Why effective communication skills are important to me?
Firstly, I believe everyone has the inborn ability to communicate. However, not everyone is able to communicate effectively. I may possess two languages like many others, but I am still not able to guarantee that what I truly meant will get across to the other party entirely without any distortion. Personally, I detest being misunderstood. To allow others to get the whole picture, I always end up beating about the bush and occasionally, even missed out the main point. Eventually, I realized communication involves the efforts of both parties - the speaker and the listener. Communication is only considered as effective when the intended message from the speaker is channeled to the listener without the loss of the true meaning. I need to make sure that I did not misread what the speaker is conveying, and my intentions do not get misinterpreted by the listener.
Secondly, effective communication can help to save time. Imagine having to read a lengthy email explaining about one’s choice of T-shirt design when all he could have done is just state the design he prefers. This is especially important during the planning of events since the details have to be finalized for the proposal, every second before the actual date of the event counts.
Lastly, ineffective communication can lead to miscommunication which translates to unnecessary arguments and maybe even conflicts. This will definitely be detrimental in a few years’ time when we step into the working world where everyone is literally fighting for their survival.
Sad to say, I am one of those who are not able to communicate effectively as of yet. However, I do hope that through this course, I will be able to at least learn some effective communication skills and put them to good use.
Well you have actually started your learning journey by choosing this course and by being aware of your communicative limitations. That's always a good starting point. The next stage is to become more aware of people's real intentions when they speak and I don't mean to imply that people always have a hidden agenda. What I do mean is that sometimes jut like you, people may have their inhibitions and as a result are unable to convey the real intended meaning. In these situations, an awareness of the reavealing elements of body language, tone, facial expressions helps a lot. When you become conscious of these tell-tale signs, you can actually help people to communicate with you better. That gains you respect.
ReplyDeleteHi Jasmine :)
ReplyDeleteYou're right - effective communication can help to make the world a better place (more time, less conflict etc). Wouldn't it be so much better if we all know how to read minds?
Personally, I feel that learning how to communicate effectively is a life-long process, and no one can ever truly proclaim themselves to be 100%, perfectly effective communicator. Some factors (such as environmental interference, differences in perspectives) make it impossible to achieve that, because even though you may be excellent in portraying your thoughts, you can't really do much about the other party listening. The situation gets worse when it comes to communicating with many parties all at once (eg. Facebook, twitter). With so many different audiences, each with different perspectives, beliefs and interpretations, how can you tailor your communication such that everyone understands what you mean, in a reasonable amount of time?
So don't worry that you're unable to communicate effectively as of yet - everyone's the same! It's just the extent of our effectiveness.
That said, although it's impossible to become fully effective, we can reach approximately close to 100% such that our deficiencies become negligible. There are ways to achieve that and steps that we can take to improve ourselves so that it becomes much easier for the audience to understand you. At the same time, we can also become better listeners. Like you said, communication is two-fold (even multi-fold). To become good communicators, we must learn to communicate properly, and in turn, be communicated to effectively, and that's what all of us (especially me!) are here for the remaining 7 weeks for :)