How Effective is Your Communication?
Communication, according to celebrated author Stephen Covey, is the single most significant factor for success. Its importance is so obvious it need not be underscored. As one communication expert puts it, it is extremely important: 95% of the problems of the world are caused by it or lack of it.
That may be an overstatement, but whether it is 90% or 95%, there is no disagreement that lack of it causes a lot of problems. Considering the magnitude of the problems of the world, from individual to families to nations, it is a wonder why effective communication training has not been officially started right at infancy.
The truth is communication begins right at the mother’s womb during pregnancy via the baby’s heart beats and its gentle kicks at the inside walls of the stomach. Nonverbal messages are sent and received during this time with loving anticipation. But from birth of the child till he reaches college, communication has been largely confined to language or knowledge acquisition rather than communication effectiveness training. The art and science of communication, or how to communicate effectively, has never been a formal subject or even topic for most disciplines, except for a few courses in arts, education and law.
Cover of Creating Understanding
If these things about effective communication were taught much, much earlier, maybe we would have learned sooner that effective communication is two-way, that it consists of five major elements: a sender, a receiver, a message, a feedback and a medium. Then we would have known that all five elements are potential problem sources and that much effectiveness could be achieved if only somebody would always take the responsibility for creating understanding.
Then, we would also have known that to be responsible means to know how to empathize or be able to put ourselves in the shoes of the recipients of our messages and to imagine feeling or thinking how they would react or respond to our messages and initiatives. We would have known that being responsible means caring for what the receivers would feel and think.
That responsibility for creating understanding rests in every one of us. The more people take part in the process of building a society that understands, the more pleasant, peaceful and productive our society would have been. As Covey aptly puts it, me must seek first to understand before we are understood. Wouldn’t we be happier if that were the case?
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You may also want to check out:
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Published in: Personal Finance
Comments: 3 | Post a CommentPost a Comment
Rhodora Bande | Dec 29, 2010 | Reply
This reminds me of my Speech Communication classes in college. Those courses made me value the importance of communication in my job and in my relationships. Well, I have to otherwise I will be a total failure in what I do. This can be a very boring topic but you made it interesting and easy to understand.
Freethinking | Dec 29, 2010 | Reply
You figuratively hit the nail on the head with many of the points you make in this article. Too many express themselves through acts of anger, violence, inept language skills and cursing that it makes me wonder if they really understand or know how it makes them appear.
katarina giselle | Jan 18, 2011 | Reply
I have such an itch when it comes to communication! I work hard to try to effectively communicate my words so people understand as closely as possible what I really mean, and it get’s to me when others don’t think before they speak!