything there is to know.
So, how can you obtain knowledge? Do you read books? Do you watch videos and attend seminars? Do you enroll in training courses? Do you communicate with people who have the knowledge you wish to obtain? The answer is YES to all four questions. But the problem is that many people don’t know how to listen, read and communicate in order to obtain the knowledge provided to them.
Here are some tips to help you increase your knowledge and obtain power:
Ways to develop listening skills
1. Pay close attention to the answer a person gives after you ask them a question. Although this sounds simple to do, problems occur when instead of listening, an individual contemplates what she is going to say next, or even concentrating on unrelated matters. It takes a little effort to truly listen to what people are saying and putting all your own thoughts out of your mind for a moment so you can learn from them.
2. Maintain eye contact with the speaker. This is a good exercise to get into a habit of doing because it will help you to become less distracted or keep your thoughts from wondering.
3. Avoid the human tendency to jump to conclusions about what is said before the speaker has finished. Instead, listen closely even if you think you know what the person is going to say. Think of yourself as a news reporter with unbiased views and gathering as much information as possible so you can write a detailed report later. Once you have fully understood and absorbed what the speaker is saying, you can form your own opinions at that time. But forming an opinion while the speaker is talking interferes with absorbing knowledge.
4. Make sure you understand the entire concept before offering any advice or suggestions to others. Sometimes people are so eager to show their enthusiasm that they offer suggestions without realizing the speaker would prefer that they listen rather than give advice. This is not to say that suggestions and solutions are not important. Of course they are — if they are offered at the appropriate time.
5. Give the speaker your undivided attention. It is nearly impossible to concentrate on what someone is saying if you are doing something else. You may be able to take in the gist of what it being said, but you will never absorb all the details. Details are the meat and potatoes of knowledge and should never be missed.
Ways to develop reading skills
1. When reading a paragraph, make sure you can repeat the meaning of that paragraph before you read any further. It is natural for your mind to wander as you are reading a training manual or other reading material. But you need to train yourself to read and understand every paragraph before you move on to the next.
2. Read with an open, unbiased mind until you fully understand what the writer is conveying. You are trying to obtain knowledge that you currently do not possess. If you allow your own biased opinions to clutter up your mind while you are trying to obtain that knowledge, you will get little benefit from the knowledge the writer is giving to you.
3. Always read a book with a yellow highlight marker in your hand. Use it to highlight sentences, paragraphs and sections that stick out as important to you. This way, you can go back through the book and immediately find all the highlighted areas during your second review.
Ways to develop telephone skills
1. Organize your thoughts before making the call; no one appreciates a telephone call from a person who takes forever to get to the point. Organizing your thoughts before making the telephone call allows you to get right to the point and resolve the issue. If necessary, write down a list of the questions you need to ask or what information you need to obtain; refer to it when you make the telephone call.
2. A caller shouldn’t be put on hold for longer than 1 minute. If you discover you are unable to answer the question or solve the problem during the time the caller is on hold, offer to call them back as soon as you have an answer. Then remember to call them back; most people will wait for you to do so if you promised to do so. If you still are unable to get the information to help them within 1 hour after promising to call them back, call them anyway and explain that it will take longer than expected. People truly appreciate those gestures!
3. Take notes during the telephone call. When someone calls you, train yourself to write down the name of the person and any other notes pertinent to the conversation. This way, you can refer to the person by name during the rest of the conversation and record important information you will use when you hang up the phone.
4. Know when to end the telephone call appropriately. Normally the person who calls should be the one who ends the call. But if the caller continues to talk forever and you need to attend to other matters, be professional. Wait for a pause and say something like: “I am sorry to interrupt but I have another appointment. Perhaps we can talk later but thank you again for calling.”
5. Return your calls promptly. A hectic and demanding schedule is no excuse for failing to return a telephone call. Have you ever tried to reach someone repeatedly by telephone, only to have her call you back several days later and tell you she had been so busy she could not call you back? If so, you can imagine how a customer or client will feel when you do the same to them.
Ways to develop strong business e-mail communication
1. Use the subject line of an e-mail message to inform. Keep it brief and specific, and make sure it relates to the subject matter of your e-mail. If not, the receiver might accidentally delete it or mistake your e-mail as spam or an unsolicited advertisement.
2. Treat e-mails like business letters. It is better to be more formal than casual in business e-mail communications. You want to make a good impression.
3. Be sure to include a signature line. It’s often annoying to receive an e-mail from someone you want to contact but they provide no name, title, company, telephone number or Web site information.
4. Don’t compose an e-mail with all capital letters. Typing in uppercase letters is considered CYBER SHOUTING. A good alternative is to use asterisks to emphasize words, such as: Please contact us *no later* than Friday.
5. Keep your e-mail very brief. Writing long e-mails about how you emotionally feel about a situation does not get your e-mail read. But do not be too brief either. Provide the business with all the pertinent facts so they have enough information to look up your records and resolve the issue the first time. However, if your e-mail is longer than 2 paragraphs, pick up the phone and call the company to resolve the issue.
6. Remember that no e-mail is private. Every e-mail sent passes through thousands of servers before it is delivered to the recipient. Additionally, every e-mail you send is likely to be archived on thousands of computers that make it a point to back up their customer’s e-mail data. If you are angry and exhibit irrational behavior in an e-mail, chances are it may come back to haunt you one day.
7. Avoid mood mail. Never send an e-mail when you are angry. Take time to cool down, count to 100, then go back and re-read your e-mail and edit it before clicking the Send button.
8. Proof every e-mail before sending it to a business. It pays to check your grammar, spelling and punctuation before clicking the Send button. Getting in a hurry does nothing but cost you more time in the long run.
9. Be very cautious when using the “Reply All” button on your e-mail program. If you receive an e-mail that was sent to a multitude of people, hitting the “Reply All” button will send your reply to everyone. Unless you want this to happen, use caution when hitting the reply feature.
10. When posting a response to a message board, remember that your e-mail is forever. Many people forget that when they post a message to a message board, the message is archived forever. The main Web site that archives every web site that has ever been in existence is The Wayback Machine at http://web.archive.org/
Using these tips will help to improve your communication and listening skills –and when that happens, you will find that your knowledge and power increase, too. This will help you become a better asset for the company and to the business associates you communicate with on a daily basis.
Ring is the author of six books and a variety of training materials for attorneys and assistants in the debtor bankruptcy field. www.713training.com