Hello everyone,
I'm Sam and today I'll be discussing with us the importance of effective communication in our live.
The role of effective communication skills in our life cannot be over emphasized. Effective communication is a core determinant of how well our life will turn out to be.
Before we go further I'll like to quickly state the (3) main ideas for consideration in this topic.
- Meaning of communication and effective communication
- Effect of poor communication skills
- Helpful tips to combat poor communication skills
COMMUNICATION
Communication is the transfer of information from a sender to a receiver via a medium. The information transferred can be in any form which can include verbal, written, visual, audio visual, audio, or even via body languages.
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
One is said to have communicate effectively when the receiver of an information clearly understand the intention and purpose of the information.
Effective communication eliminate misunderstanding, frustration, and issues that may arise as a result of poor communication either from the senders inability to convey an information that negate ambiguity or the receivers inability to interpret what was said or passed across.
EFFECT OF POOR COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Permit me to quickly take you through my story and how poor commination skills almost ruined my self esteem and made people call me different offensive names.
I'm usually a reserve, calm, happy go lucky guy who doesn't like stress or whatever associated with chaos but with a burden of being mostly misunderstood.
Being misunderstood was very difficult for me to accept and that made me argue a lot. These arguments began to put me into bad light and some of my close companions sees me as an eristic individual.
At my work I'm more timid especially when I'm in presence of my superiors. I fidget and most times couldn't even find my feet or courage to hold important conversation with them.
This really saddens me a lot because when I'm on my own I have the perfect ideas, explanations and/or important things to discuss but then how do I do that when most of the time we spend together I just laugh along or just nod my head to support whatever they've said out of fear of not able to express my observations clearly as they would expected.
This continues until one day when the company general manager called me to his office. He started by commending me for my efforts towards the progress of the company and then disclosed that the management has been observing my commitment to work and would love to promote me to the available Activity manager position but then they're put off by my timid attitude and inability to clearly express myself a skill very important for the role, so they've decided to hire somebody for the role and place me as his assistance instead.
I was dumbfounded for a while before i regain consciousness but I don't know if I should cry or just kick something. I felt defeated but I also realised its all on me. I appreciate the manager for the trust and left his office really sad.
After that discussion I feel the need to reflect deeply on my challenge of poor communication and decided to walk on it with everything I've got.
I started buying books and watching so many youtube videos that teach people how to communicate better. These resources were helpful and i diligently followed through with their recommendations which in turn assist me greatly to talk and interact better with everyone and gradually I began to change the narrative and my life becomes more peaceful and progressive.
Below I am going to share some of the tips that helped to turn my shame to gain:
- Always pay attention to details of conversation
Paying attention and listening will greatly enhanced your communication skills and it is when you are able to understand intention and purpose that you'll be able to deliver what is expected of you. Prioritize the person speaking to you at all time and avoid distraction.
- Ask questions for clarity
We tend to formulate our response especially when we don't seems to decode fully what was said and this mostly lead to disagreements and frustrations. Never assume to understand. When theirs need for clarification ask for clarity.
- Check your body language
Always maintain good posture in verbal communication. A poor posture is synonymous to bad body language and it is detrimental to effective communication. Good posture also help enhance confidence.
- Speak when necessary and think about it
Learning to speak when necessary helps to maintain a healthy relationship and makes people want to listen. It is also important to think about what to say as this will help us reduce errors and say what we'll later regret saying.
- Attitude matters too
The attitude and energy will release is what always come back to us. When we think positively and talk positive things people tends to give back same positive energy we exude.
All these tips put together will make our life more easier and more enjoyable because effective communication radiants over every aspect of our lives both personal and professional relationship with others.
Thank you for reading my content I'll like to hear your feedback by dropping a comment below and also follow me for more quality and helpful contents.