COMMUNICATE LIKE A GENIUS

I'm just about to land in Barcelona. Just one week left on this European tour that has taken me from Sweden to Moscow, on to Vilnius and into Sofia, Bulgaria last night for a special event for Piraeus Bank's top institutional clients.

On this flight over the Alps from Vienna, I read a fascinating article about Swedish architect Mia Hagg, one of the key visionaries behind the bird's nest stadium featured in the Beijing Olympics. She spoke of her passion for visiting new countries. Her love of design. And the importance of being an excellent communicator to be successful in business.

Getting good at communicating is like getting good at tennis: the more you practice, the better you'll get. In my work developing the leadership abilities of employees at organizations such as NIKE, GE, FedEx and IBM, I've watched many brilliant communicators in action. Here are 6 of the most common things that uncommonly good communicators do:

1. The tell stories and paint pictures through the words they use.

2. They are interesting and entertaining.

3. They are sincere and authentic.

4. They are able to distill complexity into simplicity.

5. They radiate passion.

6. They listen spectacularly well.

There's zero doubt in my mind that you were made to become a masterful communicator. And by making these 6 traits your default, you'll get to genius in the way you connect quicker than you might imagine.