"Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud." -Hermann HessePeople live in big group, there is no denying the mass amount of interactions we have everyday as a result. Sometimes, we may interrupt with one another. or even end up in a heated argument. Hence, having good communication is one of the most basic and important skill we should have in life.
Why communication is so critical? Let's start with some examples of miscommunication. In my country China, people live in northern part especially those live in village likes guests to sit on their bed and have chatting, it is a way to show their friendship. But in the southern part, if you enter people's bedroom and sit on their bed, it is a considered been rude. Another example that we can see in real life is when the control tower command a airplane delay takeoff, but the pilot miss this important message (this event really happened), this resulted in the airplane crashing with another airplane which was taking off and many people died. Having bad communication not also causes bad relationship, but also billions of moneys and even human life. Therefore, we must admit that communication is extremely important to us.
Why effective communication? In my opinion, effective communication means communication in a way which is consume least amount of resources, and at the same time achieve the purposes of communication. For example, there are many ways to conduct meetings, but why most people prefers face to face meeting instead of online meeting? I think this is because talking is a faster way to communicate prepared to typing and face-to-face meeting have much less distraction then other kind of meetings. Learning how to communicate effectively help us to save time, money and other resources and most importantly it helps us to create better outcomes.
Personally, I must admit that my communication skill is poor. Sometimes, I dare not to express my feelings in public. During this module, I want to train my communication skill. I hope after taking this module, iI will be able to talk confidently and excellently in public. :)
Saturday, January 22, 2011
YES! It is Important!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You go Chen Yan! I am certain you will improve loads after this module! :)
ReplyDeleteWith regards to the example where you mentioned most people prefer meeting face-to-face instead of going online to do so- I would have to agree with that. My peer teaching group had just met a few hours ago (9.30pm!!!) in NUS in order to have the outline of our lesson plan ready by tomorrow- this was after a few of us had met online in the afternoon and a face-to-face meeting was initiated.
However, I have another point to add to your opinion that learning to communicate effectively helps in saving money. This is not necessary to be always the case. During my industrial attachment with a chemical plant a few months ago, teleconferences and sharing of computer desktops via remote-control internet applications were almost an everyday affair as we had to communicate with our parent company in Germany very often. In this case, the perceived effective communication of meeting face-to-face will be costly- air tickets must be bought and hotel accommodations must be made...
...Though I have a sneaking suspicion that employees would jump at the chance to fly to Germany to conduct meetings.. :P
Hi Chen Yan,
ReplyDeleteI can feel your sincerity in this post and I believe you have already succeeded in taking the 1st step. Interesting example by the way! =)
You have stressed the importance of effective communication in a cooperate setting. However, in a domestic setting (family, friends) it is also equally important. =)
I have a suggestion is to try and give examples that are more common to you and other people so as to invoke a common feeling among you and the reader. The person reading will be thinking: "Yes, I have went through the same thing!" This will draw the readers attention towards your topic! =) Hope that helps!
Hi Chen Yan!
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that people have "poor" communication skills! Maybe it could be phrased as "there is room for improvement for my communication skills". Phrasing it this way in a more optimistic manner will definitely help yourself improve!
No matter what level of a skill that we possess, there is ALWAYS room for improvement! Imagine if we already think we are good enough or that our communication skils aren't poor, we most likely would remain at the same level with no improvement. Thus, do not think that you are poor in anything. Somehow, with that being etched in your mind, it is a barrier which will impede your learning. So, do not be afraid to make mistakes and learn from them.
Now, imagine you have the positive mindset, you'll not be afraid to make mistakes and will eventually learn from them to improve. However, if you maintain the "i have poor xxxxx", you'll be afraid to make mistakes and not learn anything as a result.
Let's all learn from one another's mistakes to improve!
Hi doris, thanks for comment in my blog and sharing your experience to me. I agree with you that sometimes people may have difficulty to conduct face to face meeting, this is why internet are so widely used now.
ReplyDeleteHi Wee Lee, this is my first time blogging :P, thanks for your suggestions. After reading your blog, I realise I should put more personal experience to make my blog more interesting :) I will try harder next time. :)
Hi, Shawn, thanks for you suggestion. You are correct that I am afraid of making mistakes so that I lost many opportunity to improve myself. I will try to change my attitude and learn gradually to improve myself :)
Hi Chen Yan,
ReplyDeleteYou have been humble enough in this post, when you say that your communication skills are not up to the mark. And I believe this is the first step to learning, having the courage to accept your shortcomings, and then having the willingness and interest in eradicating them. I am sure this module will help all of us break our barriers and become effective communicators.
Also, I was enlightened by the plane crash example you shared in your post. Indeed, ineffective communication can result in information loss and miscommunication, resulting in consequences worse than what we can imagine. Hence, its best we take care that our ideas and information is conveyed correctly and clearly to the recipient.
Thank you.
Akash
HELLO CHENYAN!:)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing with us about the cultural differences in your hometown. Now I know some of the do and don'ts when I visit China!:)
I believe that effective communication is especially important when the time factor is a key consideration for the message to be brought across. Just like that pilot example that you have shared with us, I think that occupation such as doctors and stock broker need to have especially good communication skills as they are racing against time; for example to save a life in the doctor's case. Any miscommunication or delay in the message being conveyed can be life threatening!
You pointed out that "effective communication means communication in a way which is consume least amount of resources, and at the same time achieve the purposes of communication", however I would think that by utilizing the least amount of resources and at the same time getting our message across would be efficient communication instead of effective communication :) what do you think?
I do agree with you that conducting face-to-face meeting can save us alot of time and I believe the discussion can be made more efficient as it saves the hassle from all the typing. However, sometimes when both parties are inconvenient to meet up for meeting, I would think that online video-conferencing maybe a good alternative too!:) as in can help to save the time of travelling too if the two parties are quite a distance away! Also, I believe many interviews were conducted on a face-to-face basis because the employers/managers would like to have a "first impression session" with us and through the session they can actually pick up many personality traits from the employees or job applicant as both the verbal and non-verbal communication skills can be observed through the process!
Lastly, I am wary of my poor command of english too! You are not the only one feeling this way so don't be afraid to speak up :) Lets work hard in this together as a class! :) I believe our communication skills can be improved through practices!:D GOGO CHENYAN! We can do it!
Chen Yan, thanks for the effort! Your post has elicited good responses from your classmates, and this is one good indicator that you have reached out to them, and gotten their attention!
ReplyDeleteYou started your post stating the omnipresence of communication, followed by sharing illustrative examples of why communication is critical. You then went on to discuss why communicating effectively might help us in more ways than we can imagine, before ending the post, sharing with your readers why you want to refine your communication skills. While you'd successfully grabbed your readers' attention, striking a chord with them, you’d only briefly skimmed through why effective communication skills are important to you. If you could bring the discussion down to a more personal level, you would have responded more appropriately to the blog assignment.
I also noted a few language problems in this post - can you spot them?
I look forward to your second blog post! Thanks for the effort!