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“It is absolutely critical to be as direct, to the point and concise as possible,” she says, in a lively, forceful voice with a Philadelphia tinge. Vagueness is all too common in the workplace, she observes. Friedman’s fix: follow the newscaster’s drill of spelling out who, what, where, when and why.

Your attitude while talking is also important. “It’s not just your words that convey a message,” Friedman says. “It’s all of you.” If you slouch, jam your hands into your pockets, shuffle your feet and avoid eye contact, people will get the impression you don’t want to communicate with them. Pry your eyes and thumbs away from your electronic device, she admonishes. “Pretend that your colleague is your adorable five-year-old who you would drop everything for if she walked into the office,”

If you have bad news to deliver, lay it out plainly. It’s difficult to talk about layoffs and belt tightening, but if you’re in a situation where you have to convey that sort of information, your employees and colleagues likely already know something is up. It is far better to be straight with them than not to communicate at all, even if you can’t give them the answers they’d like. Always deliver bad news in person. It may seem easier to convey negative information via e-mail, but imagine how you’d feel if you learned electronically that your best work friend had been sacked, vs. hearing it from another human being.

Mentally prioritizing your current or daily work tasks is a strategy you can use to improve the way you orient your thoughts and complete goals

Creating a mental list of tasks beginning with the easiest and leaving the most complicated for last allows you to accomplish lots of tasks early in the day -- this will give you a sense of accomplishment