Be An Effective Communicator

Be an effective communicator.

The purpose of communication is two-fold:

1.       To make the other person understand your thoughts, and

2.       To understand the other person’s thoughts.

Hence, communication is primarily a two way process. Nobody can work in isolation. Everybody has to work with other people to achieve results. So, the basic requirement to become successful, is effective communication.

Communication is a very complicated process. We are not going to discuss the process here. One post will not be enough, if we want to. We will focus only on ways and means to become an effective communicator.

If we really want to become an effective communicator, we must first become good listeners. If the other person perceives that he is being ignored, that will result in unpleasant relationships. Consider the differences below.

                              Feeling of Being Listened to                                   Feeling of Not Being Listened to

Important                                                                 Neglected

Pleased                                                                     Dejected

Satisfied                                                                    Let Down

Worthwhile                                                              Embarrassed

Cared for                                                                   Ignored

Good                                                                          Rejected

Happy                                                                        Annoyed

Appreciated                                                             Unimportant

Encouraged                                                              Demotivated

Inspired                                                                    Disheartened

·          Many a times we don’t understand people because we don’t listen properly.

·         Listening is much more than hearing.

·         Show your willingness to listen. Put the other person in comfort zone by minimizing distractions.

·         Stop listening with an intention to respond. Start listening with an intention to understand.

·         Give your full attention to people while they talk to you.

·         Listen to what people are trying to communicate, not to just what they are saying.

·         Maintain correct body language, eye contact, and facial expression.

·         Ask open ended questions.

·         Listen at least as much as you talk.

·         Wait for the other person to complete before giving any reply. Understand and weigh what you have listened. Then formulate the reply and deliver.

·         There are four intentions in communication, especially when people want to communicate with us. Know all the four intentions thoroughly and make use of the same. The following tables throw more light on the intentions.

      Intention 1.  The facts.

People want to	Convey Information
Your task is to	Listen to details and clarify
You need to ask	“Who?” “What?” “Where?” “Why?” “When?” “How?”
Your goal is to	Picture the situation as the person is describing it.

Intention 2. Meaning.

People want to	Make themselves understood
Your task is to	Listen to the big picture, summarize and paraphrase
You need to ask	“Am I understanding you correctly?” “Is this what you are getting at?”
Your goal is to	Understand what the person means, and make the other person feel understood.

Intention 3. Feeling

People want to	Connect on emotional level
Your task is to	Listen with empathy, pay attention to body language and tone of voice
You need to ask	“How does it make you feel?” “It sounds to me like you are feeling …”
Your goal is to	Recognize how the person is feeling and make the other person feel connected

Intention 4. Needs

People want to	Get their needs met
Your task is to	Listen to wants and needs, focus on solutions, action steps and outcomes
You need to ask	“What do you want to have happen?” “What would help you in this situation?” “What can you/we do about it?”
Your goal is to	Know what the person wants to achieve

To effectively communicate, you should connect with people. Exercise the following:

·         Pay attention to people’s body language, facial expressions, and tone.

·         Try to understand the other person’s perspective.

·         Avoid criticizing, and making judgments.

·         Adjust your communication style to match theirs.

While communicating:

·         Align your body language, facial expression, and tone with your message. There cannot be a mismatch.

·         Speak with sincerity and conviction.

·         Follow the rule: KISS – Keep it short and simple.

·         Use face to face communication as much as possible.

·         Ask for feedback.

·         At the end ask the other person to summarize what he has understood.

·         Don’t try to get too many messages across. People do not retain more than three.

In short, make the communication as a pleasant one. People must love to communicate with you. They should not get repelled.

Become A Smart Team Player

Become a smart team player

Any individual has to operate at three levels of relationship with others. They are:

1.       Dependence  

2.       Independence

3.       Inter-dependence

When we were infants, children, and young ones, we were totally dependent on our parents. When we took up a job after education and started working, we were almost independent. Once we get married and become family men, we become inter-dependent.

People will have different views of these three levels and will debate on which level is more productive.

Any individual, however brilliant he is, can rarely succeed if he works all alone. Especially in work environment, the teams only will succeed and achieve the objective of the organization. That means our success is achievable only through inter-dependence.

Let us understand what is a team. A team is:

·         a group of people who are joined for

·         achieving a common goal

·         within a stipulated period

·         having collective accountability

Apart from sharing information, the team members also share the responsibility of the team task. The team is always responsible for the outcome.

The team members should  work jointly to maximise the strengths and minimise the weakness by complementing each other. The most important feature of a team is “synergy” i.e. the team can achieve much more as the members can achieve individually.

