What does that mean?  Throughout my career I've had an issue in that I've been highly valued by my work colleagues but I don't feel like I really know anything more (and sometimes a lot less) than they do about a domain of knowledge.  Over the years it has slowly become apparent that what I can contribute that is really valuable, and more difficult to find than really recognized, is that I have excellent communication skills.  Almost every job description has 'excellent communication skills' listed as a needed qualification and yet....it is really not at all clear what differentiates good communication skills from excellent communication skills.

So, here is my attempt to try and articulate what that means.  Good communication skills - what I would consider the basics needed to be a good employee - are the following:

• Ability to put together a sentence with a decent grammatical structure.
• Ability to verbally describe something such that it does not leave others confused.
• Ability to have a friendly conversation and be engaged with the other person (rather than staring at the floor, the ceiling, etc.)
• Ability to structure a document (argument) in an understandable, easy to absorb way.

What makes great communications skills?

• Passion and enthusiasm for the topic
• Genuine interest in other people and understanding them
• Sensitivity to understand the emotional subtext of a conversation
• Ability to help others clarify and structure their perspective in a way that results in an actionable conclusion
• Ability to parse apart actionable issues from interaction-related issues and re-focus the conversation on the actionable issues.
• Ability to make others feel positive about an interaction (this often involves humor)
• Understanding of how to provide a face-saving/ego-saving ways for another to exit an argument so that when you change someone's mind, they feel like they contributed to the final outcome too
• Ability to structure arguments (and therefore documents, presentations, and conversations) in logical, succinct, simple ways
• Ability to simplify and use analogs to help people understand complex issues or arguments
• Ability to synthesize information from a variety of sources to draw conclusions regarding how to address issues based on context, logic, emotion, and power dynamics

There are probably more factors... these skills overlap with leadership skills but I wish people would stop asking for 'excellent communication skills' because that, ironically, doesn't mean anything.

P.S. Is it ironic that I have good communication skills and crappy spelling?  Readers think so - thanks to some kind editors who corrected an error.