Jenna Goudreau, Forbes Staff, recently wrote a column entitled, “The 10 Worst Communication Mistakes For Your Career.” The study is based on “a new year-long study of over 4,000 college-educated professionals and 268 senior executives, conducted by CTI and in partnership with Marie Claire magazine.”

According to the study, here are “The 10 Worst Communication Mistakes For Your Career.”

1. Racially Biased Comments
2. Off-Color Jokes
3. Crying
4. Sounding Uneducated
5. Swearing
6. Flirting
7. Scratching Yourself
8. Avoiding Eye Contact
9. Rambling
10. Giggling Too Much and Speaking Shrilly

Forbes also had a list of “The Top 6 Communication Skills That Will Get You Promoted”

1. Excellent Public Speaking
2. Ability to Command A Room
3. Assertiveness
4. Emotional Intelligence
5. Sense of Humor
6. Good Posture and Body Language

To me, both lists emphasize knowing what you know and how you can help clients achieve their goals in a winsome and caring way. And that includes a process for how, when you don’t know something, you can find the information and then relate it back to the client.

Putting the two lists together they either balance or show two ends of the spectrum.

 1. Racially Biased Comments and 2. Off-Color Jokes are the things to avoid when having a 5. Sense of Humor.

 7. Scratching Yourself and 8. Avoiding Eye Contact are the things to avoid in order to have 6. Good Posture and Body Language.

3. Assertiveness is good not because you have to know everything but because you need to have a plan to find out and solve problems. The opposite of assertiveness is 4. Sounding Uneducated and 9. Rambling.

And you can’t have 4. Emotional Intelligence if you are 3. Crying and 5. Swearing and 6. Flirting.

Similarly you don’t have 1. Excellent Public Speaking and 2. The Ability to Command A Room if you are 8. Avoiding Eye Contact, 9. Rambling and 10. Giggling Too Much and Speaking Shrilly.

Sometimes it is eaiser to see virtues when paired with their corresponding faults. But if you want one simple rule just focus on addressing this:

 What does the person in front of you need?