Why is effective and professional communication important to me? I think it’s mainly because of what I’m doing and what I’m about to do. What I’m doing: missionary and making new friends. What I’m about to do: become a teacher and hopefully interest my future students in whatever I will be imparting to them. Right now that I’m in university, I think it’s finally time to take that big step and GROW UP! No one is probably going to tolerate a crazy naive little girl ranting on about her life. If I don't start speaking well and professionally, hardly anyone will start taking me seriously; especially when I’m involved in missionaries where I visit overseas campuses like in New Zealand. The people that I’m conversing over there were mainly professors and university graduates and that when I realized the importance of speaking smartly and fluently to get your point across in a short amount of time. Plus, religion is not an easily accepted and understood topic, so it IS important to really communicate well with a well-balanced dose of emotions and gestures without sounding too unsure of what one is saying! Sometimes, when faced with a difficult problem, continuing on that conversation professionally would be tough too!
And this doesn't just end here! Oh my! The profession I chose for my future is going to prove the need for me to learn to speak professionally even more! Students. Colleagues. Principals. Head of Departments. My life is immersed in so many various social circles and its imperative to behave as accordingly in wherever I’m placed. This is definitely the hard part. I really feel intimidated when pushed into a sometimes high-flyer and completely unknown environment! I want to build up my confidence when conversing with important people. I want to effectively transfer knowledge to my students in a fun and accurate manner. I want to hang out with friends without worrying that anything I say might hurt their feelings. If even this proves difficult sometimes, what about fulfilling my aspirations?
Despite the importance of knowing how to communicate professionally, firstly understanding how effective communication works is vital too. Just last week, I had a communication breakdown which visibly demonstrated how much I’m lacking in communicating clearly, not even to mention professionally. My church was involved in a house cleaning community service program just last Saturday. Two of us were unable to arrive at the designated time so we were separated from the main group and travelled together. We took instructions from a friend who said, "Take Bus 123 and alight 2 stops later I think.... (pause for one minute)... WAIT! No no take Bus 123 and alight when you see BLK 105, probably about 3 or 4 stops later!"
Eh..... Ok... and lo and behold, when I surveyed the directory for Bus 123, there was no Blk 105! It only said Blk 109 4 stops later! When we tried calling back there was no response so we assumed that we had to walk to Blk 105 from the bus stop. So we set off and when we reached the area, we found no one. We called another friend and he said, "There are 2 Blk 105 in bukit purmei! I think you're at the wrong one!". Crap.....was what came into my mind. Great, we should have asked clearly just how this Blk 105 looked like in the first place and look out for other landmarks along the way! Even when supplied with information, it should be validated first before swallowing it whole. I guess I have to work on the part where the receiver of the message has to be well-informed too or else the decoding of the message would be inaccurate!
Believe it or not, I have always been painfully shy. Maybe I’ve always been afraid of communicating in fear of the blunders I will make along the way just like the one above. Nonetheless, not facing the problem is just going to create an even bigger one in the future. Keeping in mind all the things I still dream of doing in the future, I better start opening up: time to get rid of little miss shy. =)
Nevertheless, no matter how much I wish for professional communication to be second nature for me, I do want it to be infused with my own flavor and personality, hence not only demonstrating my charm and poise to others, but also helping myself feel comfortable with it=).
This post reads like a conversation and could do with a little more formality. Blogs may be thought of as online diaries but this one in particular is still an assignment after all.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to the 7Cs, I would like to recommend that Jac place additional focus on her "Correctness". When using the word "I" to refer to oneself, it is important to remember to capitalise it. It would also be to her advantage if she could have a friend proof-read her drafts before posting them on her blog as the number of grammatical errors in this post seem to indicate that that is where her primary weakness lies.
Finally, I advise that Jac not use abbreviations like “uni” in her formal writing. Words like “university”, while long and tedious to type out, nonetheless need to be spelt out in full in formal assignments.
You gonna be a teacher too??