It is very important for each member of a team to contribute his maximum and work in tandem with the other members to achieve the goal of the team. There are so many factors which contribute to a team to become cohesive which we will not discuss in this post.

We should become a smart team player. To become, we must play our role correctly. Knowingly or unknowingly, every team member plays a single or a combination of roles. Let us understand the roles.

Detractors. They cannot find anything right in the world. They criticise or complain about almost everything and everybody.

Try to understand how often or in what circumstances do we become detractors. We should consciously pull ourselves up when we find we are slipping.

Observers. They do not speak up in a group situation. They can be passive (mentally absent) or active by conveying through body language. Let us not be only observers.

Participants. They actively participate in groups plans and tasks. They seek examples and ask for clarifications. In a healthy group most members should belong to this category.

Contributors. Apart from being participative these people help others to learn and grow during group activities. Most contributors would be regarded as high performers.

Leaders. A member who helps the group resolve a deadlock has displayed leadership role. It need not be as per hierarchy.

Having understood the roles team members play, decide yourself which roles you should actively play to make yours a successful team.

Apart from playing your roles correctly, develop the following traits.

·         Always keep the objective of the team at top.

·         Always keep big picture in mind and base all your actions in harmony with it.

·         Be open and receptive to ideas.

·         Ask relevant, tough questions.

End note.

Most members in a team will fall into the participant category with a fair sprinkling of observers and contributors. Both detractors and leaders will be a few. Dysfunctional teams will tilt towards detractors and high-performing teams towards contributors and leaders.

Perception

Perception.

Our actions are influenced by how we perceive ourselves and  how we perceive our social and physical environment. We each perceive the world around us in different ways and we need to understand why. It is our perception of reality which shapes and directs our behavior.

Perception is a dynamic, psychological process. It is responsible for attending to, organizing and interpreting sensory data. We attach meanings, interpretations, values, and aims to our actions.

We process and interpret the incoming sense impressions picked up from the world around us. We do it:

·         In the light of our past experiences,

·         in terms of our current interests and needs,

·         in terms of our knowledge, expectations, beliefs, and motives.

The following diagram  depicts perceptual process.

 We constantly pick up signals from the world around us, either purposely or by pressure from others. We normally do not pay attention to all the signals. It is almost impossible for anyone to select hundred percent of the incoming signals. Most of the time, we select a particular data from the signals and reject others. Interestingly, it happens almost without our knowledge.   

Certain signals have ability to grab our attention:

·         large rather than small

·         bright rather than dull

·         loud rather than quiet

·         strong rather than weak

·         unfamiliar rather than familiar

·         moving rather than stationary

Once we pay the attention to the signal, we process them depending on many factors. The factors include our own:

·         Experience  

·         Personality

·         Motivation

We also have an ability to complete ambiguous information by our own knowledge and past experience.  Our perceptions are mere impressions and need not be true. Understanding of our own perceptual world is difficult because there are many influences of which we are unaware.

Perceptual sets and assumptions. The concept of perceptual set or perceptual expectation applies to the ways in which we see other people, events, and objects. There are two related and prominent features of the process of people perception: the halo effect and stereotyping.

Halo effect is a judgment based on a single striking characteristic, such as an aspect of dress, speech, posture, or nationality.

Stereotype is a category or personality type to which we allocate people on the basis of their membership of some known group.

Any aspect of our appearance is a form of non-verbal communication. These factors combined with our behavior, sends signals that others decode in the light of their experience. Examples are: age is related to reliability, tall and handsome means self-confident and knowledgeable, short and overweight persons will deter others, etc.

Perceptual errors and how to avoid them. The main sources of errors in perception include:

·         Not collecting enough information about other people.

·         Basing our judgments on information that is irrelevant or insignificant.

·         Seeing what we expect to see an what we want to see, and not investigating further.

·         Allowing early information about someone to influence our judgment, despite later and contradictory information.

·         Allowing our own characteristics to influence our judgments of others.

·         Accepting stereotypes uncritically.

·         Attempting to decode non-verbal behavior out with the context in which it appears.

Use the following remedies to minimize your perceptual errors:

·         Take more time and avoid instant or snap judgment about others.

·         Collect and consciously use more information about others.

·         Develop self-awareness and an understanding of how our personal biases and preferences affect our perceptions and judgment of other people.

·         Check our attributions – the assumptions we make about causes of behavior, particularly the links we make between aspects of personality and appearance on one hand and behaviour on the other.

Important note.

Your employability gets affected by the perception of the people who interview you. The following are the major perceptions which resulted in denial of employment.

