First of all, welcome to my blog and I am glad to share some thoughts through this blog with you!
As to why effective communication is important to me, I would like to first share with you what I think effective communication is about. Besides the common definition of effective communication like expressing and delivering the ideas clearly, good listening skill, effective writing and speaking skills, there is another aspect I think many people may have ignored.
It is about “not only listen to the words, but also listen to the mood”. Besides the words and meaning one could catch, the mood or the ‘psychological need’ sometimes appears to be more important during a conversation. Sometimes people say something but do not mean it. It is because people would like to use it to express some emotional need. This is especially common among close relationship like family and close friends. One example could be dad comes back late and mom says: how come you come back so late? If the dad only says because I have an urgent meeting, I guess mom cannot be satisfied. Actually mom does not only want to know the reason for coming back late, but more importantly mom wants dad to show that he is sorry and he still loves the family and cares about them. The reason is that in this case mom feels herself be ignored or becomes less important thus there is an emotional need to be recognized.
Thus effective communication to me is more on observing the situation and satisfying the others’ need. This will help other people to have a sense of importance and fulfilled. I think this is the background that effective communication can be carried on afterwards. Effective communication is around us every day and probably every moment, a good communication skill help me to play good roles in different phases of life like being a friend, a student, a child, an employee and probably a wife and a mother in the future. All these phases come together to be life itself and the key to a satisfying life is effective communication.
Hello there!
ReplyDeleteYour example of the conflicts faced between a husband and a wife reminded me of a book i read regarding relationships.
A story within the book goes something like this. A wife wakes up every morning and finds that the bath towel in the toliet is always wet. This went on for a month untill she began to question her husband on why he has to bathe first everytime, leaving the wet towel for her to use. This was her perception. Unknown to her, the husband was all along thinking what a great wife he has- A dry clean towel that she had prepared for him every morning.
This simple story shows us how easily misunderstandings occur. An important part in communication i believe, it to be aware and conscious of other peoples' thoughts and feelings. To better improve our relationships, we should be thankful and appreciative of whatever our situation is, instead of fishing out the bad points. :)
Hi Guo Chen!
ReplyDeleteYou brought up a most intriguing point in your post - that communicating effectively goes beyond the words exchanged; it involves meeting the emotional/psychological needs and expectations of others as well.
I have realised that when communicating in most social settings, we naturally tend to respond to the opposite party's mood/vibe/tone in a manner that is complementary. This is particularly so for people we don't quite know very well, because we don't want to end up accidentally offending them.
Your line, "sometimes people say something but do not mean it" made me smile. Too true. Occasionally, particularly in our Asian society, it isn't proper to actually articulate what one is really feeling, or what one really wants. And sometimes it's just easier to give a generic answer like, "yea. I'm fine" than have to go into long details.
Thanks for the most insightful post! (:
Hey Guo Chen!
ReplyDeleteFrom your blog I sense that you have a really pleasant personality, always looking to make people feel important, and considering the feelings of others before you act and communicate. I like it that you pointed out what has frequently been neglected--the underlying emotional signals from verbal messages.
Well, sad but true, it takes a great deal of sensitivity to decode these emotional signals at times, especially if in your example the dad could have been really tired from work. And oh yes, your post actually brought out the link between communication and EQ, that both of them has to go hand in hand to send correct messages across! :)
-Yanling
What you have said in the blog has something to do with EQ,be aware of your current situation and how to respond to it.
ReplyDeleteI remembered that you posed a question to Mr. Brad as whether EQ can be improved. I firmly believe that EQ definitely can be improved through more practices. Reading the ES2007S module alone is far from enough. We should try to practice the principles we have learned into real life situations.
Practice makes perfect!
As some of your readers have noted, GC, this is an interesting post because you connect effective comm skills with EQ and an individual's needs to be "felt" as much as heard/listened to. Your anecdote makes this very clear.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that I feel might be missing here is a connection to your own needs. How does the element that you've focused upon apply to you? That's what I really want to know now.
Thanks for your effort!
I agree with you that we need to "listen to the mood". I believe it all goes back to "interpreting" the message, because one needs to catch the mood or the feeling of the sensitive souls while we interpret the verbal and non-verbal messages.
ReplyDelete