Many a times people feel low due to lack of effective communication skills. Communication skill is a learnable skill. Few people ignore it and they pay the price.
Business meeting, interview process, board member meeting, media interview, negotiations, etc. depends on how one person communicates with the others.
There are four types of communication skills. They are verbal, non-verbal, written and Visual skills. Verbal communication includes use of conversations,
interview communication, etc. Non-verbal communication includes use of
body language, seating postures, eye contacts, etc.
Written communication includes the act of typing or writing to convey the information. Visual communication includes the use of photographs, drawings, sketches, or graphs to convey the information.
Learning
Communication is a skill that you can learn, it is like riding a bicycle or typing. If you are willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.
The transactional process involves an exchange of ideas, information, feelings, attitudes, beliefs and impressions. All the four communication skills namely verbal, non-verbal, vocal and visual can be learnt by any person.
The Importance of Listening
In Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey identifies listening
as an important skill. Most people complain in their office regarding their boss not really listening to them.
Why is listening an arduous task? Because people think that listening is the same thing as hearing. You not only listen with your ears, but you also listen with your eyes!
Barriers
There are some common barriers found, that can be rectified and can transform one into an effective listener.
There are barriers such as psychological barriers which are further divided into prejudgment or hasty evaluation, superficial frame or reference, closed-mindedness, inability to pay attention, prejudice against something, ego involvement.
There are environmental distractions such as loud talking, physical distractions, and visual barriers. There are also some personal, emotional, linguistic, semantic, socio-cultural and physiological barriers.
Stages
There are five stages of listening which can be used by a person to be an effective listener. The first stage is to select the right thing. The second stage is to interpreting that idea with an open mind. The third stage is evaluating that idea. The fourth stage is to respond and the final stage is to memorize.
Speaking
To be an effective speaker it is necessary to correct the 7’Cs that are correctness, conciseness, clarity, consideration, completeness, courtesy and concreteness. To achieve success and to be an effective speaker, it is essential to focus on these seven things.
Practicing courtesy while talking to others is an authenticate quality to
define one’s prospectus, thoughts and ideas. One will like to listen to a
speaker who shows courtesy towards them.
Clarity and completeness also play an important role because no one will like
to listen to a confused and half statement speech. Clarity helps to convince
people the way you are thinking and incomplete sentence can put a person
into the verge of doldrums.
Correctness and concreteness are a major thing to focus because words that are weighed in quality not in quantity, at the correct statement and at the right time will help a person to lead a meaningful life.
Conciseness and consideration is equally important. Most people don’t like to beat around the bush. They like to come to the straight point and that helps avoid ambiguity. These circumstances create conciseness and avoiding discriminating
thoughts will lead to consideration.
Writing Skills
There are too many benefits of being an effective writer. Many people use
shortcut languages and avoid business-standard English.
One must have proper writing skills while mailing to a boss, seniors, subordinates, clients, creditors, debtors and other business people. For example, people should avoid languages and sentences which contain jargon or slang words in the mail. Using shortcuts is the latest problem for the contemporary business culture.
It is too difficult to interpret one's thoughts in a mail or a text and using shortcuts will make this more difficult. Many people believe that using shortcut texts are signs of laziness and attitude, so it is better to avoid these kinds of languages and it is good to maintain business Standard English.
Body Language
Body language is important to be noticed while attending interviews, meetings, conferences, presentations, and almost everywhere. Seating in the correct posture, maintaining eye contact, using right motion and gestures will help one to be confident.
The correct body posture while seating for the interview will help you to look
confident. Most of the HR and recruiters judge the person from his/her body languages.
Personal space should be respected because it is said to be culture specific.
In multicultural groups, one needs to quietly observe the accepted polemics of different groups and interact accordingly.
Our body has multiple channels that we can successfully use to communicate and our thoughts must be utilized fully. Good verbal and non-verbal
communication skills are assets and we must capitalize them.
Management is a complex practice of communication with other people and
by reading this article you can try to improve your day to day business life.
Written by - Vinayak Mehta
Edited by - Sandhya R
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