Guest Post: Sunny Huang

Sunny is a student in Chris' Summer 2010 Professional Speaking class. Here she writes about oral communication.

As oral communication constructs most of our interactions with people around us, it seems quite easy to neglect the hidden patterns or rules behind it. However, after studying and reviewing the critical disciplines of oral communication, people would benefit from improved communication in their daily life.

First let’s try to define “communication.” What does it mean and why do people communicate? The word’s origin, “communis,” comes from Latin and means “to make common.” People communicate to transfer information from one to another, either to express opinions, share ideas, argue, or simply develop relationships. Among the types of communication, speaking, either face to face, on the telephone or via cyberspace, is certainly the most common and direct way we select when we try to convey information. By closely inspecting oral communication, we may be able to find the patterns behind it and some rules we could apply to achieve better communication.

To transfer information from one to another, there must be a sender and a receiver. In oral communication, these two parties are the speaker and the listener. This pattern looks simple enough. However, upon close inspection, we discover how many important factors that influence effective communication are related to the behaviors of the two sides.Communication can either be carried forward as a pleasant experience with intended results, or be ruined as a waste of time with a bunch of upset people. It’s all decided by the attitudes, styles, and actions of the two parties in communication: speaker and listener.

During my previous work in the software R&D of a telecom company, we held meetings and discussions almost every day in the development project. Since a development team contains all kinds of different people, many difficult conversations were caused by different communication styles. Some people insisted on strictly-followed process and concrete details. Whimsical members sought alternative solutions to a specific technical issues or negotiated for changes in a project plan or way of working. Also, some people acted like glue, caring about how the others were feeling and always trying to alleviate tense atmospheres. When some issue of dispute would pop up, e.g., shall we abandon a specific planned solution and replace it with a new one, which might be optimal but would bring changes and extra cost to the whole project? People just couldn’t reach an agreement. But it’s not because anyone wanted to destroy the project. On the contrary, people were so indulged in their own opinions, which they believed to be the best, and spoke out in their upheld styles. It made people hardly care about how the others think and react. So although a group of people appeared to be communicating with each other, actually there were just several separate solo speeches going on.

Thus we can see the importance of being a good speaker as well as a good listener in parallel. While expressing in an effective, persuasive style, adapted to how the audiences react, one should also actively pause and listen to others' opinions. It’s similar on occasions when we’re supposed to be listening. Give some feedback or raise questions to the speaker, so that the interaction will positively proceed. Keep in mind that with the absence of either speaker or listener, there wouldn’t be communication. Such smooth, active role-plays between speaker and listener will change our oral communication not only in its style, but also in the outcomes.