·         Poor personal appearance

·         Nervous, lack of confidence

·         Making excuses

·         Over aggressiveness

·         Late arrival for the interview

·         Vague response to questions

Happy Life In Flats

Happy life in flats

It is a dream for everyone to have his/her own house. Gone are those days where people used to own and live in independent houses. Today, it is impossible for most of the population to buy independent houses in towns or cities. The option available is only flats.

We can live happily in flats provided we take required precautions and ensure certain things. Let us see all of them in this post.

Before executing agreement for sale.

·         Don’t compromise on the location of the flat. Only if you are thoroughly satisfied with the location, then proceed further.

·         Get the parent documents of the land on which the flats are being constructed, from the builder and study it thoroughly. Ensure that there is no encumbrance.

·         Confirm the ownership of the land.

·         Confirm the land is NA (non-agricultural) and ask for the relevant order issued by the collector.

·         Verify the approval of the township planning authority.

·         Check the authorization from the corporation to commence the construction.

·         Visit the location and satisfy yourself. Study the approach road and the constructions in the same locality.

·         Study the approved plans and find out the area of the flat – builders talk of different areas like carpet area, built-up area, saleable area, and so on. Satisfy yourself with the area you wanted to work up on.

·         Study the amenities being promised. Clarify all your doubts.

·         If the builder shows a sample flat confirm from him that your flat will be the exact replica of the same. Chances are that you may not get what are all there in the sample flat.

·         Find out from the builder that whether he will provide solar energy for the common loads.

·         Insist for ELCB (earth leakage circuit breaker) in the electrical wiring.

·         Find out the warranty for items like bathroom fittings.

·         Avoid any ambiguity in financial matters. Get everything clarified by the builder:

Ø  Cost of the flat and the basis for the same

Ø  Statutory liabilities like stamp duty, registration charges, GST, etc

Ø  Electricity connection charges

Ø  Lawyer fees

Ø  Maintenance charges – type and duration

Ø  Payment terms

Ø  Discounts, if any

·         Remember that if the flat value crosses a threshold limit, the responsibility of deduction of the tax (TDS) will be yours. You will have to deduct the same and pay it to the tax authorities. You can find out the threshold limit from the builder itself. It is not that you will pay the TDS after making the final payment to the builder. For every payment you make, you have to deduct the tax and deposit it with tax authority.

·         Get the commitment from the builder for the timely delivery of the flat.

·         Compare the prices of flats in the same locality and ensure that you get a fair deal from your builder.

·         When you are satisfied in all the above points, you can go in for agreement for sale.

After executing agreement for sale.

·         If you are planning for house loan, approach the appropriate financial institution, with the copy of agreement for sale. They will take their own time, 20 days to 45, to approve your loan proposal. Co-ordinate with them to help their charted engineer who will be visiting your site for valuation purposes.

·         Follow up on a regular basis, with the financial institution,  for the loan sanctioning.

·         Visit your site as frequently as possible and observe the progress. Compare it with the scheduled progress. (Try to get a schedule chart from the builder).

·         Once your loan gets sanctioned and when you get the demand note from the builder for payment, contact the financial institution and request for the payment. The payment will be directly made to the builder. Remember the TDS part, which is mentioned earlier, and take appropriate action to fulfil the requirement.    

Possession.

·         Once your flat is ready for possession, the builder will send the final demand for payment with the intimation of possession.

·         Visit the flat and inspect thoroughly. Confirm that everything is completed as per the specification agreed up on. Once you are satisfied, make the final payment and get the allotment letter and possession letter from the builder.

·         Demand a copy of completion certificate issued by the municipal corporation and a copy of the NOC from fire department.

·         Check the outsides of your flat and look for visible hazards like bare electric overhead lines, power transformers, etc. if you find any, discuss with the builder and ask him to mitigate the hazards by appropriate remedial actions.

·         Install a grill door for the main entrance, if not provided by the builder.

·         You can take possession when you are fully satisfied.

·         Get the contact numbers of all essential services like plumber, carpenter, maintenance people, builder’s representative, and the lift provider.

After moving in.

·         Ensure that the intercom remains always in working condition.

·         Get acquainted with your neighbours as early as possible.

·         If you are looking for a servant maid check her credentials – get her aadhar card and keep a copy of it for your reference. It is always better to get a maid through a known source.

·         Keep the sliding window doors properly locked.

·         Whenever strangers appear on your doorstep, ask for the purpose and their ID proof. Even if you have small doubt, ask them to come with the security person of your flat/building.

Refer my earlier posts on home safety for other relevant points.

Your happy living in your flat is assured once you fulfill all these requirements.

Wish you a happy living!