Communication – Its Importance

June 15/14.  In the recent past, I have been writing a lot for different purposes – business and personal.  And I just realized how easily we can be misunderstood and how easily we can misunderstand others if we don’t communicate properly.

Communication is indeed very important in everyday life as any misstep can be very time consuming to try and clear up or resolve, therefore I have the habit of  going through the hassle of repeating myself to make sure that I get my message across clearly or that I get clarification than deal with any misunderstanding. I also like to follow up to confirm if others get my email rather than to wait and assume they haven’t got time to reply yet.  Often that’s more efficient.

I love it when I feel that I am “in sync” with others.  We don’t have to agree on everything but we can agree to disagree.  It’s really frustrating when we are out of sync or call it “not on the same page.”  It’s worse when you realize that you’re not even on the “same book” at all!

With the goal in mind of avoiding any miscommunication, whether written or verbal, I sort of “hit my notes” again on the one-day workshop on communication that I attended.  The following are points that again, I find really important.  I am writing them down not only to share but also to remind myself.

– The real message is not what we say but what others receive.  We need to always be aware that people come from different backgrounds and each of the backgrounds has its values. It is thus important for the sender to check with the listener that what is heard is what is meant to be delivered.  Everyone comes with a different set of experiences and therefore his perception of words or of messages is different from that of others which is why confirming the “meaning” is more important than the words used.  The listener, on the other hand, should also be conscious of the fact that s/he may just “not” be getting the right message and needs to clarify things before reacting negatively.

– The very first and the most important amongst all is Active Listening.  It is very easy to lose the meaning if one does not pay attention to what is being conveyed.

– How the message is sent is the basis of how it is to be understood.  Or, in other words, how a person talks is the basis of how his/her message is understood – the words used, the tone and even the body language.  We can be reminded of the cliche: actions speak louder than words.

– In our world that has become a village, everyone is within access to everyone else, even to someone from a different culture.  It has become imperative now that we know how to relate to people of other cultures. And the key to success in cross-cultural communication is to develop an understanding of a particular culture and to respect it while we are communicating.   Essential of all, we should not hesitate to ask if something strikes us to be inappropriate.

– Both the sender and the receiver of the message have to have a positive and an open mindset, an open heart and the willingness to learn. Lacking any one of these things can result in unwanted arguments and even loss of business or friendship.

Communicating properly saves a lot:  time because we don’t have to repair communication breakdown; energy because we do not need to exert effort in repeating ourselves; and relationships because we avoid hurting people by using the wrong words at the wrong time.  Life is too short – too precious – to spend on trivial matters such as misunderstanding resulting from miscommunication.