I think communication is the basis of the social relationships between each being (human, animal or even vegetal). If we didn't communicate, the humanity would probably collapse. Because communication is the only way to solve a problem, to introduce yourself, to tell somebody that you love her/him, ...
Besides this essential aspect, skills in communication are all the more important to make it effective. By effective, I'm implying when the communication process is perfectly adjusted, making every single message clear, concise, coherent... The 7Cs. But especially convincing !
When I was young, I used to do some acting at middle school. I didn't really like learning whole pages of lines, but I enjoyed acting on the stage because I could give free rein to my imagination and to my abilities to make people laugh. I think that acting is a really good means to learn a lot about effective communication skills. Because when you want to make people laugh, you actually try to be clear and concise in the way you'll tell the joke. You also try to use the appropriate gesture, or face expression, at the right moment, and which will make the audience laugh.
Effective communication skills allow people to convey their message with style, courtesy, strength of conviction and charisma. Those are the best ingredients so that your interlocutors are suspended from your lips and definitely agree with your words. Real communication skills allow you to convey convincing messages, and you can be respected for that.
Later, I will be a supply chain manager. To my view, a manager has effective communication skills if he is highly persuasive and comprehensible by his colleagues. And that's maybe the most important aspect for me, as a future manager : the ability to convince people with those skills.
Guillaume, I like the potential in this post. You certainly focus on the value of effective skills for yourself. This becomes quite tangible when you mention acting as a child. But you haven't mined this anecdote sufficiently. What makes an act of communication truly effective? The audience needs what?
ReplyDeleteExplain this more coherently!
Indeed, I feel you have material here for an interesting reflective post, but you need to rethink the way you have organized your ideas.
Here are some other issues to consider:
1) ...to solve problem, to settle a conflict, to tell somebody that you love her/him... >>>
to solve problems (or "a problem"), to settle a conflict, to tell somebody that you love her/him...
2) Because when you are actually acting, you want to make people laugh : so you are trying to convince them, in a way. To laugh, the audience needs to understand what you mean : then you are trying to be concise and clear as well, and so on. >>
Because when you are actually acting and you want to make people laugh, you are trying to convince the audience ... to do what?
To laugh, the audience needs to understand what you mean: (explain) .
...then you are trying to be concise and clear as well, and so on. (this is a bit jumbled)
3) Because real communication skills force admiration and respect. (sentence fragment) >>> Communication skills force admiration and respect.
4) And if you are respected, then your message will be convincing. >>>
(how about this) If your message is convincing, then you can be respected. (of course, that depends on the message)
5) To my view, someone holds effective communication skills if he is highly persuasive (not to confuse with a manipulator). And that is maybe the most important aspect for me : the power of persuasion you have when you master effective communication !
>>>
You are mixing subjects: "someone" and "you." It would be better to be consistent.
Like I mentioned, I see potential here, but I would like to see it realized.
Thanks again!
Hi Brad ! Thank you for your post.
ReplyDeleteI was actually changing my post when you made this comment, because I wanted to add a more personal view about the topic. I understand that this post might be too general, and not enough personal.
To answer your questions :
1) To me, what makes an act of communication effective is the way you capture and captivate the audience.
If you have solid arguments and if you expose them the right way, it would be effective. In acting, for example, it could mean using face expressions to reinforce your words, or changing the tone of your voice to emphasize a comment, showing that you really mean what you say.
The audience must be able to feel, through your communication skills, what are the main points of your "speech".
2) When you want to make people laugh, they must be able to understand your jokes. That's why you have to be clear and coherent, but also to use the right gesture, tone of voice or face expression, at the right moment. I admit that it's not a work of persuasion I'm leading when I try to make them laugh.
3) "If you're respected, then your message will be convincing !" It sounds like a dictator ^^ I've just noticed the nonsense I've made. I agree with what you say.
4) Last but not least, I will talk about me. You probably noticed that I make some useless sentences to explain something. I like to think that the longer is a sentence, the more beautiful and convincing it will be. Which is often wrong. I waste my words and don't even manage to be comprehensible, and to reach the main point. It sometimes leads to a misunderstanding or a complete nonsense.
I think that effective communication skills could bring me this ability to clearly identify the core of an idea and only focus on it. If I use too many sentences, then I lose the main theme, and I lose my audience as well. I'm used to doing this in French but it is probably harder to do so in English.
Hope it's a good response to your questions.
Thanks to you !
Guillaume,
DeleteThanks for the detailed explanations. I can understand your main points better. What I would prefer though in future posts is that you revise the original (as you have done) using my questions and comments as a guide. That will be sufficient, allowing me to see how you have put into effect the suggested revisions.
In any case, I can see you're making concerted effort at improving your short essay. Now let's see what your classmates have to say about it.
Hi Guillaume! I have dabbled in a but of acting for a while. And I can relate to what you say about feeling an absolute sense of elation expressing yourself on stage and connecting to the audience.
ReplyDeleteIt is afterall what we look for isn't it? Some recognition for our thoughts/opinions!
