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To ensure an efficient and effective conversation, there are three considerations:

• you must make your message understood
• you must receive/understand the intended message sent to you
• you should exert some control over the flow of the communication

Thus you must learn to listen as well as to speak. Those who dismis this as a mere platitude are already demonstrating an indisposition to listening: the phrase may be trite, but the message is hugely significant to your effectiveness as a manager. If you do not explicitly develop the skill of listening, you may not hear the suggestion/information which should launch you to fame and fortune.

Communication is best achieved through simple planning and control; this article looks at approaches which might help you to do this and specifically at meetings, where conversations need particular care.

Whether you call them stories, anecdotes or examples, they are a highly effective communication tool. In an informal setting (such as a Networking function or an Association meeting), examples can be used to explain your job or to illustrate a point in a discussion. In a presentation, anecdotes keep the audience's attention.

In fact, people remember stories, even when they don't recall anything else that was said.

It is not only what you say in the classroom that is important, but it's how you say it that can make the difference to students. Nonverbal messages are an essential component of communication in the teaching process.