Communication is a very essential and very powerful tool these days. Communication is the tool which helps one to interact with others, share our thoughts with others, exchange information with others through various means whichever suits the situation best. There are four basic requirements for a communication to take place: sender, message, channel and a receiver. Communication occurs in three steps. First sender thinks of some message(s), it can be thought, information, idea or feeling. Secondly, the sender sends the message to the receiver. Lastly, receiver receives the message and decodes it. Moreover, communication is broadly divided into two modes of communication: verbal and non-verbal communication. Nonverbal communication includes communicating with others using signs or pictures.
Verbal communication includes communicating with others with the help of words and grammar by the means of speaking or writing. Hence, it is very important for every one of us to communicate in day-to-day life. (‘Skills You Need’) But most of us have situations where we find it difficult to communicate. There are many situations where most of us find it difficult to communicate. The most common situation is that when someone is being interviewed. In an interview many of us hesitate and get nervous and it’s very difficult for us to communicate to the interviewer and we end up with lame answers and disappointment. Moreover, there are many other situations such as if our senior at work tells us to write an apology letter/e-mail or any other letter to client and quality of letter/e-mail must be very good. So, if our writing skills are not very good and we may face an embarrassing situation at that time and it may also affect our professional growth. Hence, it is very much important and essential to improve our written as well as fluency while speaking as these skills can come to use at any point of time. And if we have good written as well as communication skills then we can face these random situations with full confidence and we can give it our best shot. This will surely increase our chance of professional growth. But the most important question is how to assess one’s strength and weaknesses at initial phases so that they can be rectified later. Such assessments help one to get hold of his drawbacks.
I used a skill assessment program to evaluate my communication strengths and weaknesses. The communication skill assessment required me to rate myself on certain given scenarios. The scenarios portrayed the real life experiences and situation which asked me to specify my reactions to the situations if I am subjected to one of them. The scenarios were divided in five categories namely Public Speaking, Written, Meeting management, Problem Solving Strategies and the last one being Interpersonal skills. (‘Uwgb.edu’) These five categories were further sub divided into a number of tasks to which I marked my responses according to my behaviour while performing of such tasks. The scores finally evaluated helped me to find my strengths and my weaknesses .Now being aware of my weakness, I could rectify them at the earliest. Public Speaking section included subparts like organization of a presentation, speaking with confidence, speaking with clarity, being persuasive and speaking with enthusiasm & vitality. (‘Uwgb.edu’) Hence, the part was meant to check the confidence and public speaking abilities of an individual. Similarly the Written section included subparts such as using proper grammar, spelling, preparing written reports and organizing documents for high impact. (‘Uwgb.edu’) Meeting management on the other hand included subtasks such as facilitating a meeting, leading brainstorming sessions, analysing & commenting on the direction of the group process, clarifying expectations of group members and creating consensus. (‘Uwgb.edu’) This part more or less dealt with the leadership qualities and was intended to check a person’s approach in handling a group. Problem Solving Strategy involved sub-points such as creating communication strategy, selecting appropriate names for initiatives, solving communication problems, using proper problem solving techniques and becoming comfortable with uncertainty. (‘Uwgb.edu’) Interpersonal skill assessment involved tasks like being appropriately assertive, adapting communication style to different people, listening constructively, managing conflicts and managing other's expectations.
This part of the assessment majorly focused on the innovativeness of a person (‘Uwgb.edu’). My scores in different sections helped me to become aware of the communication gap prevailing in me. Although I scored a good total in written assessment, Interpersonal assessment and Problem Solving but I too had certain weaknesses to tackle with. The Public speaking part and the meeting management skills were the areas requiring me to strive harder. I was now very well aware of my communication gap. Analysing the weak areas I concluded that public speaking required me to be persuasive and handling meetings surely too requires this quality. I was lacking in confidence and stammered due to that. A stammering and confidence less speech cannot be expected to persuade audience. I with the help of the skill assessment test had now become aware of my drawbacks. The lacunas prevailing were hailing to be addressed and I did my best to turn my gaps into my strengths. As an additional training I have joined a public speaking course which forces me to present my views in front of different people in turn providing an exposure to me. This now turning as a usual practice has helped me a lot. Moreover to improve my fluency I have decided to read a lot of stuff. This, along with providing a sense of fluency also enriches my knowledge. Another practice that I indulge into is pure English conversation with my friends and my family members. All these practices have helped me a lot. Now having been practicing such methods for a long time I am all time prepared to speak in public without any hesitation (‘How Good are Your’). The knowledge I gained helped me to present my vision with a stronger stand thus making my speech a persuasive one. This quality that I am working on, is sure to help me later in my profession and to persuade my clients towards my organisation which in turn would be a boon to me and to the organisation I will be working in future.
References
(www.solucija.com), L. (2014). Phil Clampitt Ph.D. Uwgb.edu. Retrieved 2 December 2014, from https://www.uwgb.edu/clampitp/index.htm
2011-2014, (. (2014). Communication Skills | Skills You Need. Skillsyouneed.com. Retrieved 2 December 2014, from http://www.skillsyouneed.com/general/communication-skills.html
Mindtools.com,. (2014). How Good are Your Communication Skills?: Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Reading Effectively. Retrieved 2 December 2014, from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCS_99.htm
