Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Why is effective communication so important to me?


I would like to start off my very first post by sharing my unique job experience before i came into NUS as a freshman. Due to difficulty finding a decent well paying temporary job amid the economic crisis a few months ago, I ended up as a surveyor for the ministry of manpower. Little did I know I would soon be interacting and meeting people from different walks of life especially the minorities, that is the less fortunate ones. My job as a whole is to collect important employment information from each household. What is so interesting about this job is I get to communicate with different kinds of people such as the kind ones, impatient ones, talkative ones and even the nasty ones. Hence, I would always need to change the way on how I persuade and convince them into providing this information to me just like handling different types of customers. Therefore, effective communication in terms of how you present yourself, the tone and body language significantly contributes to the successful completion of the survey.


I would usually use simple English or mandarin verbally to get the message across to respondents whether through the phone or house visits. However, I came across two special cases where no verbal communication is used. Yes, both cases were couples who were either mute or deaf. The second case was harder to complete as the couple was mute, deaf and illiterate. You may wonder how I can manage to complete both cases. For the first case, since the couple was deaf, I was able to communicate effectively with them by writing every messages on paper. Though it was time consuming, I was glad that they made an effort to spend the time to complete the survey. For the latter, I tried really hard to get my message across but failed to get what they were saying since they cannot read or write. Fortunately, I managed to use hand gestures- another form of non-verbal communication and got a handphone number from them. I was informed by their hand gestures that this number belongs to one of their neighbours who could provide the necessary household information. I heaved a sigh of relief when I could at least get a link to the information needed. But a question came across my mind, “How would I communicate with a person if he is blind ,mute, deaf and illiterate?”


My experience as mentioned from the previous paragraph highlights two important issues. Firstly, you can see how important effective communication to me is, simply to get my job done. Secondly, effective communication is not just about simply getting the message across using oral language but it does relate to understanding each other’s mind under special circumstances when other mediums of communication have to be used. Hence being able to express yourself effectively is more than the ability to speak distinctly but also using appropriate body languages, postures, hand gestures and etc. The main reason why I think being able to communicate effectively is important to me is because I want people to understand me as much as how I comprehend them through various forms of communication. This aids the smooth completion of a job and even to avoid miscommunication which would give rise to conflicts.


Having good interpersonal skills are especially useful to me when I am in school. From getting to know new friends where first impression counts to getting a project done with my group of classmates, effective communication is very important here. I would like to have good friends to accompany me through the entire varsity life as we share weal and woe. I would also like to be able to task and relate well to my project team mates especially if I have the opportunity to become the leader. This ensures a smooth completion of the project work. If misunderstandings occur from communication breakdown, ironically, effective communication is needed to solve the problem such as giving in to each other.


Family ties are known to be the most important fabric in our society. Hence, to be able to communicate effectively with my parents is important. I was rather saddened whenever I read news that bloodshed occurs in families when conflicts arise from misunderstandings. I believe the large part of the reason why this fateful ending happened is because there is no proper channel of communication and mutual understanding between two parties. I myself treasure my family and I need to show them the love and care appropriately through good communication skills.


From young, I aspire to become a teacher and I am going to be one in the future. Hence, communicating with my students is very important here as they need to understand my lessons well. Other than that, as a counsellor as well, I need to listen and understand my students’ problems and give appropriate advice. As I am in a workplace, I need to relate well with my colleagues when politics are bound to happen.


Last but not the least, good communication is required in successful marriages. Divorce rates in the modern city of Singapore are sky rocketing as reported from ‘The Straits Times’. A fast paced and hectic lifestyle of today’s young married couples leaves little time for interaction or love making. This often results in poor relationships and misunderstandings, therefore even causes violence between spouse when they are not resolved. I do not want to end up like one of them. I need to learn how to maintain a good and stable marriage with my spouse by improving my communication skills. A relationship takes two hands to clap. Mutual contribution through actions and good communication is hence essential here.



To end my first post, i shall present an interesting chinese character ( translated in english is called 'listen' as shown above) that depicts the art of listening. The chinese character of listen shows that we do not listen just only by our ears. One listens with one's eyes, ears and whole heart as if listening to a king. I always believe that effective communication is not merely speaking distinctly but it also involves listening from the heart, therefore displaying sincerity in conversations.





4 comments:

  1. Hi Zi Kai,

    I'll first like to applaud your sincere effort to establish a common consensus between both families and you as they are facing huge difficulties in basic verbal communication. From this life testimonial, you had demonstrate the power of "communication without barriers"

    As I recall the activity in week 2 second lesson when we had to converse our life story to our classmates without looking at them can bring huge obstacle to our visual communications. Perhaps your experience allow us to reflect how fortunate we are - able to effectively communicate using verbal and non-verbal tools. Just as what you had distinctly describe the importance of active listening in such a creative manner.

    Finally, may I suggest another point that allows communication to be more effective as well - empathetic feedback can allow the speaker to hear sincere, encouraging words and thus feel that you listen with your heart too.

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  2. hi patrick,

    Thanks for being the first to comment on my post=). Firstly, i find that the link you constructed between my experience and last week's lesson on story telling is really relevant when we talk about communicating effectively. Secondly, I do agree with you that if one can engage the speaker by showing empathy, it would be even better. This is especially applicable when one needs to find someone to sound out his or her greivances. However, in some cases, this may not be necessary when the purpose of the conversation is different such as having a normal conversation with your friends. hence, different techniques of listening would need to be used for different scenerios.

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  3. Thank you for this elaborate, insightful and heart-felt response, Zi Kai. I appreciate the effort and the reflection. The description of your survey work is especially relevant to our topic, and you analyze your experiences with the two couples in a lucid manner.

    There are a couple minor problems with this response. One is that your language use could have been refined through an edit. See, for example, your use of verbs in these sentences:

    "My job as a whole is to collect important employment information from each household. What is so interesting about this job is I get to communicate with different kinds of people such as the kind ones, impatient ones, talkative ones and even the nasty ones."

    The second is that your word count is quite high. In the future I would like you to try to adhere to the word limit more closely. Being concise is, alas, one of the 7Cs.

    In any case, I appreciate your work here.

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  4. hi brad

    i shall take note of the minor language problems with my new blogging buddy as well as have the 7Cs in mind! thanks for the advice :)

    Zikai

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