See you in class :)
Hi Guillaume ! I have an experience like you ! Actually, my major was class music ! (Maybe you cannot believe it !) I've played violin and piano for 12 years but, because of my personal issue, i had to give up my dream. Anyway, I could feel that I communicated with other people by playing. It means that I could make them happy or sad, and it gave me same feeling what they felt!
ReplyDeleteFrom this experience, I learned that I can have the effective communication without saying anything!
Thanks to recall my past experience and see you in class ^^
Bonsoir Guillaume dear,
ReplyDeleteSo you are French huh! Hehe~!
Your professor Brad had a female student from last semester who had an infatuation with a suave French language teacher while in high-school. I thought she was pretty cool to make that confession!~
Now let's get to the main point.
Your post read pretty well in general and which I thoroughly enjoyed and understood despite a little French language accent. I do know writing in French and English are two different things altogether because there is no direct translation.
In your 2nd paragraph you mentioned the skills in communication is that which makes the subject, which is communication, effective. But your explanation of effective being perfectly adjusted was a little ambiguous. And if you did explained what effectiveness was, it had to be in the phrase---- 'clear, concise and coherent, or the 7Cs', but these are skills and not the consequences of effective communication. The consequences of this effectiveness which you try to describe would have been better illustrated with an intimate experience you had with effective communication in your life so far. Does that make sense?
Maybe you should try to start with giving further details about effective communication being perfectly adjusted. I know you meant resonance, so you might want to use the word 'resonance' instead.
You mentioned also in the final statement about effective communication being convincing. Really? Is that always the case. I beg to differ on that. I think rather that convincing messages have a certain effectiveness, but not all effective messages need to be convincing. Some people might have an aversion to being so easily convinced because perhaps suspecting some latent hanky-panky. You don't try to appear to be convincing to such people, and definitely not at such a fast rate. Does that make sense dear?
Some girls, I predict, are going to be super wary of smooth talking guys, who surely are those who try to be convincing in communicating their abilities even if they know they don't have that ability to 'get their girl'. Therefore, I don't it is going to be effective to be convincing in front of such girls. Does that make sense?
Apart from these things, I found that the acting analogy don't quite resonate with the purposes of communication learned in this module. But of course that is not mocking about communication in acting being trivial, because directors make big money out of it, and they surely want their actors and actresses who in turn make big careers to give a helluva show. Yet we all know that acting is a kind of manipulation, and therefore things actors and actresses communication in acting must also be manipulative. It's all an act, is what the critiquing folks will say, and I fully agree.
Simply because if you were to think carefully, acting is make-believe even if one argues actors and actresses are required to 'live and breathe' their roles, but they still know in their minds that it is at best an amazing act, and cannot be compared to say, if the subject or theme of the show involves disciplining naughty children, disciplining his or her naughty kids in real-life. Does that make sense dear? I'm sure your professor Brad will completely agree, I hope.
I am actually saying, in other words, communication in acting is most probably associated with a joke, while at the same time agreeing that people---actors and actresses, can make a helluva living out of this joke. And that might be all our faults; we are the people who watch and make up the demand for such illusions and jokes. We are all pitiful jokers ourselves. Lol! But seriously, I want to make that point clear!!
Nonetheless, your next to last paragraph was probably your best one yet, it totally made sense to me. And the fact that you will return to France and be a supply chain manager is even better!
By the end of the course, I will wait for your coronation as supply chain manager with fantastic communication skills!
Go get it boy!
Cheers :)
Dear Mark,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this precise comment.
First, I would like to apologize for this late response to your comment. I've just moved in UTown and the administrative matters were a real headache. But now I'm settled and can enjoy the life with a lot of exchange students ;)
To give answers to your questions :
1) Talking about the consequences of effective communication, I think you're right saying that the 7 C's are not the direct outcome of effective communication. But they are skills that you have to master, to reach a certain level of effectiveness. And when your message has been fully understood by your interlocutor, it means to me that it is actually clear, coherent, concise, concrete, ... So, in a way, it is also the result of effective communication. And the awareness of these 7 C’s makes you an effective communicator too.
Therefore I think it is part of both the consequence and the required skills.
2) I agree with you for the convincing aspect : a message can be effective without being convincing. Take the example of JFK when he announced to the people that the American astronauts would go on the Moon (RIP Neil Armstrong). It was incredibly effective without being convincing, because it was a "simple" speech.
3) For acting, I meant that when I was young acting was a really good experience to express myself, my feelings and my emotions on stage. It surely enhance your ability to speak well, with a clear tone of voice, and doesn't necessarily appear to be ONLY jokes. Acting doesn't happen only on stage. There's a lot of work behind, during which you're training to speak clearly, to manage your body language and to emphasize what you think is important. This is a good start for being an effective communicator because you are getting more and more used to speaking in front of an audience.
I was not here dealing with the manipulative aspect of acting. Of course it's a game. But it allows you to feel more comfortable when you speak to another person, you're getting used to this. And that is for sure a necessary condition for being an effective communicator, and for me, a good manager. I hope that makes sense.
By the way I thank you for this deep analysis. You're interesting to read.
Cheers !!
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ReplyDelete