Improving Communication Skills

Improving Communication Skills 

The skill which is considered to be one of the topmost requirements in the corporate world is communication skills. Oral, Written or in a Group, communication is very important and plays a pivotal role in the career of the executives and students.

I have seen many good and intelligent professionals not able to reach the maximum of the potential due to a lack of communication skills. On the other hand I have observed many of the average performing professionals who had done tremendously well with their excellent communication skills.

There was one character in the famous movie Inglorious Bastard named “Hans Landa” played by Christopher Woltz and another role played by him in Django Unchained which was of “Dr.King Shultz” both his roles has been appreciated and in fact the actor got Oscar for best supporting actor for his character played in the former mentioned movie. The common feature which brings charm to the characters is the way he communicates, it was nothing but overwhelming to watch.

The above example is mentioned to give an idea that communication is very important in the business no matter what it is. Not only in movies you see successful people around who are self-made few of the like - Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jack Ma, Oprah Winfrey..there will be a very long list but one common factor to their success is their ability to express themselves the way they communicate.

How to improve communication? How to remove that fear of expressing yourself is the million-dollar question. One can speak fluently when he is alone but in front of others in front of his boss or in big public meetings or parties.

Do you hesitate to speak even if you want if yes then time is there to improve yourselves?

Now there is the second kind of people who have no hesitation in speaking or expressing themselves but they do not understand the concept of…how to when to and to whom. They speak and speak they do not want to listen to others and just want to imply their nonsense to the audience. I can remember one uncle of mine who use to be a good casual speaker and with interesting things to share sometimes we like the way he explains his little adventures of life or some funny incidents but slowly we started ignoring him because nobody can talk when he is doing it. He feels like he has the power to speak and all sitting in front of him are ducks. This type of communication is also dangerous.

So we can see that a balanced way of speaking is what makes you acceptable and desirable. The art of acceptability and explanatory makes you employable and a performer. There are a number of books on improving communication skills and the number of methods they have to improve it, they all are good also but are they applicable to every kind of geography. This is one of the biggest questions I use to ask myself since my MBA days that all the theories written by western genius are really applicable to Indian society and geography. Still I cannot conclude here.

I am not saying that you have to become an excellent public speaker no not at all. This is a different path and it needs another type of skill to become a good public speaker. Your communication should be at least good enough to express yourself clearly and any person who reads from you or listen to you should be able to understand your subject and able to respond to that.

There are a few important aspect of communication; we will discuss each one of them in this blog series.

• To know the language
• To understand the subject
• Stakeholders of the subject
• How, When and Whom concept
• Listen to others
• Confidence in self
• Practice
• Read
• Learn
• Imagination