Communication – General

Communicate or Perish!

Of all the skills, your ability to communicate is the main ingredient to success.

It is not surprising that this is one skill that ALL successful people have. It does not matter what your job, you are only as successful as how well you communicate your ideas.

We generally communicate for the 5 reasons shown in the picture and we communicate differently for each of these.

Webster’s Dictionary defines communication as “sending, giving, or exchanging information and ideas”.

What is effective communication then?

Often during a workshop, I ask the participants: “Do you understand?”. Of course, usually they say: “Yes!”  But if I then ask them to tell me what they understood, they are often not too sure.  Saying “yes” just to be polite, can often lead to misunderstanding.

A simple way to ensure effective communication is to ask “What did you understand”, thus getting them to paraphrase what they understood.

When someone gives you instructions or information, or if it is likely that you may not have heard or understood clearly, you should make sure of the other person’s meaning. This is done by (a) repeating the key words the other person says (b) by paraphrasing in your words what you think the other person is telling you.

By doing either of these, you become an effective communicator – both as a sender and receiver of messages and will help you during GDs and interviews.

That takes care of one aspect of communication. The next point is ‘how do we communicate?’.

We use words & gestures. These are known as verbal and non-verbal language. Para-verbal language – i.e., the tone of the voice, word emphasis, accent etc. also play important roles in communication.

Research by Prof. Albert Mehrabian of UCLA concluded that:

• 7% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is in the words that are spoken.
• 38% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said).
• 55% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is in facial expression.

While these statistics pertain feelings and attitudes, we must remember that even with variation in the percentages, words alone cannot always convey the meaning.

For example, how would  interpret the following sentence?

‘I did not say that he stole the wallet’

The interpretation changes depending on which word is emphasised as shown below.

• I did not say that he stole the wallet – meaning, someone else said it.
• I did not say that he stole the wallet – meaning, I did not convey the message orally
• I did not say that he stole the wallet– meaning, someone else stole the wallet
• I did not say that he stole the wallet– meaning could be that he either took the wallet with permission or that he found it and kept it.
• I did not say that he stole the wallet– meaning, he stole something other than the wallet.

Communication is a two-way process. Speaking/ writing is only one half of the process. It is vital that you listen. Listen actively.

Listening is not the same as hearing.

Hearing is the registering of sounds.  Listening involves paying attention to what is heard. While listening actively, one not only pays attention to the words, tone and gestures, one also gives feedback using verbal, para-verbal and non-verbal cues to gain an understanding from the perspective of the speaker.

Active listening involves –

• Attentiveness to speaker
• Eye contact
• Openness to ideas
• Listening to yourself
• Verbal and non-verbal Feedback

The next post will focus on using the content and your communication skills to interact within the group to create a good impression.