Reflection

My first impression of communication focused on how tiring it is to communicate effectively and how I worked about such a chore. Slowly I began to learn that communication is a skill and it is something that binds every one together. Yet it is an underrated skill. People often comment on how communication is an given talent. Either you have it or you do not. This course propose that effective communication is a skill that can be improved. And I strongly believe in that now.

By observing the common conflicts around me, I noticed a similar pattern. There exist a lack of communication between both parties. Much of the trouble and heartache can be avoided if both parties actually tried to listen actively and converse properly. Therein lies the value of communication. It saves us alot of time and effort. By understanding the value of effective communication, it reinforces the fact that I am responsible for my communication skill. It might be easier to push the blame of a conflict to another person by saying he/she isn’t listening. But am I communicating correctly? Am I communicating in a way he/she can understand? It would really save me alot of time, energy and effort.

Before I took this course, I didn’t have a clue on how to improve my skill as a communicator even though I am aware of the importance. This course highlighted many tangible areas that I could work on. Besides just being able to talk to people, I noticed how I am more confident in talking to people. There is a greater assurance that I can bring out my thoughts in a way people can understand. Hopefully my thoughts would come across clearer than a jumble before I took this course.

Presentation

The presentation loaded alot of stress on me surprisingly. I have had experience giving presentations, talks, teaching, hosting before an audience before, but every single time I still get the jitters. Often I spent most of the time before any presentation calming myself down. I was talking to myself:”Calm down Kenneth, you have done before. So slow your words, mind the pronunication and take care to not blank out.” Honestly my greatest fear is to blank out before a crowd. Thankfully I passed the presentation with my mind still working through out.

Looking back, rehearsing with the team really gave me confidence to speak. I have to admit that presenting without any notes is difficult. I have tried it a dozen time, and I realised the common denominator for the confidence is knowing your stuff. Knowing what you are going to say and practising does wonders to calming the nerve. This was no exception. The time spent rehearsing with Chong Yew and Tammy paid off. I believed that was what made our presentation tick and flow smoothly. It was an added effort to help each other articulate our points and work together as presenters.

We tried our best to present our ideas in as clear a manner as possible. The key phrase was drummed in by Brad: you are the presentation and not the slides. To me, it showed. we kept out points concise and simple enough for the audience to understand. Perhaps the delivery of our individual parts could have transited better. If not overall, I think we did a good job.

However one matter caught my attention and that was the question and answer session. To every question that is posed to the team, there will be different answers formulated by every member. Obviously the answers would be different. The crucial element, that was missing from our team, was showing support to each other’s answers. Correcting or showing nonverbal cues that someone’s answer may be wrong might not be the best moment to showcase on stage.  The team should stick together and support each other no matter the slight disagreement in the answers.

Other than that, I was pleased the presentation carried on without any major hitch. The team did well from my point of view. I didn’t blank out so I guess I did alright as well. Please feel free to share your comments on how the team or I did. Thanks!

Biodata

Kenneth is currently a third year Material Science Engineering undergraduate at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He pursues this course because he believes it is the cutting edge of modern technology. This would allow him to be at the forefront of technologically advancement and changes. Besides an interest in the sciences, he also aspires to touch and improve the lives of others.

Kenneth devotes the bulk of his time to his youth ministries in Grace Assembly of God. He believes that every generation will surpass the older generation and that youths are the future leaders of the world. He possesses a desire to see youths equipped and firmly rooted in Christ. His passion for youths has led him to serve as a Regional Leader of the secondary ones in Grace Assembly of God. Kenneth has also gained valuable insights into leadership while participating as a leader in organising conferences and camps. His leadership skills extends through working in a team towards a common goal. Through sharpened interpersonal skills, He is able to bring dynamism and energy to the process of achieving the goal.

Besides being technically able in the engineering field, Kenneth adds more meaning to any role he takes in any organisation through the lessons he learned when leading teams and people. He also believes that integrity is crucial in any environment and maintains that as one of his strength.

Kenneth is a passionate and outgoing individual who enjoys the challenges life has to offer. He also delights in impacting others positively with his good interpersonal skills. He believes life is a process of learning from difficulties and thus explains his positive outlook on life.

Updated.

Do you understand what I am saying?

