Effective Communication
The other day I went into the ‘Student Service Centre’ to inquire about the tertiary EZ-link card. The lady at the help-desk was very willing to give me details about how to apply for the card. However, since I have not honed my ‘Active listening’ skills yet, I could not properly grasp what she was saying. This led me to asking her repeatedly and within a minute or so, I could sense the confusion I invoked in the conversation. I finally rectified the situation by wrapping up the communication with a smile and a gentle nod of appreciation.
The above story clearly illustrates the importance of effective communication to me. As I have read in Brad’s blog ‘No man is an island’ it means that every man has to interact with others to go about living; whether it be a fisherman catching fish with fellow fishermen, a doctor treating a patient, a salesman trying to sell his product or a tenant sharing a HDB with a house-owner (as in my case).
An effective communication sends the correct message across to the recipient that avoids misunderstandings and let us achieves the desired outcome whether in a professional setting e.g. office/school or in a social gathering with family and friends.
As the small placard on the lady’s desk rightly says ‘A smile for a smile’, an effective communication might just be a matter of doing pleasant, simple things in life simply.
Thanks, Humair, for this post. I especially like the way you start it with a story to illustrate a communication situation and I appreciate your examples of other situations.
ReplyDeleteThere is a small language problem: "An effective communication sends the correct message across to the recipient that avoids misunderstandings and let us achieves the desired outcome."
Do you know how this sentence could be better expressed? (Hint: non-count nouns take no articles, and parallel verbs need to be in agreement.)
Hello Humair =)
ReplyDeleteI like the last paragraph of the blog post. A simple yet meaningful paragraph. It actually wrap up the blog post really well.
Your experience totally illustrated the idea of effective communication. Verbal and non-verbal cues are indeed both vital in effective communication.
Thanks for the sharing! =)
Hi Humair,
ReplyDeleteI like the way you handled the situation with a smile and a gentle nod. These are indeed helpful non-verbal cues which are used to efficiently establish a level of comfort between people or to express mutual understanding. Your experience showed us how effective communication skills are important to us in our daily lives.
I like the way you end your post with such a simple but meaningful quote - 'A smile for a smile.'
Thanks for sharing your point of view!
Hazel =).
Humair,
ReplyDeleteNow that you've dropped the module, you can start having more fun with the blog!
NBZ