Communication Basics

A simple quote will easily illustrate the topic that I am going to tell you about:

“Understand that not everyone is like you, The different ways of communicating with different personality types.”

A large portion of our lives is spent in communicating with each other. We spend most of our time on sharing thoughts, understanding someone’s emotions and analyzing their way of behaviour. There are three most essential parts of communication : The sender, A message and the receiver.

The sender sends a message means codes the message then the receiver decodes it and try to understand what sender wants to say. The way we decode and encode the messages is based on the how we learned about communication in earlier stages. It is determined by our culture, family and experiences. No two people have had the same upbringing that shape communicating patterns.

For ex: There are two person A and B. Suppose A is hungry, he puts his hands on his stomach then it depends on B how he understands that whether A is hungry or he is suffering from stomachache. His facial expression might be helpful in this case. Same thing has happened with 3 year old child then it would be difficult to understand. The most common problem is that there is very low chance of being understood by the receiver.

Research says: ” 70% of our efforts are misunderstood, misinterpreted, rejected or not heard”.

Good listening is the building blocks of good understanding and good communication skills. Ears are for verbal communication, eyes for non verbal communication and body is for gestures. For communicating better, make sure that your body and your words are congruent. Make it clear and always be precise and positive. Try to listen carefully otherwise you will miss important points of the conversation.

If you want to try to feel the emotions of other person then put yourself in his position, understand his perspective and then proceed to interact. Communication is a series of action and reaction. Communicate with confidence. Always remember one thing , think twice before speaking. It is an irreversible process. You can only minimize the hurt feeling but the damage has already done. Have patience and try to elaborate yourself and also try to understand others. You can’t clap with one hand. If you want effective communication, put your efforts into it too.

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