PERSPECTIVE OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS REGARDING NEED AND SIGNIFICANCE AT THE WORKPLACE

Transcription

1 PERSPECTIVE OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS REGARDING NEED AND SIGNIFICANCE AT THE WORKPLACE Mr. Kailas B. Tidke 1, Mr.Bharat G. Dhanwade 2 1,2 Lecturer in English Applied Science Department, CSMSS College of Polytechnic, Aurangabad. ABSTRACT Communication is one of the basic needs of human being like food, water and shelter. One cannot fulfill his/ her needs without communication. Without effective communication, a message can turn into error, misunderstanding, frustration, or even disaster by being misinterpreted or poorly delivered. Communication is the process by which we exchange information between individuals or groups of people. It is a process where we try as clearly and accurately as we can, to convey our thoughts, intentions and objectives. Communication is successful only when both the sender and the receiver understand the same information. In today's highly informational and technological environment it has become increasingly important to have good communication skills. While many individuals still continue to struggle, the inability to communicate effectively will hold them back not only in their careers, but in social and personal relationships. The focus of my paper is to highlight the importance and need of communication skills at workplace. Brian Tracy has rightly said that, Communication is a skill that you can learn. It's like riding a bicycle or typing. If you're willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life. The importance of communication skills at workplace Good communication skills are essential for success in virtually any organization. No matter how good one's technical skills or how innovative one's ideas, if not communicated clearly to others, they are irrelevant. Employees today need to be able to effectively communicate within the organization to each other, their bosses, and their subordinates as well outside the organization to customers or clients and vendors. Clear communication that unambiguously conveys one's meaning, however, is not a simple task and can be hampered by numerous barriers including different perceptions of a situation, filtering, language, jargon and ambiguity. In addition, cultural and gender differences can compound the process, making communication even more difficult. However, through such techniques as active listening, disclosure, and feedback, employees can learn to become better communicators and improve their own effectiveness and that of the organization. Communication is the process of transmitting information between two or more parties. Although communication is often thought of as a verbal process, transmissions can also be written or even nonverbal; with our actions or body language communicating our message. Communication can be intentional (the interoffice memo describing a new implementation policy) or unintentional (the boss receives the message -- correct or not -- that the employee is not a hard worker when s/he never gets assignments in on time). Good communication 60 P a g e

2 skills are essential for success in business. No matter how innovative one's idea is, no matter how skilled the service one offers, no matter how much the marketplace needs the product or service, if the business cannot articulate what it can do for potential customers or clients, it will not be successful. Good communication skills, however, are not only necessary for successful marketing. Employees must be able to communicate with each other and management must be able to communicate with employees. A boss who expects employees to be mind-readers will not be a boss for long. A team whose members cannot communicate their ideas to each other will not be able to achieve the synergy that is the goal of such work groups. The technical expert who cannot communicate his/her flash of insight will not be able to use it to help the organization. In short, communication is key to success not only on an organizational level, but on a personal level as well. A recent study regarding job requirements in an around 20 metropolitan areas interpersonal skills" were mentioned most frequently and it is the first requirement for job. Even for jobs such as accounting where it would be reasonable to assume that mathematical ability was more important than communication skills, it has been found that up to 80% of work time is actually spent in communication rather than in working with numbers. Despite the importance of good communication skills in the workplace, however, research has found that employees often do not possess adequate communication skills for success. As a result, 90% of Indian companies give communication training to employees in areas such as team building; public speaking and presentation skills; interviewing skills; and business and technical writing. At its simplest, communication starts when the sender decides to transmit a message to the receiver. S/he decides what message to communicate and how best to express this message (words, gestures, body language, intonation). This message is then sent to the receiver. This person then decodes the message and forms the appropriate feedback, be it a nod of the head, a smile, or other body language; an action such as doing what the sender requested; or forming another verbal or nonverbal reply to show that the message was understood or not understood. This message is then transmitted to the original sender who, in turn, receives and decodes the response, and forms a return message. This is a simple enough process. However, communication is more than the sender transmitting a message and the receiver responding. There are numerous places during the process where barriers to communication can keep the receiver from correctly understanding the message sent in the way that the sender intended it. When this happens, miscommunication can occur. There are a number of different types of barriers to communication that can lead to miscommunication by hindering the unambiguous transmission and reception of a message between parties trying to communicate. Communication barriers include different perceptions of a situation, filtering, language, jargon, and ambiguity. Other sources of miscommunication include the degree to which the vocabulary (professional, technical, or general) of the two persons is shared, differences in their assumptions and expectations, and their relative skill at forming and decoding messages. Different perceptions, however, are not the only reason for miscommunication in the workplace. Because the nature of workplace communication is often more formal than social, communications are often filtered to remove unwanted messages. For example, the culture in some organizations rewards good news but punishes bad news. In such cases, employees may tell only the good news ("we can put on a demonstration for the customer next week") but filters out the bad news ("but only if we get needed input from a vendor on time"). Similarly, when delivering performance feedback, supervisors may try to phrase negative feedback in a positive 61 P a g e