In communication, there is a sender and receiver. Sender is the person transmitting the information and the receiver is one receiving the information. Sometimes when I pass an important information to someone, I get frustrated when the receiver gets it wrong. How difficult can it be to understand what I said? It’s just one sentence of information. “Why can’t you (the receiver) spend 10 seconds to listen carefully to avoid any frustration?” He replied:” Why can’t you say it clearer?”. Then I learned that communication entails so much more just simply words. If the other factors are not helping to convey the message then miscommunications happens.

I read an article online and it showcased a simple conversation devoid of communication.

• Terry: “I won’t make it to work again tomorrow; this pregnancy keeps me nausious and my doctor says I should probably be reduced to part time.
• Boss: Terry, this is the third day you’ve missed and your appointments keep backing up; we have to cover for you and this is messing all of us up.

Terry is communication more than the fact that she would miss work, she is trying to convey emotions and her thoughts on how the pregnancy is affecting her. Her message carries more than words, it contains a blend of tone, emotions and non-verbal cues. These factors alone can complicate the real content of the sender’s message.

How about the receiver? Judging from the boss’s reply, he obviously heard more than just Terry missing work. He is probably having doubts in his heart whether it’s a genuine reason or another excuse to slack off at work. There lies the potential danger for the receiver when his/her judgement muddle up the message of the sender.

I like what this article concludes:

“It is critical to understand this process, understand and be aware of the potential sources of errors and constantly counteract these tendencies by making a conscientious effort to make sure there is a minimal loss of meaning in your conversation.”

In between the sending of the message and the receiving, many factors are at play which threaten to disrupt the communication. The potential will always be there to reduce effective communication to prod us all with that little bit of frustration.

I remind myself to always delve deeper into what the person is trying to tell me. During conversation, I would ask myself if there is more to this than the words. I would observe body language to gain a more complete picture.

Why is it that people still do not try to communicate better despite knowing the difficulties?

How can people remain satisfied with losing 40% of the actual information during any conversations?

I admit that I am generalising but can you understand my annoyance?

Do you understand what I am saying?

Cultural Barriers

When I stepped into the home of my tuition kid Joel, his grandma greeted me warmly. We conversed in broken Chinese and Hokkien (mainly on my part) but still I could see the genuine character within. She lamented halfway and tells me she has problems communicating with her grandson. Upon asking what seems to be issue, she says the language barrier is too huge to overcome. Her generation speaks the dialects as the main language while her children spoke English and the dialects. However when it came to Joel’s generation, the art of speaking a dialect was almost buried. It’s safe to assume that family ties between generations are not as close as before because of this. Joel’s views about his grandma second this opinion. In one word, he thinks his grandma is weird.

I wondered at the frequency at which a culture is misunderstood based on a lack of communication. It takes effort and time to immerse in that culture to learn the experiences. And yet with some basic form of communication, I managed to converse with her and learned more about her. I learned how she cared for her grandson without any common language through actions. Actions like cooking for Joel, making Ribena for him or wiping off his perspiration are common actions that showed love and care without the need for words. Those are actions that universal across all cultures, acts of service that show care. Selfless acts to meet another’s needs seem to transcend any cultural or language barrier. I sighed at how her generation and culture will soon phase out and we risk losing out on all those valuable lessons and experiences they have. This is especially so when I see how lack of common language increased the cultural barrier. Language should not limit our exploration of any culture, it should be limited by their stories, actions and interest.

Email Exchange (#3)

Here is the situation: D needed help putting together a short sketch so he approached M who is in charge of the Drama team. M is much older and is holding a superior appointment than D. Here is the exchange:

From: D
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 20083:17 PM
To: M
Subject: Drama

Hi M,

May I know who’s in the drama team? Need to rope people in to act for one night.

D.

Subject: RE: Drama
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 15:20:58 +0800
From: M
To: D

Dear D,

There’s only 8 of them.  Give me more details on:

1. who’s in charge of the act?

2. what’s the act about?

3. what roles are still needing actors?  Any pre-requisites?

4. what’s the commitment like for the actors?

