Effective communication skills are essential for everyone in our daily life. For me, effective communication skills are what I need to improve on.
Frankly speaking, I do not feel comfortable when expressing myself to others, especially strangers. During a conversation, I usually find nothing to say and turn out to be more a quiet listener than an active speaker. When asked some questions I often respond with a one-sentence answer and that is it, making the conversation like one between a pupil and a teacher. Sometimes even when I felt like saying something, I just thought that what I intended to say might not be that necessary or useful so I just kept silent. Perhaps the rigorous training in science makes me believe that everything said must have a reason for saying it.
But just as what my mother reminded me many times, people did not know what you thought unless you spoke it out. In addition, keeping quiet will take others a long time to know what kind of person you are: you might have good personality, but without effective communication, this cannot be discovered unless people have spent a long time working with you. Nobody has the patience to wait for such discovery before they leave you and work with someone who is easy to communicate with.
At first, I did not take her point seriously, thinking that it would be fine as long as in the future I am not in a career which involves a lot of communication. Now, I start to realize that effective communication is such an important tool that everyone must be armed with regardless of what career he is in.
Hi Wang Chen,
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I have had problems connecting to and communicating with people. It is a lot better now though, as compared to what I was like in the past. I understand what you are going through, when you do not know what to say to the other person during a conversation. There are times when I sense the frustration in the other person, when he or she keeps trying to ask questions to continue the conversation, but I simply have nothing much to say. It ends up very quiet most of the time.
Despite this, I would say that I have grown. One of the ways to start becoming more vocal is to speak more. Sometimes people ask close-ended questions, but you do not need to give a close-ended answer. You can use it to share more about yourself, and ask something similar in return. Ask open-ended questions, and try to find common topics, similar interests etc.
There is plenty to learn, and I am still in the process of learning. Be bold, and start talking more, and you will get more comfortable as time goes by.
By the way, you can find the links to the blogs of our classmates through my blog.
Hi wang chen,
ReplyDeleteI used to have the same problem and whenever I want to speak up I will actually feel that there is a "barrier" to do so.
However,I believe that being quiet and reserved is not something that cannot be changed and innate.Personality CAN be changed and I agree with Junxiong that you have to first be bold and take the first step to speak up more in conversations.From then you will surely gain the confidence to do so more often.Cheers:)
Hi Wang Chen,
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed true that when we do not speak up, people will not know what we are thinking. I used to have the same problem in communication too, that speaking out requires a reason. I still do have the problem, though I feel and certainly hope that I had some improvements over the years. I believe this module can help us practice our communication skill more, so let's learn along with our classmates =).
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ReplyDeleteHey Wang Chen,
ReplyDeleteI like your way of writing - straight to the point. Your experience has reminded me of my past - being a rather quiet person. I pretty much agree with you on the point that if we were to keep silent all the time,no matter how nice we are,we may not in the end become very good friends of others. Sometimes, I also make a lot assumptions about what people already know about me. And every time I do so, it turns out that nobody actually truly understands what I mean and what I want them to understand. So we really need to speak up, even for pragmatism. I always feel the urge of wanting people to know more about me. And when people gather a completely different impression of me, I get really frustrated and depressed. Also, living in a fast-paced world, we don't usually have a lot of chances to work with one another over a long period of time. People come and go. However, words definitely help to clarify lots of confusion and misunderstanding. In my opinion, I don't see how "rigorous training in science" is linked to motivation behind a conversation. I guess I'm more carefree when conversing with others. What I need to improve on is rather how to phrase my ideas in an appropriate form that can better engage or relate to the listeners. So let's learn to become effective communicators together. I'm sure that we will have so much to take away by the end of the course. And more importantly, we get the chance make friends with some really nice people here in class. :))
Hi Wang Chen,
ReplyDeleteUpon reading the line "people did not know what you thought unless you spoke it out", it reminds me of a book called Mars and Venus in Love, written by John Gray. In his book, he asks the readers to imagine that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. When confronting a problem, man tends to keep it to himself and withdraw into his cave to solve his problem. While in comparison, women need to nurture communication. When they are in dilemma, they need someone to confide in.
After reading the book, I observe people around me and the observations prove the aforementioned theory to be true. Therefore, understandably, guys seldom open up to anyone, even those who are close to them.
It is just some insights from me that gender too, makes a difference in communication.
See you soon in class!=)
Thank you, Wang Chen, for sharing your take on what effective communication means to you. Your post is concise, clear and to the point. Good effort!
ReplyDeleteI can see that your post has generated very good responses, indicating that you've strike a chord with your readers. Good job there!
You may want to look into two language issues present in this post: consistency in the use of tenses and sentence structure. For example, can you spot the problem with this sentence? >>> "Perhaps the rigorous training in science makes me believe that everything said must have a reason for saying it."
Looking forward to your next post!