Essential Communication Skills You Need at Work

Would you be surprised to know that you character is defined through your communication skills and personality? Yeah, that’s right, because people who love to communicate have the luxury to enjoy respectable stature. Not everyone loves to communicate, even though the thought they generate is right but to make that thought real is hard, to make it sound like a
quote I would say “The journey from mind to mouth requires broad thinking”. I hope you get the idea that how important it is to communicate and yet we take it for granted. I myself have a hard time trying to communicate.

People misinterpret the word “Communication” because they think it’s just speaking or exchange of words. You can search the definition of communication, but you won’t get a convincing answer. You will look at definition and say,
“Yeah, I know that”. So, let me try

“Communication means exchange of ideas through
speaking or writing with the help of medium” (obviously), but have you ever thought about – what you speak, how you speak, who is your audience, the pitch and length of your speech, the distance between you and your audience, your body language, your dressing sense, the words you emphasize on, your eye movement, your sitting orstanding posture, changing lines on your head? I guess that was an eye-opener, so have brief a moment to register these questions, and Please, don’t curse communication for being so complex.All you have to do, is to implement these important steps one at a time and it will truly be a benefit to your life, probably both at work and at home.

LISTENING

Are you kidding me? I mean, “listening”. I tell you what, “I have been a pro listener all my life”. That was the response the teacher got from someone who apparently didn’t like being pointed out for not paying attention in class. He was accused of not listening to the teacher, but the student claims that, he was. The whole listening operation was shut down by the teacher who decided to ignore the student’s fault and at last, the student’s “Quest of innocence” was complete (works better with an ominous music in the background).

That was a little bit dramatic, but this is one of the most common phenomenon in every student’s life or anyone’s life in general. They think that they are listening but they don’t.
What they do is “Hearing” not “Listening” and both are entirely different.

“ Hearing is something that you do every time
unknowingly.”
Hearing involves use of ears and that’s it, whereas listening is a skill that requires use of brain, logic, understanding, questions within questions. The point is, that when you are listening, your mind starts to imagine the words into pictures and tries to figure out logic behind the statement, which in turn generates valid questions and anxiety to find answers, and you understand better.
“Listening is an inseparable part of productive
communication.”
Are we truly good at listening? You are not just understanding better, but also respecting the speaker and you can also motivate the speaker, just by listening to them. That is a quality that makes a person stand out from others. A good listener enjoys his/her life, every moment of it.

AUDIENCE

You see, our content of speech changes with the audience, even if we don’t realise it. Before speaking anything, you should always analyse your audience (individual or group). Analysing your audience helps you to adjust your speech, and also the freedom of delivery. On August 28 th , 1963 calling for an end to racism, Martin Luther King Jr. Spoke the words

“I have a dream”.
These four words would come to be one of the most well-known phrases in America’s African-American history. He did not write it before speaking, he just said it. What made him say those four words? It was the audience, who have suffered a lot of racism and the horrors of being born in the black community. With appropriate speech, you can leave an everlasting impact
on the audience.

VOICE

Do you like being yelled upon or being addressed rudely? I know, it is a stupid question, but that’s not the point. What I am trying to say is, it is not just you, who don’t like being addressed badly, rather no one appreciates being treated like that. It can ruin the relationship and cause long term scars.
Elders say, be polite, speak softly, have a tender and calm
voice, but it is not easy to speak politely if you are genuinely
angry at someone. Everyone must have been in a situation
where things went out of hand and you started spitting fire on
the person responsible (not literally) and at the end of the day,
when you cool down and see the real picture, you blame
yourself and feel bad about your sudden immaturity, but
“Once spoken, you can’t take it back”.
Here is what you can do, take a deep breath and speak with
smile, now repeat and keep the repeat mode on, forever if
possible. You will get a pleasant sensation which will be new
to your mind and body, I can’t quite explain it, but you will
enjoy.

BODY LANGUAGE

You communicate even when you are not speaking. How? Through your body. I would define body language as, “the way your body speaks”. The way you walk, stand, sit, react to a situation, hand and eye movement and many more you can find. You can find personality development classes around, but tell me, does personality have a price tag? You are the trainer and the trainee. All it takes is little bit of guts and a mind free of complexity. Start slow, talk with yourself; take control of your body. The continuity must not be broken and every day, you will learn something new about yourself.

CONCLUSION

Effective communication is a very complex process and I got the opportunity to share few of these process with you. All of these require consistency and time. Start today, you will see a little progress tomorrow, celebrate that progress and consider it a motivation to keep going, and gradually day by day, brick by brick, you will start telling others how to communicate effectively. A good communicator enjoys his/her life. All it requires is practice, practice and lot of practice, but the progress you gain stays with you forever.
Today is the first day for the rest of your life.
So my question is-
“When are you going to enjoy your life”?

Submitted By: Ashtha Kush | Shashwat Gupta
(PGDM Batch 2019 -21)