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Post by Dr. Lalit Pukhrambam on Mar 8, 2014 8:26:45 GMT 5.5
Most people work in a multi-ethnic, gender difference, religious and hierarchical environment in a company or in an establishment. So, an effective communication among workers is critical for efficiency in working, beating the dateline, and productivity. In this new era of fast life, tme is money - so follow the fast lane is the working philosophy. Hence, a misunderstanding between the supervisor and workers and among the co-workers can lead to an unproductive and stressful environment, which is not good for the establishment, the company's bottom line as well as the health of the workers. A brief narration is shared on this video from a recent workshop I attended on "Effective Communication" in our Institute. Please provide proper acknowledgement to the video link if using or sharing elsewhere. The Pukhrambam Family of Michigan - a video blog. (A misspoke occurred in a couple of places while intending to say Harmonizer to homogenizer).
Background music: The KOI, Imphal:
And background internet video: Iishana Artra: :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojOaZWAtExQ You also can watch these videos.
Most of us work hard, do our duties sincerely, and think for a better future. We can talk about our ideas and share with others. However, when it comes to writing it down, it turns out not to be what is in your mind leading to misinterpretation by readers. Specially, when you are trained in India (the British style of English) and come to work in the US, it is a little bit different. On other other hand, you may think well and write well, however, when it is your turn to speak to the audience and express your ideas, it turns out to be not so convincing or not so good. A lot of uhs, may be, likely, sweating, nervousness, hand rubbing, I have to get back, you know, etc., crowd out the main idea of the lecture/presentation. The good message you prepared and worked so hard fro many days, weeks and months is lost at the last hour and the outcome is not a good one, if not a disaster. You can't repeat it again, your chance is gone - heart breaking and dejected. So, we need to practice, reading, writing, talking and effective conversation with co-workers and colleagues in a company, society, family or educational institutions.
The video mainly describes how to communicate among different types of people - supervisors and co-workers - in a company, community or in an Institution. I attended a workshop in our Institute recently, and I am briefly describing them for our audience. If such workshops are given in your company or institution, it will be useful to attend even if you have to pay some fees. In my case, our Institution paid, so the participants did not have to pay. May be Kakching also need a seminar and workshop on this topic from time to time. To overcome fear and rejection from elders, teachers and colleagues is one reason for holding back from standing up and asking questions to your elders, teachers, parents and colleagues. Why and when we need to say "NO and I cannot" is important for our students and younger generations without hurting the feeling of the others - your parents, elders, or friends. If you have your things to do, that is the first priority. You should be able to communicate effectively and explain why you cannot do it or go out with you today. You do not have to say "YES" to everyone and every time. May be you have house hold work to finish, study time or just not feeling too well. Effective expression and communication are keys to remove fear, misunderstanding, and building a long lasting and trusted friendships. Honesty and Consistency in your actions and reactions are important while conveying your message.
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Post by Thoithoi O'Cottage on Mar 9, 2014 4:16:47 GMT 5.5
This is a very good topic. Very much necessary. Whether Aristotle ( Politics, Book 1) 1 or any other person said it or not, but humans speak and communicate among themselves, and that makes them most strikingly different from other creatures. Humans are capable of speech due to physiological endowments which other creatures don’t possess, and speech (both in spoken and written forms) makes culture/civilization possible. However, among the speaking/communicating humans themselves, communicative capability or the level of their communicative competence differs from person to person, and this difference mostly describes/determines where a person is in life (in family, society and at work). Some people can both express themselves and understand others very well, while some cannot. Those who can, they can make their way—when they encounter difficulties, they talk with people, make adjustments, march ahead, progress and rise high in life. Those who cannot communicate well, their paths get blocked by others in action, who if they say “Excuse me” could have made way for them. Problems are of various kinds, and many get solved or disappear on their own when there is efficient communication between relevant people, be it at office, in society, or at home. Even international relations are maintained by (diplomatic) communications. Most people, be it at office or in streets or parks, are good, though all of us, meeting among thousands and hundreds of thousands, seem indifferent to each other in usual circumstances. Most of us don’t trust each other because each thinks the other is narrow-minded, selfish, and unreliable. People are wary of a lot of unwanted things they fear that can happen, and these unwanted things, it seems, anybody can cause. However, everyone wants to progress in life, and as progress is easier and more meaningful if people help each other, if you talk genuine sense seriously and honestly with an apparently selfish, narrow-minded, unreliable person, I think that will disarm them, will win you friends, them reacting in the positive, which will cause a meaningful change in the mutual understanding of both of you. Yes, people are wary also of smart tricksters, but they can tell the good (they last long) from the bad (they don’t last long). Note: 1. Aristotle in his Politics (Book 1) writes:...why man is a political animal in a greater measure than any bee or any gregarious animal is clear. For nature, as we declare, does nothing without purpose; and man alone of the animals possesses speech. The mere voice, it is true, can indicate pain and pleasure, and therefore is possessed by the other animals as well （for their nature has been developed so far as to have sensations of what is painful and pleasant and to indicate those sensations to one another）, but speech is designed to indicate the advantageous and the harmful, and therefore also the right and the wrong; for it is the special property of man in distinction from the other animals that he alone has perception of good and bad and right and wrong and the other moral qualities, and it is partnership in these things that makes a household and a city-state. |
