Communication
in general is the process of conveying information to others by ideas, or
feelings through various means, including verbal with words, nonverbal with
gestures, and through written methods.
Those people
who can speak they convey these feelings by words but those who can’t speak
they use sign language to convey their feelings to others. As I told before communicating
our feelings to the surrounding world mainly differentiate human from animals. So
how effectively human communicates to the surrounding people plays a very
crucial role in his/her life.
When one
person talks with another person and another person doesn’t respond then it is
only speaking of one person, I don’t say it is really a communication. But when
one person talks with another person and another person also responds accordingly
with some kind of reply then it is called as conversation, it is the real
communication. I give importance to this two-way communication or conversation.
So ideally one should select to be in conversation and not only in speaking
with another person. And for human it is always motivating when it is
conversation and not only communication. For a normal human being when it is
conversation that time, we find it engaging and motivating to communicate more.
But when it is not, we get bored, irritated and we leave the talking. So, I
always believe -
Like hearts; brains go
there where they are appreciated
Looking back to 40 years I think communication trait
was not much highlighted or popular. If somebody was talented then with discipline,
patience, hard and smart work that person was finding it easy to become
successful in business or corporate life. But since some years only intellect,
hard and smart work is not the only important factor but one has to have very
good communication skills with different modes. This i talked about business or
professional life but I believe it is equally important in personal life also.
In context with this article, I will discuss some
types of communication as well as some factors which affect the communication in
general.
Types of communication:
There are two types of communication, Personal and
Professional communication. Now you’ll say what is to differentiate like this?
It is just talking only in variation with location, people, person and
situation. But no there is a thick line in between personal and professional
communication.
The first base of any type of communication is the
person having self-esteem, limited ego to protect his/her self-esteem, maturity
and respecting others. The to be considered self-esteem I mentioned
here because I have seen many adults, highly educated but fail to protect their
self-esteem. As well as getting the sense of talking sensibly and not talking just
like to talk or to highlight their presence. Communication is such a crucial
topic in human life; like books and books can be written on this. But many
people tend to ignore this and some work on themselves to polish this trait. After
training to 1000s of professionals in IT for different technical skills I understood
that in this era if you don’t have good communication skill rather, I would say
best communication skill then you will find it very difficult to become successful
in your career and so through introspection you have to plan a strategy for you
to improve your communication skills. In my Mother tongue Marathi there is
saying goes on like tihs -
बोलणाऱ्याचे दगड पण विकले जातात, न बोलणाऱ्याचे सोनेही विकत नाही
It means that intelligent but sensibly talkative people
can sell stones too but those people who stay silent or talk less if they sell
gold then also nobody buys it. In other way the best communication skill give
identification to your capabilities or your caliber.
Daily we communicate in our family, with our friends,
to the nearby shop keeper at the grocery store. etc.etc. Personal communication
is the original communication type one has; means with family, with friends, to
shops one communicates in its original form. I mean to say if the person itself
has etiquettes, disciplined way of life, kind nature, aggressive nature, murmuring
talks, short temper, gentle man/women traits, jolly nature, enthusiastic mind,
optimistic way of living life then it all reflects in his/her communication.
There one can’t pretend. So, in personal communication how we communicate that
shows your original personality.
The second base of any type of communication is
having good command over language. A rich vocabulary of words.
But here after noticing keenly I would say good command over local language/Mother
tongue because this is the language that one use it much. Here I consider that
your mother tongue is the same as the local language. And suppose in case
somebody has local language different than the mother tongue. Then the person should
be quite wise enough to learn the local
language and speak it ; to ease its everyday work as well as to communicate effectively
with the people around it. In India we have diverse cultures; even in Hindu
culture also there are so many languages people speak. My Mother tongue is
Marathi and if to talk about Marathi in every city in Maharashtra state you
will find different variation of Marathi language. As well as in India as per
the state changes the local language of that state changes. So, in India there
are lot of local languages.
