In today’s workplace, one is expected to work in teams. Many projects are too big for one to handle alone. Either the project spans across multiple disciplines or the project would take an unfeasibly long time to complete alone.A team is a group of people working towards a common goal. In a team, our strengths are magnified and our teammates can help us to overcome our weaknesses. In a team, the members share resources and work together to deliver a final product. Being able to understand others better would help me to reduce misunderstandings, enabling me to maintain a good working relationship with my teammates. I would also require good communication skills to present and defend my ideas. Good teamwork would definitely not be possible without effective communication.
Communication is the delicate process of transferring a message from one entity to another through various channels. Various forms of “noise” such as language barriers and the context of the message can distort the interpretation of my message. Therefore, effective communication is required to get the message across properly.
Being able to communicate better has many uses. An example is that it gives me an edge in marketing myself to prospective employers. Being a better communicator enables me to stand out from the crowd, giving me a better chance of advancing in my career as compared my peers.
Effective communication is, to me an art. Understanding the concepts of communications is only one of the first steps of improvement. Only with constant practice and refinement, can I learn to communicate more effectively.
Dear Russell,
ReplyDeleteKudos to you! What a well structured essay. It is well written from the top right to the conclusion. Most of your sentences are direct and concise. Maybe I should sit beside you in class more.
In paragraph two, you mentioned "Being able to understand others better would help me to reduce misunderstandings." It is true that you need to understand others to avoid misunderstanding. I like to further add that it is not easy to understand people. There are many different types of people in this world and what we expect in a person to be may not exactly turn out to be true in reality.
It is also easy to say that "we must understand others" but the process itself is a rather difficult process. Ironically, sometimes we need to have disputes in order to better understand others. In a dispute, there is a difference in belief between two parties. After resolving the dispute, both parties can better understand each other.
I look forward to seeing more of your well structured posts and hope to adopt your style of writing, Concise and Clear.
Regards,
Mohd Ferrino
Dear Russell,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ferrino that your writing style is very clear. It was a joy reading your post.
I liked your metaphor of ‘noises’ in communication. From a foreigner’s perspective, I would like to add one more ‘noise’ here. From my experience, communicating to people from different countries involves one more barrier in addition to language and accent.
We all start taking some things for granted due to the culture and the society we are brought up in. For example, in some situations, it would be perfectly normal for two Indian guys to hug; they do it in order to communicate “Thanks” to their friends, or sometimes just as greetings, especially if they’re meeting after a long time. Such a thing, however, would be frowned upon in Singapore. (On a related topic, I read somewhere that it is a law in Singapore that two men cannot hold hands in public unless they are gay or they are Indian by race)
This is where culture starts to cause miscommunication. As locals in a country, we need to be aware of and tolerant towards such common practices in other cultures. As foreigners in a country, we need to learn about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in local culture. Only with the co-operation and tolerance can we be effective communicators, for communication, as Russell put it, is not just about talking, it is about “transferring a message from one entity to another”
Regards,
Anuj
Hey Russell,
ReplyDeleteTo start off, i like how you mentioned a couple of examples regarding barriers in communication. And to add on to that point, i think you could also add in solutions to overcoming these barriers to achieve effective communication.
There is also no doubt that effective communication and teamwork is essential in every industry, and especially in the IT industry. As i mentioned in Anni's blog, in the IT industry, we are constantly at the forefront of innovation, constantly coming up with new ideas and solutions. Without the appropriate skills to express these ideas, it is as good as wasted.
Before i end off, i would like to say that i cannot agree more with your last point. - 'Only with constant practice and refinement, can I learn to communicate more effectively.' This is what many of us tend to overlook, either because we think we are good enough, or simply because we missed it. Communication is an ever-changing skill, that we must constantly learn and apply according to the situation.
Andy
Dear Russell,
ReplyDeleteYour post is so well structured. You begin it by telling us the necessary of teamwork while most of us begin our posts with communication. And then you connected the two by pointing out that "good teamwork would definitely not be possible without effective communication".You must have used 7Cs in this post.
I agree with Ferrino that sometime we need disputes to understand others better but misunderstandings caused by poor communication must be avoid at all cost. We should only have disputes when we have different ideas or beliefs. And those disputes can also be solved by good communication.
I really like your post and your style of writing. Hopefully I can practice to become a good writer like you.
Regards,
Long
Dear Russell,
ReplyDeleteWhat a compare! Effective communication is an art indeed. Building up communication skill is like making a brilliant art piece, we need to polish and refine it constantly. The more dedicated we are to polish it, the more beautiful it will be. Therefore we should really take it seriously, and make full use of every opportunity we have to improve our communication skills.
In your second paragraph, you mentioned that when working in a team our strengths are magnified and weaknesses are covered by our teammates. I can’t agree more. This is the beauty of effective teamwork and why effective teamwork is much more efficient and powerful than group work or individual work most of the time. Every time when we feel the warmth from the strong and continued support from our teammates and the strong sense of accomplishment because our hard work paid off in achieving the team’s corporate goals, we know how motivated we are. This can never happen elsewhere, it only happens in an effective team.
Lastly, I have to repeat that reading your post is really a joyous experience.
Regards,
Shiyan
Ferrino and Dam Long:
ReplyDeleteWhile I concede that misunderstandings can sometimes result in us understanding others better, I still think that it’s still better to avoid misunderstandings whenever possible. It might require a lot of time and effort to resolve a conflict caused by misunderstanding the other party. Don't go borrowing trouble; trouble has a tendency to find you.
Anuj:
Thank you for example about the men hugging each other. I did not know men in India hug to express thanks or even as greetings. The example clearly illustrates how coming from different cultures can cause miscommunication.
Andy:
I agree that it would be a great pity if we have tons of great ideas in our minds but we are unable to express ourselves just because of poor communications skills.
Shiyan:
I have also noticed that I work better in a team. I am prone to procrastination, but the thought of letting my teammates down is usually enough to motivate me into starting tasks on time.
Everyone:
Thank you all for the nice words about my blog. I will definitely keep up the good work and hopefully improve!
Russell