Before understanding communication skills, it is essential to understand the literal meaning of communication.
Communication refers to a practice where more than one persons exchange their ideas with each other and convey their thoughts to any other person, group, or organization.
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What are communication skills?
Communication skills are the art of exchanging ideas and conveying your ideas to another person in a better way through which other persons can be influenced.
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It can also be considered an effective process that acts as a tool in the process of formation of the personality of an individual. It serves to show the ideology, personality, and qualities of the person.
Definition
According to Edgar Dale – “Communication means the exchange of information and ideas among themselves.”
According to Warren and Waver – “It is the mechanisms of action by which one mind affects the other.”
5 Types of communication skills
- Verbal communication
- Non-verbal communication
- Visual communication
- Listening
- Written communication
Let’s know more about all of them –
1. Verbal communication
Verbal communication occurs when we interact with others through speaking. This is the most effective way of communication.
This mode of communication may be done directly (face-to-face) or indirectly like – over the Phone, Video conferencing, radio or television.
Verbal communication may further be categorized into two parts –
- Formal – When we interact in-office meetings
- Informal: When we engaged in communication with a friend over the park or with family at the home
2. Non-verbal communication
Non-verbal communication includes facial expression, posture, finger-pointing, eye contact, hand movement, and touch etc.
Non-verbal communication is important as it gives more accurate details about the ‘attention level of the ‘information receiver’ and how is he seriously engaged in conversation.
For example – You are asking your boss to increase your salary due to sudden inflation in the economy. After listening to your needs, your boss may show his verbal consent but actually has no interest in hiking your salary.
In this case, he would give you different signs through non-verbal communication like – avoiding eye contact, sighing, scrunching up his face etc.
If he shows these signs you may understand that your boss is not serious about the topic and you may likely not get your payouts increased.
3. Written communication
Written communication is one of the most powerful ways of communication followed by speaking communication.
All official communications like – the flow of information from one department to another, one organization to another, and one Embassy to another are done in written format.
Even though the action is to be a result of verbal communication, it (verbal communication) is always optimized in written communication before the implementation.
Written communication has various modes of delivering communication for example – email, notice, letter, reports, reminders, memos, Website articles, Facebook posts, WhatsApp chat, blog posts, a tweet, and so on.
Written communication plays a vital role in detecting your level of skill.
A poorly written letter often creates confusion and leads to embarrassment. There are two things to remember while getting engaged in written communication –
- Write well: insert premium words, avoid grammatical mistakes, construct the layout of the sentence properly, and avoid careless errors because all of these have a high potential to make your impression positive or negative.
- Fulfill your objectives: Ensure that the body or content of the message is optimized for delivering the objectives of the communication and is also contextual to the subject and topic.
4. Listening
The act of listening is one of the highly demanded ways of communication in this modern era because if we cannot listen to a person, we cannot effectively interact with him.
Not having good listening skills is also bad for building a strong impression among people. A good listener can solve many problems in his life and others too.
For example –
The Indus Waters Treaty -1960 dispute between India and Pakistan has around 1 million exchanged of letters (written communication) but the dispute is still at its peak because in every annual meeting when both countries’ officers meet they do not listen to each other’s perspectives. Since this dispute is obstructing the drinking water in some areas, the pendency of it in lack of good listening communication places millions of lives in trouble.
Without establishing good listening communication you might not solve a majority of disputes or problems effectively and similarly, you can also find difficulty in negotiations without fair communication skills.
5. Visual Communication
Think about the movies, serials, web series, television, and news running all day and night. All of them serve their objectives very smartly through visual communication.
Display ads (advertisements) are a great example of visual communication. Images we post on social media, and ancient sculptures all communicate a message.
Assume that you are walking in a park and there is a Spectacled Cobra next to your feet ready to bite you. In this case, your eyes after visualizing the snack will communicate an internal message to your brain.
This phenomenon of transmitting information after seeing a cobra is an example of visual communication.
Now you can realize how visual communication is important in life.
Example of Communication skills
When a teacher, teaches students in a classroom, he utilizes all types of communication skills, let’s understand with an example –
- A teacher gives a lecture – Verbal communication
- Writes something on the blackboard – Written communication
- Shows you a map of ‘Mackenzie River’ (The longest river in Canada) on projector/screen – Visual communication
- When a student asks a question and the teacher listens to that question – Listening communication
- When a teacher raises his eyebrows at a student making noise: Non-verbal communication
Characteristics
- Communication skill works to enhance the personality of the person and works to bring maturity.
- Through this, changes can be brought into the thoughts, behavior, and personality of other people.
- It is necessary to have correctness and or orderliness of languages in communication skills. In the absence of this, proper communication is not proper.
- It can be developed with continuous practice and stability can be brought into the art of communication.
- Under this, proper balance is maintained between the body organs and the sense organs. So that communication can be made effective.
Importance
Communication is a means of getting in the way of cash advances. It makes the personality of a person so influential that every person who meets him gets influenced by his thoughts and starts imitating him.
Communication skills make a person trustworthy.
READ: What is critical thinking?
It also helps an individual to adjust to society and helps to lead the welfare of society.
People who are good in the skill of communication, are given an important place everywhere and their ideas are given priority.
How to Develop Communication Skills
One should always practice as much as possible because you all know that practice always works to develop the skills of a person and bring them into action.
For the development of this skill, it is very important to have accuracy and seriousness in your thoughts.
For its development, it is also necessary that the person should be confident and have complete faith in his knowledge.
READ: How Leadership qualities are organically connected with communication skills?
For the development of this skill, there is a need to listen carefully to the words of others, because a good communicator can be one who listens seriously to the views of others by discussing them and expressing their views.
Being a good philosopher is very important for the development of communication skills.
Conclusion
To make an effective identity in the present time, it is necessary that a person should have the art of conveying his words to others in a better way.
Communication skill is the way by which a person permeates his memory in the mind of another.
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