Statistics shows, on average, girls talk three times as much as boys do. Women chalk up about 20,000 words a day, but men use only 7,000. When I saw this and told my best female friend, we stared to each other for a second and laughed out. Before that, we never realized our amount of word use is this far lager than male counterparts. I started to think about the reasons behind it, and questioned myself, while I talk so much every day, is my communication effective? My conclusion is not optimistic, and I know I need to improve my communication skills.
Foremost, I am not living in an isolated island. I need to communicate with my parents, siblings, and friends to exchange information, to share feelings, and to understand each other. I call home to let my family know how is my life, to ease them not to worry about me too much. I think we have sufficient communications; however, there are still misunderstandings. I remember last semester, I told my parents that I wanted to look for an internship to enrich myself and also to get some pocket money. It might because of the tone I used was not appropriate. They thought that I did not have adequate financial support for study and living. They then transferred money to my bank account and warned me to focus on academic study rather than earning money. I had to explain to them again the reason why internship is as important as study, and to comfort them I was doing well in university, as well as my financial status.
Effective communication skills are also applicable when there are conflicts between friends. It is virtually inevitable to have misunderstandings, argues, and even quarrel in a relationship. Whenever I had conflicts with my friends before, I took it for granted and assumed that they “should” understand me well; they “should” forgive me, and so on. However, as I grow up, I get to know how important mutual understanding is, and looking for a solution or a compromise is much better than cold wars. If I have certain effective communication skills then, I would not have so many regrets now.
Lastly, after I graduate, stepping into the society, there will be much communication between my bosses, colleagues, clients and me. I have to learn how to deliver the correct message, how to negotiate, persuade, how to talk in a proper way with clients, and the like. Fortunately, I still have time to equip myself through learning effective communication skills before confronting problems in reality.
As for me, effective communication is not only the crucial part of my daily life when sharing ideas with families and friends, solving conflicts in relationships, but also, it is a key skill that I must command for the development of my career.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Dongfang,
ReplyDeleteI agree that we often expect others to understand our intentions when we haven't understood why they don't. It might be that we weren't clear about our intentions or it might be that, as Brad mentioned in class, that they don't have prior knowledge to the topic at hand. We often expect others to understand why we do certain things, say certain things, feel certain things. And this often creates misunderstandings that could have been easily eradicated if we were much clearer with our instructions or explanations.
Your parents' misunderstanding towards internship reminded me of the different communication channels we have available to us and how one channel may be more appropriate than another! A phone call may have suffice but a face to face talk would have avoided such a misunderstanding, although I believe your parents were overseas at that time! Even something that seems as benign as tone makes huge difference towards communication!
ReplyDeleteHello Dongfang,
ReplyDeleteI too encountered a difficult time explaining to my parents regarding the concept and the importance of doing an internship! I would like to blame it on "generation gap", but I know the main reason is that we were not communicating effectively initially.
I am sure most of us learn from our mistakes, and that we're constantly improving and equipping ourselves with new skills.
However, I feel that in most situations, it takes 2 hands to clap. While one party could be communicating effectively, and the other could happen to be distracted. Well, that should be quite an awkward situation to be in!
Hi Dongfang,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that we always make some assumptions and take something for granted during the communications. From my personal experience, this is the main reason that causes misunderstandings. Hence, when I find that somebody seems not understand what I am talking about, I will try to state the assumptions clearly; on the other hand, when I am listening to somebody’s opinion, I will try to put myself in his/her shoes to reduce the possible misunderstandings. Of course, not every time that I can do this successfully…
Dear Dongfang,
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you develop your ideas in this response to the assignment. It constitutes a fine short essay on the value of effective skills, with clear cohesion in ideas, completeness in thought, creativity in exposition, etc.. The 7Cs are well represented, except that you need more practice editing your writing for correctness in language use. No problem! That's what we're here for.
Let's work on this!
p.s. I'm a bit surprised by the statistic you mention, but not totally. It is very interesting! What was the source for that info?
ReplyDeleteYour words are very true and I accept that. I too was very weak in Conversing, that was a hindrance in my Business Career. Now I feel great that I have Effective Communication and can launch Innovative Ideas in my Business too.
ReplyDelete