Effective Communication

Effective communication, to me, is the ability to convey your message across to the other party, without any room for misinterpretation and at the same time, you do not send mixed signals. It is the phenomena where your body language, gesticulations, eye contact, facials expressions, tone and pitch of voice send the exact same message as your words. This would then be comprehended by the other party effectively and impactfully in cases where it is necessary for your message to be impactful. However, communication in recent times has encompassed not only face-to-face communication, but also electronic mails, facebook, snail mail, phone calls and much much more.

I recall the times during national service where effective communication was imperative in achieving your objective. A wrongly interpreted message could lead to the failure of the mission and in the real world scenario, the loss of many lives! Therefore, the military uses messages that carry literal meanings and describe them well, most of the time. For example, to fire a General Purpose Machine Gun at the foot of the mountain would carry insufficient detail as there may be both enemy and civilian territories there. To overcome this pitfall, the military would indicate the exact map coordinates and description of the territory by indicating the left or right side of the mountain, and distinct description of enemy territory(the tentage with the red flag, the people with grey uniform, etc etc).

Next, I've always been intrigued by the ability of certain teachers to deliver their teachings in the most effective way possible. A particular teacher whom I have always admired is my elder sister, Noor Sarah, who has a unique innate ability to capture the attention and interests of her students. (Her students even set up a facebook page called 'Miss Sarah Rocks!' to talk about how amazing she is as a teacher!) As I reflect upon her actions, i realize that she subconsciously employs the 7Cs of communication in her teachings. At the same time, her nonverbal actions seamlessly coincide with her words. This is definitely a skill that I would like to acquire in ES2007S.

Two days ago, after Mdm Fazilah's class on nonverbal communication, I happened to be having tea-break with a political science student named Hadi, who is currently part of 'Young PAP'. As we were talking about his experiences growing up, I realized that he was employing certain nonverbal communication tricks that Mdm Fazilah was teaching earlier on in the day. Upon questioning him, I found out that he had learned nonverbal communication 5 years ago! He says that it now comes naturally to him. From this incident, I realized that once a person has gotten the hang of nonverbal communication, it would come naturally in all future communications. As such, I hope to learn effective nonverbal communication from ES2007S!

Oh yes! I just remembered that active listening is a big part of effective communication. Ever since Mdm Fazilah introduced this concept to us, i am now conscious that i do NOT employ active listening in lectures! I will definitely try and change my ways from now on!