My primary and secondary education was in complete
Marathi medium. Though that time there were many English medium schools around
us but my parents had a very basic thought that as our mother tongue is Marathi
so they should put me in Marathi medium school. And I really thanked them for
that because going further it really helped me a lot in my personal life , in
my education and in my professional life. As well as overall growing me as a
human being. So from primary till secondary, I was in Marathi medium school and
from higher secondary to college I was in English medium school and college. So,
in my childhood in my primary education, I had only one language to speak in
family, in school and for academics too. So, I was thinking and answering in
Marathi itself. But I was not needing to think in Marathi then to translate it
to some other language and then to speak. So that confusion was not there. And I
felt this is very important for a child in a very initial age of 4-5 years. When
I was around 6-7 years old and I just started reading properly that time my
father used to bring lot of books for me to read, comics, children’s story
books, and this and that. And those were so many books that it helped me to get
to reading habit and it increased my curiosity to read new things as well as it
helped me to improve my reading quality, increased the vocabulary of the
language and liking towards reading. This is the most expensive gift my father
gave me in my life. And when I look
back, I found that this was really a blessing to me. It gave me very good
command on Marathi language as well as increased my confidence also. It helped
me to develop my personality from many aspects of my life. It gave me clarity
of thoughts, improved my decision-making skill. With academics it gave me
better understanding of many subjects to me like social, educational,
mythological and spiritual. It developed a good personal communication for me.
And even taking education in local language didn’t create any barrier in my
higher secondary and Engineering studies and not even in my IT career. That
deep understanding of one language gave me enough confidence and so the command
over other two languages (Hindi and English) also got developed in me. Today
somebody hardly believes that I had my initial education in Marathi medium. Afterall
every parent thinks to give the best to their children.
As these are my personal thoughts,
I believed that taking education in local languages as a child helped me a lot.
For the child to grow in a smoother way
but retaining its childhood and trying to keep them away from stress. But I experienced
that by taking education in my mother tongue or local language really helped me
a lot to become more creative.
Marathi itself is not easy
language. It has a significant amount of its vocabulary and grammatical
structure borrowed from Sanskrit. It says that when somebody is intelligent enough then that person can easily
talk 3-4 languages like that. Marathi is one of that language which requires
much concentration and grammatical correction as this language has many
variations, artistic point of view, double meaning words and sentences.
The reason behind giving this background is did you notice anytime how small children communicates these days? Before some years I heard how small children these days are at problem with communication. And I heard lot of stories about this. Now if I discuss about children’s communication skill and if take example here that if the child’s mother tongue is one language in which he/she talks with family members then may be other language with friends and may be some different language for academics. Just think what that small child of 4-10 years of age is going through? So much stress he/she would be going through. The home vocabulary is different in one language, different in another language with friends and altogether different for academics. So basically, he/she might be thinking in one language and as per the opposite communicator’s language answering in different language. And anyhow as most of the people go with trend so they tend to ignore this problem and tell children to deal with it thinking that the child may not be paying attention in school or not studying or not good in picking up things. etc.etc. Obviously, there would be exceptions also. Because we tend to ignore problem at the core but try to fix it on the surface.
Next to talk about their communication; such children then doesn’t get expertise either talking in mother tongue and not in any other language. Poor chap. Somehow, they manage to talk in one language or by mixing two languages. And so we think it’s ok and a new trend develops. There is nothing wrong in it. These days when I talk with kids or children, teenagers or youngsters I find that either they are very silent, or don’t talk much or if they talk, they have to talk so much that in this hurry they miss some contents also to talk. Means either this end or that end not the middle point. And some I find always struggle with words. So, I find they don’t become good either in their own mother tongue and not in that language which they are taking education to explain what they mean too. So I noticed how they might be studying so I got to know most of them do the syllabus by heart only and not by understanding the core concepts and putting it in their own words. This is my experience but that may be varied too. Then these types of children either become silent or prefer to talk very less, and always have a fear of speaking something wrong and somebody will laugh at them. As they grow up it becomes constant struggle for them to improve their communication skill. And again, joke apart, in which language to improve the communication with. This confusion really affects their personal communication. In case if you have fear or talking any other language that you will speak something wrong and people will laugh then to overcome this fear you can practice talking in that language in front of mirror and if you fail to talk timely then simple better you laugh at you. It says that –
Laugh at
yourself before others laugh at you. So, they laugh with you, if they laugh at
all
So, the person can
overcome the fear or others laughing at it. Basically, the child to get a very
good command over the mother tongue first, which give them clarity of thoughts
what to talk, what not to talk and how to talk. When they are rich in words, it
gives them confidence to talk. That richness comes from reading lot of
literatures from childhood. This is the parents’ responsibility to put the children
to this habit. In this digital era of mobile, TV and Laptop’s addiction the
children should be drawn to the reading habit. And that to reading the hard
cover books and not the online reading from Computer, Laptop or Mobile. Because
we all know the disadvantages of over using these devices, although for reading
the stuff also from it.
