Communicating via the telephone

Nowadays, even with e-mail and the internet, the telephone is still probably the most common means of communication in business and used efficiently it has two major advantages. It is fast and it allows people to converse even when they are unable to meet. The telephone, for all its convenience and speed, also has the power to convey rapidly a poor impression of the efficiency of individuals and organisations and create considerable confusion and irritation. Basic telephone rules include: being brief, courteous, resourceful and  speaking clearly.

Emotional Intelligence

The best oral communicators don't just use well-chosen words, in well-structured sentences within a well thought-through structure: these are essential pre-requisites, but are not enough in themselves. For instance, the clearest speech, dully presented, has little effect - may not even be listenable to. One of the key Emotional Intelligence competencies for communication is emotional self-control. Others include empathy, self-confidence, transparency, organisational awareness, service orientation and influence. In simple terms, if we are striving to be a good oral communicator, we need to be able to listen and control our personal expectations and preferences. We need to be self-assured, speak in accordance with values and understand and allow for the climate and culture within which we are speaking. It is important that we engage and match the needs of our audience and anticipate the effect of our actions and words.

Newspaper Article

Newspaper - Express
Date - November 07 2008
Title - Father kills daughter, 2, then self
Author - Richard Charran

"On a hilltop overlooking the Gulf of Paria, Vishal Nigel Ramdeen gave his two-year-old daughter a poisoned soft drink as they sat in his car parked on a roadside. He waited for her to drink, reclined her seat, and waited for her to die. Then he killed himself". 

It is so heartrending to see the lives of our young ones being snatched from them helplessly. What makes this situation worst is the fact that the assailant is the father of this innocent child. I strongly agree with the advise of the Pundit (Hindu Priest) that we must make decisions and not pass judgments. Even though the relationship between the parents may have been a bit unsteady, the welfare of the child should have been given first preference. Taking their lives is definitely not an option as there are numerous alternatives available to ensure that these children benefit fully from life. As parents, we should adapt a more approachable personality to life giving way for valuable criticisms and work mutually in keeping families together.

Crime

Crime in our country is in an appalling state. Persons fear for their lives every single day. The implementation of crime stoppers and 800-TIPS are no longer an option as the safety of citizens remain questionable. Appearing in court and having to testify no longer justifies that the criminal will be dealt with but citizens risk their own lives. So we see who are really looking out for who! Hundreds of citizens come face to face daily with horrendous criminal activities but out of fear of loosing their lives and families by extension, turn a blind eye. Something has to be done, but until then, all we are to wonder is "who's next".

Newspaper Article

Newspaper - Express
Date - November 23 2011
Title - Our Lives...
Author - A. P. Toussaint

Too many a time we spend too much time checking and double checking every little detail and many times we do this with things we have little or no control over. The author makes the important point that worrying about how things in life may or may not turn out will not make much of a difference to the quality of life except to probably give us more to worry about. No one is in charge of your happiness but you. I strongly agree with the fact that if we threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's we'd grab ours back. She reminds us that our lives have worth and our experiences even more so; the way we see things affects the way we deal with them. She encourages us to start appreciating all the wonderful things that we already have going on. It is okay to be happy even though some things in our lives are not perfect.

Public Speaking

Knowledge may be useless unless it is communicated to others. For most of us, when ever we are called upon to do public speaking, we experience immense feelings of nervousness. Our stomach may churn, our voices may dwindle or we may become shrill and breathless. However, there are techniques which we can also learn from experienced speakers - and the most essential of these, as with every other form of communication transmission, is preparation. Our in class speech presentations were very beneficial to me as I not only gained in confidence but I was also able to discover my own strengths and weaknesses and I have learnt to exploit my strengths and avoid my weaknesses. Few people are born speakers. It is an acquired skill, and everyone is able to acquire it to some degree.

Barriers to communication in my workplace

Barriers to communication are things people say or do that are obstacles to good conversation or good interpersonal interaction. They are hurdles that do not bring discussion satisfaction.

Communication barriers can pop-up at every stage of the communication process and have the potential to create misunderstanding and confusion. To be an effective communicator with sharp skills and to get your point across without misunderstanding and confusion, your goal should be to lessen the frequency of these barriers at each stage of this process with clear, concise, accurate, well-planned communications.

One of the barriers to Communication experienced in my workplace is communicating with the manager. He is an individual possessing a great deal of emotions, - more negative than positive, most stemming from family issues, and this is very difficult to surmount. Whenever we need to seek his assistance in carrying out day-to-day activities, such as returning a call, setting up meetings, dealing with queries’, he responds with a lot of jargon and is highly ambiguous. His first way of solving mistakes is by firing, and because of his unapproachable character, we experience an immense feeling of fear whenever we are called to confront him.

In dealing with this problem, we communicate with him via emails. This process takes an unusually longer period with a lot of delayed feedback to prospective businesspersons as well as clients.

Another barrier affecting the communication process in my job place is a clash in personality. The company’s Accountant is intolerable of flaws and hindrances in job performance owing to his experiences acquired from previous employment in numerous foreign countries. He expects his subordinates to always understand, and take initiative. However, this is seemingly difficult for us, since most of our duties are inadequately explained and therefore difficult to understand.

Because of his callous and appalling nature, we are often fearful of his response when completing duties for his perusal.

Listening

I am sure we can all recall many instance when people we talk to, and we too, seem to go through the motions of listening but, in reality, are either thinking of other things or, more particularly, thinking of what they are going to say next. Listening, therefore, seems to be sadly neglected, and is sometimes written off as a merely passive skill, bout which we can do very little. But it is crucial to good communication, for it is really the receiver - the listener - who communicates rather that the speaker. Unless somebody listens to the message and understands it, there is no communication, only noise. Effective listening produces many salutary results. Example, encouragement to others, possession of all the information, improved relationships, resolution of problems and better understanding of people. The good listener gains four things: information, understanding, listening in return and cooperation.

Speaking Effectively

Human communication is fraught with problems and difficulties. Whatever we try to communicate, something often seems to get in the way and we are not understood in the way we intended. But even when we are understood we often fail to get people to think or behave in the way we would wish. Perhaps because we learn to speak before we write, or perhaps because speaking is so much a part of our everyday life, we are liable to take speaking for granted and "open our mouths before engaging our brain". But its not just the 'big occasion' which require care and attention. We communicate to be received, to be understood, to be accepted and to get action. When we fail to achieve any of these, we have failed to communicate. The meanings that we give to words result from the way we each interpret the world around us, and for each of us that world is seen and understood differently.
Effective speaking is the result of several things over which we do have control. Personal qualities - clarity, accuracy, empathy, sincerity, relaxation, eye contact, appearance and posture which have a lot to do with what we say and do. Then there are vocal qualities - the mechanics of speech, pitch, volume, diction and accent, vocal tension, speed, the use of the pause and tone, all of which affect the way we use our voice.

The use of Visual Aids

The most important thing to remember is that visual aids should be just that: visual and aids. Visual, in that they make use of the most effective channel of communication of all, the sense of sight, not just be providing the audience with something to look at, but wherever possible providing them with pictures rather than words to look at. Aids, in that they should help, not hinder, the audience in receiving and understanding the speaker's message. Some examples of visual aids include, whiteboards, flip charts,physical objects, overhead projectors, data projectors, slide projectors, videos, etc. Used badly, visual aids are time-wasting, distracting, expensive, inflexible, at best confusing, at worst catastrophic and humiliating. Used well however, visual aids are time-saving, essential, interesting, entertaining, memorable and invaluable.