3 manner in the hope that it will be encouraging ("you may want to try to make your reports a little longer in the future") rather than giving the employee the entire message ("this report had none of the needed information in it and is totally unacceptable"). In the first example, if the needed input does not come from the vendor, not only does the employee look bad for not having delivered what was promised, but the supervisor looks bad to the customer or executives because the needed demonstration was a failure. In the second example, the employee's feelings were not hurt in the short-term. However, in the long-term.[3,4] II. SOME TRICKS FOR, EFFECTIVE TALK Be confident about yourself. Be with full knowledge about the topic. Always try to speak about innovative things. Be careful about your appearance. Have sound like you have a super personality. Be sure about how to start conversation. Make sure you don t miss a single beat. Use motivational speaker s technique to enhance your conversation. Have good voice while communication. Leave consciousness about unnecessary things at the time of conversation. Have concentration on topic. Be in contact with positive people. An ample space in our life has been acquired by speaking as without it one should have to face obstacles in getting ones work done, Peggy Noonan says in his book On Speaking Well that, A vivid imagination is a sign of intelligence and intelligent people can give speeches. III. STEPS IN COMMUNICATION SKILLS DEVELOPMENT: To improve communication skills one should adapt basic skills comprising Listening, Reading, Writing and speaking (LSRW) to get good mastery in communication. 3.1 Speaking When we mention basic communication skills, most people first think of speaking. There are a huge range of skills and abilities that fall under this basic category. They range from having a large vocabulary to using voice tone effectively to using descriptions and story to enhance your expressions. For convenience, we can also categorize the non-verbal, non-written expressions as forms of speaking. Some might even include the ability to express oneself through music or dance in this category. Overall, this category includes anything that has to do with you expressing yourself in ways other than through written words or imagery. 62 P a g e

4 3.2 Writing This category will include all written verbal communication skills. So written letters, signs, stories, plays, screenplays, novels and much more are accounted for. But it also includes graphics of any kind. Logos, icons, drawings, pictures and so on all help us express ourselves in ways that do not involve speaking. 3.3 Understanding/Listening Different people refer to this category in different ways. But the most common names used for it are understanding and listening. In any event, what people are referring to is the ability to comprehend someone else s non-written communication. This includes not only knowing what the words they utter mean, but factoring in how their non-verbal communication and their particular personal and social characteristics shed light on that meaning. 3.4 Reading This is the ability to make sense of written communications of any kind. It involves not only recognizing the words, but being able to extract their meaning so as to attain comprehension. It could also be applied to the ability to appreciate and analyze graphical artistic works such as those mentioned under the category of Writing. When you are considering communication skills activities to improve your abilities, you might want to look at these 4 categories and assess your strengths and weaknesses in each. This will give you a framework for understanding where your skills are most developed and where you could use more work. IV. PRESENT STATUS OF ENGLISH IN INDIA The English educated Indians, then, were demanding their mother-tongue as the medium of instruction. Their emphasis was on the use of mother-tongue as the medium of instruction and on education closely related to Indian culture. On their demand, the government appointed the Calcutta University Commission in 1917 under the chairmanship of Dr. M.E. Sadler, the then vice-chancellor of the University of Leeds. The commission recognized the importance of the mother-tongue. They argued: mother-tongue may be used only in high schools; in the higher classes they urged the retention of English. Gandhiji was in opposed to adopt foreign culture and to use their things but he knows the importance of English in the growth of nation that s why he said in appreciation of English, also appreciated the importance of a foreign language especially English. He says: I don t want my house to be walled in all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. I would have our young men and women with literary tastes to learn as much of English and other world languages as they like and expect them to give the benefits of their learning to India and to the world. V. THE STATUS IN POST INDEPENDENCE INDIA English is the language of industrialization and modernization, and now it is the language of globalization. Observing the rapid change in the place of English in India Scrase remarked: English is recognized as an important global or international language, essential for professional employment and significantly, a key 63 P a g e

5 component of the cultural capital of middle class Indians Now it become the link language among an educated people as it has the status of official language in India.[6] VI. CONCLUSION Communication skill is medium through which one get solution of any problem if it is done in the positive manner. It is also helpful to fulfill the objectives and achieve the goals of an individual and an organization as well. It is a key for getting success in academic life or at the workplace. Effective Communication always brings constructive result to one who desires to practice it. Effective communication is a skill or an art that can impress ones greatly and that can make ones worth. It is the ability that helps to everyone in every field of life like in education, professional life and also in preparing relationships. In today's life communication skills play a vital role in this modern world. Communication skills influence effectively today's fast life, as everyone wants to do more with less and for the sake of this scenario communication is the key of this. It teaches ones to use effective words, modulation, pitch and also the body language. By using the right tools of communication one can save their precious time and can motivate others towards achievement. Most of the technological department and multi-national companies are using these effective skills and they are on the top level in the existing globalization. Through communication skills companies are also satisfying their customers and enjoying the maximum profit. Communication skills also playing a great role in the education sector as well. According to the research the colleges who are using these skills and techniques they can teach their students more effectively.[7,8] REFERENCES [1] [2] [3] February 17, 1999, On speaking well, Peggy Noonan. [4] Dr. Ankita Goutam, Effective Communication at Workplace by, IRC S International Journal Of Multidisciplinary Research In Social & Management Sciences (Issn: ) ( [5] Martimer J.Adler, How to speak How to listen [6] Marc J. Riemer, Communication Skills for the 21st Century Engineer, UNESCO International Centre for Engineering Education (UICEE) Faculty of Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Melbourne, VIC 3800, Australia [7] [8] UKEssays, Communication Skills at Workplace Management Essay, Published: 23, March,2015www.ukessays.com/essays/management/communication-skills-at-workplace-managementessay. [9] P a g e