The third base of any type of communication is talking without any perception and carrying any misinformation or misunderstanding about somebody in mind.
In personal
communication when you meet somebody and if have some perception about that
person then does you get influenced by that perception and accordingly you talk
with that person? And based on that perception you hate, love, envy or get
jealous of that person? Then it’s completely wrong. You being your individual
personality should be quite knowledgeable enough to understand things by
yourself by interacting with the person and not to be influenced by some
perception. So, try to never communicate with somebody based on perception. As
well as when we talk with somebody, we should always deliver the true
information. You can meet many people who get scared to talk the truth because
they themselves get scared of truth. Truth may be bitter but it is always a
good practice to tell the truth to others. It requires lot of courage to talk
the truth. It requires lot of courage. Because that is only for the benevolent
for others. As Shri Krishna said –
हितं वदे सत्यं वदे
Means one should always speak what is beneficial and what is truth.
If the person has habit of talking the truth always then the person doesn’t have
to memorize something what it said previously. But when the person talks lies
over lies there is always possibility of putting so much brain work for that
person to always find some ways to talk the lie. Or difficult to remember what
lie it told previous time. Basically, it is one of the cunning attributes of
human nature to talk lie. Science says that human can talk lie from 2 years of its
age and if it is not being noticed, not educated or if corrected timely by
parents then the person becomes more and more skillful in talking lie. And if
the same person gets this habit, then it is the major negative factor in that
person’s communication. As far as the person meets the like-minded people it is
safe for it but when the person meets some authentic people then it is that tragedy
for that person. So, it is always better to have truthful talking habit. It
requires strong ethics for it. This is about talking truthfully. But what about
delivering the truth?
Shri Krishna found that truth is the benevolence for the human
being but human mind is finding it difficult to always accept the truth as it
may be bitter to be heard or blunt or not likeable, so he changed that truth should be delivered either this way -
प्रियं वदे हितं वदे सत्यं वदे
Means try to deliver truth in a more pleasant or kindly manner and
what that is beneficial. But speak the truth only.
In family when you
talk, you should have somebody in your family with whom you can talk like a
chatter box, may be your Mother, Father or siblings with whom you can share all the
good and bad moments and experiences in your daily life, exchange your thoughts
and opinions and the same time should be patiently listening to them too. People
find friends outside that is ok. But your first friends are in your family
itself. My Mother is my best friend in my family. People say with parents the children
feel the generation gap but with my mother I never felt that generation gap and
I found she is able to understand my thoughts properly. As well as I have been
brought up in a family where I got the equal opportunity to share my thoughts,
feelings, opinions with my parents and my elder siblings. So, it helped me a
lot to explore my personal communication skill.
When you are in family you are in relations and the breath of every or any relation is transparent personal communication. I believe that most of our personal problems get resolved by better conversation between people in family. And when there is constant communication between family members that relation stays alive. But when or gradually the communication within family members starts decreasing or seems bothering or take place of misunderstandings; the time doesn’t stay far when the relationship dies. So the sign of a healthy, lively personal relationship is constant and transparent communication between the relations.
This is what about Personal
Communication Type. In next article I will discuss about Professional
Communication Type.