Regards,

M

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From: D
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 3:27 PM
To: M
Subject: RE: Drama

i’m in charge of it. Im currently writing the proper script, then i’ll get someone to vet it. the commitment for the actors would be 3 runs, inclusive of one full run. the skit is a fairly short one, bout 15-20 minutes, something to the affect of the play we did awhile ago. pre-requisites is just that they can act i guess, can work the script around the actors(for example if we have more girls, then we can change the character, etc)

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The first thing that struck me was the lack of respect for M. I believe that if a person should ask for help, the least he or she can do is to request nicely and not demand. There was no proper salutation and no formality. Even though M does know D, “I am in charge of it” carried no shreds of courtesy. The initial mail by D requested the use of the drama team but gave no details regarding the skit. Apart from all that, there is a common spelling error in “effect” instead of “affect”.The short forms like bout and incomplete sentences seems to be spoken English rather than written English.

Truth be told, I was appalled by absence of formality and respect and also impressed by the patience that M showed. It is not all negative. In the replying mail, D furbished M with clear and concise details of the skit. He expressed his requirement precisely and his sentence structure demonstrated good understanding of grammar.

A more formal tone would be more appropriate in this situation. This is my suggestion:

From: D
Sent:
To: M
Subject: Drama

Dear M,

I am D from so-so committee and I have been tasked to put together a skit on ** Dec. So I was wondering if I could tap onto the drama team to assist me in this area. It will be a short skit of around 15-20 minutes. I am already working on the script and it is flexible depending on the number of available actors. The commitment will be 3 rehearsals. Please kindly get back to me as soon as possible.

Thank you so much for your time and assistance.

Regards,

D

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Interpersonal Conflict

I have handled conflicts with various age groups successfully before. However the hardest conflict to resolve has got to be with my mother. She carries an attitude of superiority and authority which makes it difficult to come to a compromise. Even though sometimes the fault lies with me, admitting readily that I am at wrong simply does not solve a more deeply rooted issue. My mother had asked me to clean the fans before Chinese New Year. I had already forgotten once and so I saved it on my scheduler to remind myself. However when the time came for me to clean the fans 2 days later, I realised that my dad had done it already.

“Did you clean the fans today?” My mom asked, knowing my dad cleaned them already.

“Daddy cleaned it already.” I replied

“WHY didn’t you do as you were told and left it for your dad to clear up your mess?” My mother said very loudly. Apparently she was just speaking loudly and not yelling at me. That was what she claimed later on.

“I had planned to clean it but dad was a step ahead. So i thanked him.” I countered as calmly as I could. If I raised my volume as well, it would have escalated into a screaming match. I was really trying to communicate with my mom as best as I could so I controlled myself. I was getting irritated but at least one party had to remain calm to ensure some sort of communication.

“Why do you always behave so irresponsibly and cause us to clear up after you?” She snapped back. Now she is visibly angry and clearly yelling at me.

“Mommy that’s unfair and you know it.”

“I am your mother, don’t talk back to me!” She yelled. This one amazing line that effectively concluded all forms of arguments between a mother and her child. Nothing could explain what that line does to communication for me. I simply gave up the idea of having a normal chat and returned to my room resigned.

I sat down to evaluate what i could have done differently. But my thoughts kept centering around a few questions.

1) How could I break through her attitude of superiority and authority to let her know how I felt?

2) Did I aggravate the situation through some unknown non-verbal cues? Of course i was irritated with what she said so it might have been obvious. How do I determine my unknown non-verbal cues?

3) Could I understand her point of view a little more than just simply exerting authority?

Edited by Tammy 01 Feb 09.

Communication

Successful communication is always a 2 way street between an active listener and speaker. It involves the 2 parties’ minds engaging in similar thoughts. I have always known that listening actively is very taxing on the mind. It drains me considerably because of the amount of concentration required to focus.

Truth be told, because of the strain it puts on my mind, sometimes I employ some methods that make me seem like I am listening actively but actually I am thinking “when is this person going to stop” or “when should I start listening properly?”. I have read books on body language and learned subtle ways to appear interested and open to the speaker. These tips have proven invaluable in helping me hold meaningful conversations with people. Sadly it also allows me to mask the times when i am not interested to what the speaker is saying and still come across as an interested party.

I have been convicted in my heart of those times when i pretend to listen. It shows a distinct lack of respect for the speaker who is willing to share something with me. It affects me most when it’s the people whom I care about that are talking to me and yet their words do not register in my mind. What kind of friendship am I extending if they speak and i do not listen?

Edited 30th Jan