Month: January 2022

We know that communication forms a major activity of our life in our day to day working. If you are working at home, you are communicating with your family members or help.

While at your workplace, you communicate with your bosses, colleagues or reporters. While in social functions, you communicate with friends and acquaintances. Above all to know yourself and understand fully well you talk to yourself.

Now let us understand what are the various types of verbal communications?

1. Conversation: It can take place in all situations. It takes place between three people. If there are more than three people, the conversation becomes a discussion. The conversation  are usually polite and informal. They are usually short in duration and are conflict free. The conversations help you build relation and/or to maintain them. Nowadays conversations can also take place virtually on mobile or applications like WhatsApp, Zoom, etc.

• Discussions: Discussions is different from conversation. Discussions are more formal, take longer involve more people, but happens less frequently than conversations. Earlier these represented face to face meetings, but technology has empowered people to hold discussions virtually. These discussions can be very fruitful provided people people stick to the topic of discussion. They avoid arguments. Some points are not repeated by many people. There should be genuine effort to draw some conclusions during the discussions.

• Debate: A debate is essentially an argument and counter argument. One may say the advocates during their pleadings argue which forms a debate. The judge listens to both the parties and declares his/her verdict. Thus the outcome is a decision about whose point of view is right. In social situations debate take place among the people and the decisions is arrived by voting. The same principle is applied to debates in parliament and other constituted platforms.

• Dialogue: A dialogue is an unusual and a rare event. It is a conversation where there is a free flow of meanings in a group and diverse views and perspectives are encouraged. Real dialogue including discarding your biases and encouraging open mind reflections. Dialogues are very creative and useful. Due to this reason these are worth using. However three conditions must be met if your dialogues are going to work.

1. People must know how to suspend thier assumptions. Everyone must keep an open mind and should not speak on the basis of his/her perceived emotions.
2. At whichever place people must regard each other as there colleagues.
3. It is helpful to have a facilitator to hold the context of the dialogue and conduct the same effectively.      

A very important part of the listening skills is to reflect on what has been said. It demonstrates the understanding and acceptance on what has been said. The only time when you ask questions is when you want to seek clarification of any ambiguity if there is any.

It is not arguably decent to judge, advise or to confront. But you must use reflective techniques to respond whenever necessary. So what is the need of this?

1. You want to understand other person feelings fully. Because the essence of communication is two way, understanding each other and expressing your views on any topic or subject.

• It is even necessary when you sense the other person is not sure about his / her thought or feelings about the situation. Your move is just to help  him / her.

• Reflective responses helps the speaker to make genuine efforts to express clearly if he or she has not been able to express clearly if he or she has not been able to do so. In such an instance describe in words the core content of the speaker communication. Then you must politely ask if you have understood him / her properly.

• Reflecting meaning of the speakers points would mean by simply & concisely summarizing the speaker’s content and emotions. You may also summarise by restarting the theme & feelings of what has been said.

Acquiring these skills of listening is not an overnight adventure or achievement. It takes time to own and polish how and when of their use. Effective listening at its core is a social skills. It is also one that will take you further down the road of demonstrating what we can achieve together, can be far greater than the sum total of our individual contributions.

The habit of listening requires that you should not only listen to the spoken words but also you should understand body language. Not understanding body language becomes a roadblock, in the process of active listening. The body language includes the following aspects:

1.  Posture: Posture of relaxed alertness indicates that you are accepting and paying attention to what the speaker says. It helps you sit forward & incline your body slightly towards the speaker. You should also face the speaker head on. Further keep an open posture with your arms and legs unfolded.

2. Movement:  Movement should be avoided & such gestures that detract from the subject should be avoided. Your movement if any must be responsive to the speakers movement.

3. Eye Contact: Eye contact forms the next important point. Eye contact tells the speaker that you are interested in what he / she says. However it should not be interested in what he/ she say. However it should not  be used excessively. These are skills that are used to encourage the speakers to speak. These should be active in ways that do not got into ways of what he / she are doing.

This means that you should not ask questions that divert the attention. The following skiils should also include.

1. Use door openers rather than door slammers: Examples include, “What is on your mind?”, “What do you think?” or “ Would you like to tell me more about that?”. They should however be used , when you find time available for such questions.

• Use Encouragers: These are the nods and sounds like,” Please go on.”

• Asking Questions: IF your questions are relevant then they should be frequent, precise and articulate.

• Being Silent: Silence in a conversation does gives the speaker the space to feel, think & find the way to express himself. You can use silent pauses to observe expression posture or gesture of the speakers.

Listening actively is so important that we do not do it, we demolish all our chances with people and success. Negotiation can burst into disaster if we do not listen and assilimate. In fact the importance of listening is hard to explain in words.

Lets enumerate the benefits of active listening.

1. You acquire more information and as a consequence make better decisions. At a consequence make better decisions. At workplace it helps you to clearly understand the assignment projects given to you.
2. You are able to enhance your relationship with your peers and colleagues. As a result you are able to build better rapport with bosses & clients. Since you are able to understand your co workers & develop better relations,  you are able to more effective in team based environment and projects.
3. Due to active listening, you are able to understand things better, you are perceived the other person’s point of view, in turn it makes you more effective in resolution problems.
4. Because of active listening, you become more aware of the underlined meaning of what people say, often times people do not mean what they say.

Let us understand we can enhance our listening skills.

First of all you must have a strong desire to listen and win. Undoubtedly a good listener is a winner. So you must develop a habit of being attentive. You must not be in a hurry to interrupt the speaker and say what you have in mind. You should reflect while you are listening to someone. If you listen to someone then you will be able to assimilate rightly and clearly.