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Post by Thoithoi O'Cottage on Mar 9, 2014 9:56:51 GMT 5.5
Well, on a more empirical note, when two persons are equally good at their own trades, the one with more communicative competence progresses more and gets ahead of the other. Communicative competence is a complex set of skills which covers linguistic, non-verbal, socio-cultural, and strategic capabilities. Guy Spielmann puts it in a diagram as below:  Linguistic/language competence is the most basic of the skills. It involves you knowing the syntax (grammar) of the language you wan to be competent in, its morphology (words and word formation), its phonetics and phonology (sound and pronunciation), its idioms, etc. A person who is competent in language X ideally possess all the four language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, and when he/she performs they use the language as the situation demands, be it formal or casual, or in their shades. In certain circumstances some may plausibly say not all language skills are essential; say, for example working in an MNC in New Delhi, you don't have to read and write Hindi--being able to communicate directly through listening/hearing and speaking is enough. However, if you possess the two other skills as well, of reading and writing, you wouldn't have them in vain--you are more powerful with these two more skills. However, while language competence is basic, this by itself become insufficient in most real life situations, even when members of only one speech and cultural/ethnic community are involved. The reason is people communicate through both linguistic and extra-linguistic means. A wink or a frown in many circumstances says much complex things that language cannot express. Most non-verbal expressions don't have verbal equivalents. Socio-cultural and strategic spaces are not always linguistic, and IQ and skill deficiencies/inefficiencies in these areas clip your language competence (because you cannot perform sensibly, in speech or in action, without understanding the nuances of the situations), and hinders you further growth. In the same way, without language competence (being basic on which other competencies build) you cannot cultivate other competencies. As kaka Dr. Lalit Pukhrambam has pointed out in his text and his first video (many thanks to him for sharing this with us) above, in multi-cultural social settings and work places, efficient communication becomes essential. In a multi-cultural/ethnic (so linguistic) social context a lot of unwanted things could be avoided by effective communication between every two individuals in interaction. In such contexts the quality of communication in most cases gets diluted or compromised, and the people involved though aware of this let it be, and they (nowadays everybody seem to feel hardpressed for time) don't make an effort to raise the quality. The result is: the major content of the message gets delivered without the emotional content, and a party feels (at least) a bit dissatisfied in this compromised communication. In multi-cultural/linguistic societies, it's usually the individuals from the minority community that feel their emotions unheard (though probably not all members of majority communities do it deliberately to hurt them along racist or communal lines, if some do deliberately), and even if there is no deliberate attempt to create such a social situation, when some condition gets condensed and perpetuated in course of time just because of general human nature, and when certain sections of society are constantly/consistently on the receiving end of such compromise, dilution, neglect, then there arise concrete issues of mutual mistrust among ethnic/cultural groups in a society, which often tough off a chain reaction. Such a situation could be avoided if we understand the simple issues of inter-personal communication in a multi-ethnic/cultural social setting. Nowadays most workplaces in most towns and cities across the world are mini-multi cultural/ethnic spaces, though the number of employees of some ethnicity/culture or the other may be dominant. Over the years various sectors may have developed their own patterns, and these may have brought about some prejudice or certain things even the most sensible people in the industry tend to believe as sort of given or something like that. For example, in India publishing firms and the institution of the law are thought to be dominated mostly by the Bengalis. In the UK the Punjabis have the stigma of being drivers, electricians, and grocery shopkeepers. In Delhi, the people of Odisha (formerly Orissa) have the stigma of being plumbers, the Biharis of being cheap laborers or of lying together curled up in too small cheap rooms aspiring to become IAS officers, and so on. While most members of these ethnic groups may actually be engaged famously/notoriously or quite stigmatically in some specific kind of job in a multi-ethnic town/city, it does not guarantee (and it's not sensible to believe) that every individual you meet of that community is like one of them. When you step into an office you may be seen with a communal/ethnic tag, though unofficially. However, unofficial things more often than not influence official decisions, especially when the bosses themselves have personal opinions of others (who does not have personal opinions?), if you do not prove yourself. So, my belief is that if you are able to communicate efficiently, besides your "not less-than-expected-if-not-more" performance, all people are there to be with you irrespective of where you come from. It's the quality of your communication with others (if you have no ill will or ill intention to harm or hurt others) that makes or ends relationships. In social realm of things, it's mostly interpersonal issues that create most problems, and if people don't have ill intentions, efficient communication can smoothen out what could have been problems, thereby helping each other to progress together. As to what involves in efficient communication or in possessing communicative competence, please see the picture above. There are various models of communicative competence; the above is just a common one. As to what you have to do to raise your competence, kaka Lalit has said in his post above. You can also conduct some quick online research on this. It should help you, if you need some practice, and if you do it. |
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