Effective Communication

Communication is an ability to share information with people and to understand what information and feelings are being conveyed by others. It is an essential life skill to connect and build rapport with other people. However, a poor communication has the power to destroy relationships by creating tension and bad feelings within relationships. Thus, effective communication is utmost important in order to succeed in life, in work, and in relationships.

Effective communication skills can help us to reduce misunderstandings, errors, frustration, and conflict on a daily basis. Nevertheless, not many people are born with effective communication skills. These skills should be actively developed from an early age. It is a learned skill, and can be learned and used at any age.

Communication can take on many forms such as nonverbal communication, in addition to speech and written communication. Nonverbal communication, conveyed through facial expressions, body language, pace, intensity and tone of voice gives us a powerful means for self expression. For instance, students often show disinterest in school by avoiding eye contact or sitting back in their chairs with their arms folded across their chests when they are asked to answer a question. Sometimes, when we talk to someone, he or she might show disinterest by keep looking at the watch or somewhere else. Conversely, a smiling, nodding face indicates that the listener is interested in what we are saying and encourages us to continue.

In university life, effective communication plays an important role when we have projectmates from foreign countries and have to work together as a team in order to come up with a great project. Through effective communication, we could convey any special interests, talents, or hobbies all of us might have which could be an asset to our project. Apart from that, we can also reach an understanding of different backgrounds, experiences, values, cultures, religions and other factors which might affect our working relationship throughout the project. Each of us has the responsibility to ask for clarification on tasks so that the assignment will not be misunderstood. As a team, regardless of nationality or race, we need to work together to build trust in the working relationship. In addition, the spirit of teamwork will definitely come in handy in the future working life or building business.

"To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others."

Anthony Robbins