Humans are social animals. It is impossible for us to live a day without any form of communication with fellow human beings. Communication is a basic tool that allows us to interact with and understand others.As such, developing effective communication skills is important to build mutual understanding, gain rapport, minimize conflicts and develop good interpersonal relationships.
I define effective communication skills as skills that enable one to use the right word with the right tone and behavioural cues, in the right sentence structure to convey meanings accurately in a way that is interpreted by the recipient correctly. In addition, effective communication skills require active listening so that one can respond to the recipient appropriately.
Be it in one's personal life or in the workplace, mutual understanding is important to develop good group dynamics and minimize office politics. Ideally, effective communication allows one to explain one's stand or views so that people are able to look at matters in one's perspectives and understand where one is coming from. In such a situation, group discussions would be facilitated in the workplace and in one's personal life, misunderstandings could be minimized.
I'm sure we have encountered situations in which, people find fault with our comments which were made innocently. We could have unknowingly rubbed another the wrong way with our tone or our inappropriate choice of words. Or, we could bridge the gap between two people by reacting appropriately to the other's behaviour. For example, I was talking to a potential supervisor for my Final Year Project about his interest in accepting honours students. However, he said honours students are a burden to him. I find his choice of word "burden" disturbing. On another hand, I have learnt that the phrases "I do understand where you are coming from." or "I can completely understand how you are feeling now." can help to build greater rapport with others.
In addition to verbal communication, behavioural communication like eye contact (not more than 75% of the time) and smiles can diffuse any tense or awkard situations. Eye contact should not be established 100% of the time one is communicating with another because it can be intimidating. However, one should note the cultures of the other party. If the other party is a Muslim, people of the opposite sex shouldn't have eye contact for more than one or two second. This is true for traditional and pious Muslims. The modern Muslims don't really abide by this cultural rule though. To show interest in another's conversation, one can bend your upper body slightly forward when one is sitting. If one is standing, face the front of one's body towards the talking party.
Communication involves 2-way traffic. When one is talking, the other should listen actively. The latter means, asking of questions or acknowledging what the other party is talking about. For example, person A is talking to person B about her issues at home. Person B can listen actively by dropping "Oh my, you are definitely having a rough time." or "Oh my gosh, such things can actually happen?" at the appropriate junction.
When there's mutual understanding and rapport, conflicts can be minimized and good interpersonal relationships can be cultivated in all aspects of one's life. In the workplace, there would be higher level of productivity and greater chance of promotion (good working relationship with colleagues is a factor of consideration). In turn, one's quality of living and even standard of living would be increased. So, tell me, is developing effective communication skills important?
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Hi Kalene. Your post is really insightful and you have showed maturity of thought when you made your argument. For example, you mentioned that communication is a two way traffic and I totally agree with you on that. It takes two hands to clap if effective communication is to take place. Message could only get across effectively to the recipient if one could articulate his ideas clearly and if the recipient is an active listener. Perhaps you can explain why communication skills are important to you by putting in some personal touch to it? Nevertheless, it is a good job! Keep it up!!!
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ReplyDeleteYes, I agree that there are times where people find fault with our comments which were made innocently. I feel that it can be words or just simple facial expression.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me when I was in secondary school. In every recess break I would go over to another class to look for my friend and have meals together. One day she told me, why every time I looked so reluctant to find her, because I looked grumpy without a smile. But the truth was, I was very happy to eat with her, glad that we are good friends, without a smile because I don’t like crowded place, especially canteen filled with students. Her feedback made me understand how she felt and after which every time I went to her class with a joyful smile, and it came from my heart, not that I did it for the sake of doing.
It also came to Kalene point on “smiles can diffuse any tense or awkward situations.” Of course, you do not over do it. Hence, I feel that effective communication is indeed two-way, one actively listening and giving feedbacks and the sender absorbs, understand and can improve on his practice of communication too.
Hello!
ReplyDeleteI like the point where you mentioned that cultural differences can affect effective communication. In addition to your point, I think that different people may interpret the same word differently too.
Simple words like "right" can be interpreted in different ways. "This is right" can mean "This is right (correct)" or "This is right (opposite of left)".
Though my example is not serious enough to create any kind of misunderstanding, hope it can illustrate my point clearly! Anyway, all of us are still in the process of learning effective communications. Aren't we?
Hi Kalene. I agree that effective communication is essential for both the private and working lives. Some people could be offended by the use of wrong words or inappropriate non-verbal communication. These people would then be less receptive of the information (content) that you deliver and consequently arguement and tension might ensue. Thus it must be seem that both parties must be involved for communication to work.
ReplyDeleteThanks Min Min!! I have heeded your advice and have been more personal in the second post. Although talking about interpersonal conflict is indeed personal...LOL!!
ReplyDeleteJANE!! That example you gave was cute and funny. HA! And ya, I agree with you that one should not abuse 'smiles'. (n_n)
ReplyDeleteYuan...YUP!! We are still in the process of learning effective communication and that is why we are taking up this course! And yes, the example you gave does illustrate your point and it made me laugh. >_<
ReplyDeleteBernard - ya, I agree with you. When people are already looking at you in coloured lens, they will be less receptive to whatever you wanna say...
ReplyDeleteComment on Keline’s blog
ReplyDeleteThe conflict happened because couple failed to manage their feelings. (Choose Yourself - Manage feelings: use simple techniques, like a pause for reflection, to act -- not react, Six Seconds' Strategy)
He old couple refuses to accept the explanation provided by your company and they demanded a "better" explanation which your company could not provide them.
Because of the perceived urgency of the legal matter, the couple reacted - the wife rambling on and on, and the husband screamed at you over the phone.
The conflict also attributed by the couple's high expectations. They expected lawyers to do their best to fight for their interests, be proactive to speed things up, should respond to their calls, etc. When these expectations were not met, their frustrated emotions lead to a reaction that causes the conflict.
Thirdly, your boss's initial stance of evading calls from the couple could have aggravated the conflict. Your boss chose to avoid the conflict. After learning about EQ and its role in conflict resolution, I think avoiding conflict is NOT a conflict resolution method. The proper way to resolve conflict is to face with it using proper EQ skills.
On your last two sentences, I agree with you on that acts (behaviour) can unintentionally signal something (usually negative) to the recipients. Behind every act, there is a motive. But the actor's motive may not be correctly perceived by the receiver. Just like when the husband is screaming to you via the phone, his motive is to get his message across and to express his anger on the issue. But you may perceive that he is angry at you and your boss, and that he is trying to threaten you with his scream.
On the mode of communication, either face-to-face or phone/email correspondence and which one is more convincing than other. That would depend on the severity of the issue. Usually for minor issues, a phone/email correspondence is adequate to do the job. I believe in a business setting nowadays, using face-to-face correspondence to resolve conflict is the last resort method. It is only adopted when all else failed. The opportunity cost (i.e. the cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action) of having a face-to-face correspondence is the highest. Nevertheless, it may be the most effect to resolve conflict because both parties dedicate all their attention (bodily present, focus, heart and mind) to resolve the conflict.
"It takes six seconds to manage anger.
It takes six seconds to create compassion.
It takes six seconds to change the world."
(Adapted from http://www.6seconds.org/)