ES2007 Post 1: Effective Communication Skills

The seminar on friday covered various aspects of communication and listening. Topics discussed ranged from communication training to different methodologies when approaching public speaking. Active listening and information processing, being equally important in communication, was also touched on. 

Takeaways from the discussion were many. During the lesson, I was able to reflect upon different scenarios in which I had previously committed some form of “error” (on hindsight, everything seems to be able to be improved upon).

An example from the past will be used as a case study showing how the principles covered regarding effective communication could have led to a better outcome.

I was the head of a flagship CCA event into which I incorporated a seminar, a gaming competition and a bazaar. Envisioning a grand event, collaboration between multiple CCAs was sought. After the event, I realised that communication was severely lacking in several key areas, leading to negative outcomes. Linking this experience back to the article on “Introduction to communication skills”, I will attempt to dissect my experience in accordance with the relevant parts of the communication process from the article.

1. Source: The initial discussions for collaboration were vague, failing to elucidate many pieces of information required for the optimal outcome, with key areas such as cost and profit sharing not clearly defined before we each carried out our work.
2. Message: Information gaps abound and therefore ideas were not conveyed.
3. Encoding: My personal failure to understand the work culture of another organisation led to assumptions, many of which were wrong.
4. Channel:  Face-to-face,  written communication and phone calls were used, I would not have done it differently.
5. Feedback: I believe all of us were hesitant in asking “hard” questions concerning money and this led to the unpleasant situation.
6. Context: It was the first time our CCAs had embarked on such a collaboration, many things were unclear and we did not understand each other well.

From this, I realise that effective communication is important in getting the best possible outcome from a situation. By eliminating ambiguity, expectations can be tempered accordingly.

348 Words