No doubt the habit of listening has to be formed and nurtured. You will start realizing the benefits. Therefore your desire to become a good listener will become stronger and it will have a snow-balling effect to your advantage. But always keep in mind that habits die hard and therefore you have to consistently work hard  to  develop the great habit of active listening. Above all Lord has given us two ears and one mouth. So we must listen twice as much as you speak.                                                        

Listening is a skill that is highly underrated but when we actively listen it becomes our armor which works for our success at all places.

The difference between Hearing & Listening is stated below:

 Hearing is just the process by which the body converts variations in the pressures around you into sounds. There are the following three parts of this process:

1. The outer ear – the outer ear is the flap of skin on the sides of your head. People can see that the main job is to collect sound.
2. The middle ear – The main job of this part of the ear is to take these sound waves and turn them into vibrations that are delivered to the inner ear.
3. The inner ear – the inner ear is filled with a liquid that is set into motion, by these vibrations.

The above are the technical details of hearing. Now let us understand the difference between listening  and hearing.  These are two different things.

1. Hearing is to perceive or to have sensation or sound; to possess or exercise the faculty of audition of which the specific organ is the ear.
2. Listening is to hear attentively: to give ear to: to pay attention to a person speaking or what is being said. The subject of listening is a process that needs active participation. The outcome of this are deliberate and active  behavior.

Further while hearing is a passive, reflexive, almost an automatic response; listening is a chosen and deliberate action to assimilate what has been said. The average person is said to remember about half of what they hear immediately after words, but this goes down as low as ten percent after three hours. This tells you that the skill of listening is not a natural ability. It is a skill that has to be learnt and practiced. It is a skill which gives you power to influence people and negotiate effectively.

Blog is written by Vikram Kakri.

In business we have to be particular of what we say and how we say this is true for verbal, but it his is also true for written communication.  We when we talk of verbal communication, we should know how to use language effectively and appropriately.  Besides whatever we say should come from the heart. The communication should be convincing and honest. Your speech has to be articulate and each word has to be very clear and you should bring about voice modulation in your speech.

Voice modulation is your ability to bring in variance in pace, pause, pitch, emphasis on your keyword and the tone. Written language has to be concise and should clearly express what we want to say. In business communication, there is no room for verbosity.  In fact that would be wasting your words, and therefore your energy and time.

 Following aspects of business communication have to always be kept in view.

1. Decide what actually you want to achieve. Then select your words and create sentences which you think will achieve your objectives.
2. You must decide whether a formal presentation is the best way to achieve this objective. If you have to achieve this objective. If you have to talk before two or more your seniors, then the formal presentation is recommended. It may not be with a power-point presentation , but without the power-point presentation  the verbal presentation that you make has to follow a certain in order that it is very effective.

Whenever you are reporting on certain needs or problems that you are likely to face, that must be well thought reporting That is true for both verbal presentation or the written report.

Whenever it is a formal presentation, it is necessary to script it and to rehearse it. This will enable you to talk in front of your seniors, peers and other stakeholders. If the audience that you expect is more than ten, it is necessary to rehearse beforehand.

According to this principle, a company management should encourage employees to experiment and to innovate. The spirit of innovation should be actively fostered and they should be encouraged to express new ideas and to develop new processes for implementing these new ideas. This will result in greater engagement and involvement of the team. Employees will identify themselves with the company. Better productivity and results can be achieved in this manner. However, initiative does go to the extent of employee interference in the set order of the company which can lead to disobedience.

Typically initiative means to start or to begin to instruct in an ongoing or a new project. So if the company encourages and one of the employees come forward and does bring out some innovation, the others will also be encouraged.

It is a good idea for the manager, before setting a plan for a new project, he / she should welcome the suggestion and idea of the employees.   There can be a brain storming session which always proves very useful and brings about maximum participation. However when the plan is made and agreed upon, it should be strictly followed.

Developing employee initiative brings the following benefits:

1. It develops a feeling of oneness and belonging within the employees, and this leads to better loyalty towards the organization.
2. Employees achieve the targets when they are allowed to take initiative and such targets are set up with their consultation.

The adverse consequences of lack of initiative among the team is:

1. Employees will not work to the best of their ability.
2. Demotivation among the employees will result in lower organizational productivity.

Blog is written by Vikram.

Henri Fayol, the French Management Expert who propounded fourteen principles of management has left a legacy which continues to inspire the management gurus of the modern times. Out of the fourteen principles, the 12^th principle is known as the principle of stability.

Stability refers to how long employees stay with an organisation. Stability of tenure of personnel helps any organisation achieve better productivity and smart working.

An organisation must take steps to obtain as much stability as possible.  Frequent change and disruption are often expensive both in terms of time and resources. If a large percentage of the workforce leaves frequently, such staff will be need to be replaced by new people. The replacement workers will then have to be trained once again. Training is expensive and time consuming. Individuals need to thoroughly know the policies and culture of the organisation. The money spent on such repetitive activity can be better utilised and spent on more productive activities.

No wonder that HR departments today spend a lot of time in devising ways and means to keep attrition to the minimum. The organisation’s esprit-de-corps needs to be maintained. It is critical that a sense of loyalty is instilled among the members of the organisation.

Thus, stability means no frequent changes and no frequent transfers. Removal from the place where an individual Is working is both distractive and disruptive. In fact, stability helps employees to know each other well and take help for solving  the day-to-day problems. Thus the satisfaction of the employees is mitigated. It also leads to achievement of the organisational objectives.

The positive impacts of this principle:

1. It develops a sense of belonging towards the organisation, thus improving the efficiency and minimising the wastage of resources.
2. Better accountability makes team members to be more disciplined and helps them achieve work satisfaction.

Lack of stability leads to the opposite and adverse results since there is lack of employee participation resulting in general dissatisfaction and high employee turnover.

To conclude, Henri Fayol recommends that every organisation must respect the principle of stability of tenure as much as possible.