ReplyDeletethanks issac! yes grammar is a weakness for me! =( and yes ed i'm gonna be a teacher! and not an english teacher as you can see haha!
ReplyDeletehey jac! I find your blog post is quite interesting. you related your personal experiences with effective communication very well. I enjoyed reading your blog, especially the part where you mentioned you want to infuse flavours to your communication skills. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Jac,I enjoyed reading your blog entry especially on the breakdown in communication between you and your church friends. This example shows us that we cannot afford to leave out small details because details like these can help us tremendously in understanding a situation. Breakdown in communication may occur due to our hindsight of overlooking such details and I believe this is a problem that occurs many people. Anyway,I also hope that professional speaking would come to me as easy as ABCs haha! Let's work hand in hand to help each other achieve this :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post, Jac. I like the way you explain why you need comm skills and how you then provide a recent example of something as simple as poor directions to illustrate the important of clarity and accuracy in communicating.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few ways you could improve this post. Isaac is right when he states that there are some problems here with grammatical correctness, and you might have been more concise in your discussion. But I appreciate your effort, the passion in your writing, and the concrete details.
I also look forward to reading your future posts!
Hey Jacq! I like the way you differentiate the need for effective communication for different groups of people. Indeed, there is no one-size-fits-all method of effective communication; but rather a dynamic change and adaptation of communication skills from one group to another.
ReplyDeleteBringing this point further, we can even go further into the micro view of variations with interpersonal communication with a single person. Surely fluctuations in the person's mood would affect how we communicate with that person. Counselling a disheartened friend would require different communication skills as compared to solving grueling physical equations with the person.
Indeed, an outstanding teacher in the making - i'm learning from you as you blog!!
Yes miscommunication is frustrating isn't it? Something as technical as directions can be misunderstood, and completely avoidable problems emerge as a result.
ReplyDeleteBut there lies the challenge I suppose. One thing that I just thought of that hasn't been mentioned in class yet is technology. I believe that with technology (or maybe I should say better technology) the above problem can be prevented. I think most GPS apps would have nicely settled your situation.
In the same vein, with technology words can be translated, definitions can be checked and facts verified almost on-the-fly. Communication barriers removed instantly. A useful teaching tool I would say.
Adeline: Thanks girl! Yes I do want to communicate effectively and professionally, but definitely with the inclusion of my own personality and character in it, so it doesn’t come through as false or unfriendly.
ReplyDeletePaula: Yes Paula! I think even the smallest of details should be paid attention too, though of course not to the extent where one over-reads a person’s words or tone! Just like what Isaac mentioned in class, it is important to be wary of a person’s non-verbal communication, but reading too far in may cause even greater misunderstandings! Today’s lesson was really a great takeaway for me! =)
Brad: Thanks for the comments and yes! I will try to brush up on my grammar! Difficult but no doubt has to be done! Somehow I really am starting to feel that effective communication is like a form of art that is separate from science! Big problem for me, seeing that I’m always thinking from a scientific point of view=(! There is no fixed structure that I can MEMORISE for being a good communicator, and really I think the communication skills each person can learn differs from person to person! Based on the character of that person, he/she will probably be able to pick up skills unique to he/herself based on what suits that person and what is comfortable.
Ben: Haha that sounded oddly familiar! Yes I agree with you! If effective communication can be studied and learnt in a Microsoft word document, I probably would not be here taking a 13-week lesson and doing something which I’m weakest at: English! I believe that everyone will tend to face communication problems from time to time, and being able to compose oneself in the right setting is also an art to be trained. No doubt I still have much to learn!
Faizal: Haha yes I finally managed to find my way back to the right building using the GPS on my phone! =) Wow think about how people have to deal with miscommunication in the past. Mmm communication and its forms are definitely evolving with time, and some of these improvements may help, while others just make things worse. Somehow, with the removal of communication barriers via technology, our own sense of privacy has also been disintegrating. Everything can now spread like wildfire at an instant and the many forms of communication makes this even harder to control! But yes! Nonetheless, I agree that it is a useful tool to teach and generally easy to access these days=).