Conflicts arise when communication breaks down. In fact, communication has a crucial role in building awareness in battling a global pandemic such as Covid-19.
Among many other observations, we see a decline in communication standards among master’s level students who are either managers or administrators. This could be the tip of an iceberg where an overall decline in effective communication on multiple fronts. Today’s column attempts to shed light in that direction.
Overview
We communicate from womb to tomb. It is a part and parcel of human life. When communication breaks down, conflicts tend to occur. In fact, communication is the activity of conveying information through the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behaviour.
Effective communication is crucial for the success of individuals as well as institutions. This is true even at the national level. Communication gaps pave way for construction of wrong perceptions, false opinions and incorrect attitudes. As scientists explain, communication is a complex two-way process, involving the encoding, translation and decoding of messages. Effective communication requires the communicator to translate their messages in a way that is specifically designed for their intended audience.
I have seen managers thrive when they can clearly communicate. It is true for the private and public sectors alike. That’s why we need to be brilliant on basics with regard to communication. One key important thing to remember is that the message that you plan to communicate is likely to be misunderstood. Therefore, in addition to carefully preparing and presenting your message, stay alert for any signs that your audience is misinterpreting it.
Essence of communication
As we often refer, communication comes from the Latin root “communis”, meaning to share. It is to keep information in common. Therefore, communication, in brief, is information exchange. It even goes beyond. It is the activity of conveying information through the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behavior.
There are four key facets of communication. They are: speaking, listening, reading and writing. Effective verbal communication involves the use of speech and writing to transmit a message. While oral communication is more effective in reaching a focused target audience, as it involves interaction and additional non-verbal cues to augment the speech, written communication is necessary for reaching a large number of scattered recipients. Depending on the situation and the requirements, organisations use both the spoken as well as written channels for communication.
Communication confidence
The way I think, communication requires confidence with regard to three aspects. Figure 1 illustrates the details.
Context refers to the important areas such as knowing the audience, desired Response and the clarity on objectives. It is mastering the environment in which the communication will take place. It is sad to see some powerful and influential individuals make statements without any regard to the context that might result in conflicts and clashes.
Contents should have the right quality and quantity. It should be well structured with the proper sequence. The essence is the impact it makes and the importance it contains. It is about the essentials the message should contain. It is not be just “verbal diarrhea”. Conduct is all about the delivery. One important aspect is to be simple and specific. You got to rehearse and then release. That requires a high degree of confidence. There is an old English saying that goes as “if you fail to prepare, you are prepared to fail”. This is very true for presentations. It is the execution of your thought process in ensuring that the desired message is conveyed.
“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel”, so said Carl W. Buechner, a preacher and a theologian. It highlights the power of conduct.
Lessons from leaders
It is encouraging to see how leaders have mastered the above three Cs with regards to communication confidence. I have western and eastern examples. As the Forbes magazine tells us, the best leaders know that for communication to be effective it has to be real. They can’t have people parsing every word trying to separate fact from spin. When great communicators can’t share certain information, they come right out and say it because makeshift, half-truth answers breed distrust and anxiety. In good times and bad, honesty builds trust.When Barak Obama created history in becoming the first African-American President of the USA, observers commented highly on his communication skills. In fact, much has been written by people such as Richard Greene, a communication consultant on “Communication secrets” of Barak Obama.
For me the secrets are not really secrets. They highlight the need to be brilliant on basics. The first one is on voice, tone and body language. Obama had it so professionally.
Second secret is much relevant for Sri Lankans. Obama had a “Lasered, Compelling Message”. It was so powerful to attract the audience. Even though he and his team ran into difficulties in delivering results as time moved on, his way of giving a sharp, precise and an inspirational message has not yet died down.
Obama demonstrated an authentic passion in his speeches. He professionally orchestrated his speeches in order to show effectiveness in delivering the message. The words he used touched the hearts and the secret has been the language of choice in strengthening humane aspects. He demonstrated authentic passion in his speeches. In the recent past, his tendency to become emotional at speeches was on the rise but no one found fault with him as the cause was something very authentic.
According to Forbes magazine, great communicators do not worry about sounding important, showing off their expertise, or boosting their own egos. Instead, they think about what people need to hear, and how they can deliver this message so that people will be able to hear it. This doesn’t mean that leaders tell people what they want to hear. Quite the opposite¬—they tell people what’s important for them to know, even if it’s bad news. We saw that in Obama.
From West to East
I did not expect this ruler from a tiny nation to be so inspiring, till I watched his “TED talk” several times. This relatively young leader is Tshering Tobgay, the Prime Minister of Bhutan. Tobgay is the leader of the People’s Democratic Party and is the Prime Minister since 2013.
It is amazing to see at a time when Bhutan is overlooked by the international community, how this inspirational communicator made an impact in showcasing its rich “carbon sinks” such as forests.
Being a country of about 750,000 people, it has set some impressive environmental benchmarks in joining one of the few countries in the world to have negative carbon emissions.
One might argue that he had a powerful message to communicate. That should not undermine the way he used his communication to attract the needed attention from the powerful nations.
Excellence as Essence
“A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest”, so said Winston Churchill. A message is complete when it contains all the information that it should contain. Just what that information is, of course will depend on the nature of the message.
It reminds me what Rudyard Kipling said a long time ago:
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
To ensure the complete message being communicated, the above “servants” should be respectfully deployed. This should be in line with the popularly known seven Cs, namely, being correct, courteous, considerate, complete, concise, coherent and clear.
“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead, ” said Mark Twain. Conciseness does not necessarily mean brevity, but effective with optimum use of words. I see a huge challenge for us here. Some of us enjoy elaborating with eloquence. Is it what the recipients really require? A concise message achieves its purpose without sacrificing clarity, completeness, courtesy and consideration.
A good communicator simply eliminates unnecessary words and avoids monotonous continuity. “In the land of Gibberish, the man who makes sense, the man who speaks clearly, clearly speaks nonsense”, so said, Jarod Kintz, in his work, “This Book Has No Title”. I see a considerable relevance of this to Sri Lankans. Are we clear enough? Effective professional messages should be clear, readable, and understandable.
Way forward
Sri Lankan leaders, administrators and managers alike need to deal with their stakeholders in communicating with confidence. Clarity over chaos is what committed leaders should consistently display. With regards to Covid-19, communicating in a convincing manner the needed response of the public has been a critical success factor.
The power and potential of communication should never be neglected in reaching the community. Mother Lanka will prosper when its children continue to enhance their communication competencies. 