Real-World Oral Communication

Following are some thoughts by the May 2010 batch of students at CMU about Real-World Oral Communication:

“Awrabestfaewetanwindygesgav” any guesses on what that means? Give up? That means “All the best from wet and windy Glasgow”, in Glaswegian English; that’s just a glimpse of how one language can vary across the globe. In this blog, I am going to cover few positive and negative aspects of oral communication.

Since the inception of mankind known, human beings have an innate need to communicate with each other. We have come a long way from prehistoric men communicating using pitcutres, sounds or gestures to now having more than 1000s of languages. Oral communication perhaps is one of the most effective and common type of communication channel we use in our day to day life. Few Advantages that oral communication possesses over others are that it is faster; direct; can have more impact; one can seek clarification almost instantly by recognizing the tone of the speaker.

Persuasion is one of the biggest advantages of oral communication. The oldest and still the most common persuasion technique used is the word of mouth publicity. If I read a book or watch a movie which I really liked, I would go and inform twenty other people about it and they would believe me because they trust my taste. Another area where it proves to be extremely efficient is seeking solution to problems faced in daily life. Let’s say I am having trouble solving my Java assignment and I am at my wits end, in these cases it is much easier and more effective for me to go to the professor and ask for explanation rather than trying to read books and forums looking for solution.

Although oral communication can be extremely effective, I reckon 50-60% of its effectiveness comes from the body language of people. Thus, considering same example I took earlier; now instead of going to my professor for the tricky Java assignment, I decide to phone him instead. Even though it is still oral communication, it loses its effectiveness and charm at some level as I would face immense difficulty in explaining him the problem accurately. Another barrier in oral communication is the language not being common between the two parties or even accent variations in spite of same language being used. If two people don’t know the same language then it’s as good as two one year olds having a conversation. Similarly with accents, this comes from a personal experience, as I faintly recall my first week in Glasgow office, I sat through the first meeting thinking to myself “Hmmm..So I have learnt English for 15 years but I just can’t understand a word they are saying”. So, basically you have to use right approach at right places.

In conclusion, oral communication has its advantages and disadvantages. It can vary from being the most apt way to convey information or the most difficult approach to get one’s idea across.

- Swati Singh

There are always things in life we believe that comes easy but in reality is just the opposite. It is no different when it comes to the world of communication as well. How many times would you have felt that you could have done a better job explaining something to your friend, or how many times you would have wished to have been more articulate in those tensed board room meetings or in the job interviews? As it turns out to be, the oral communication happening in the real world is far more complicated and requires more than “subtle” attention if one needs to be successful.

Let us first try to understand what makes oral communication so important. According to some studies, listening constitutes only 7% of the information received by a person – hmm, well what does that mean to me? It means that I have got a very slim shot of orally conveying my thoughts to other persons effectively. As the saying goes, “you need to tell what the listener wants to hear”. In the corporate world too, studies have shown that communication is the one of the biggest problem faced by the management. In my little bag of experiences, I too have come across serious implications of improper on ineffective conversations – from project managers losing their posts to friends going apart.

So, for what all do we use oral communication. The most common answer to this question is “share information/knowledge”. A deeper introspection will show that we use oral communication not just to share but also to inform, persuade and last but not the least – to cause action. In an official set up, I believe that any conversation should end with a plan of action, if the conversation is to be of any help.

Let us now ponder over how to indulge in an effective oral communication. The golden rule is “Every single human being is different, and so is their approach to communication”. The key factor to have a great conversation is to strike a chord with the listener by judging the nature of the listener. There are many elements that we will have to consider while judging a listener – it could range from cultural background to individual preferences. Once you find a common ground with the listener, then the conversation is going to be as easy as pie and bang on target!

- Sarat Prasad

Real-world oral communication is essential for success in any environment. Oral communication has some advantages and disadvantages compared to non-oral – e.g. written – communication. One of the great advantages, if used appropriately, is non-verbal communication. As pointed out in class, 55% of the information we trust is information we receive visually, meaning that how a person’s body language and especially a person’s countenance while speaking plays the most important role to ensure that other’s trust what they are told. The next highest way people trust communicated information, at 38%, is vocally, which includes voice intonation, inflection, pitch, pronunciation, volume and tone. Therefore, the means that people least use to trust the information we are communicating is verbally, meaning the actual content of what it is we are saying. This is probably why, to little surprise, that since the advent of mass communication, presidential candidates are gleaned from small pools of potential candidates and are groomed extensively and exhaustively for each pubic presentation they make.

Because the visual and verbal elements of oral communication are so impactful the ability to master these two elements are crucial to be successful. I’ve had the exciting privilege of hiring individuals and the miserable task of letting individuals know their employment will be terminated. In the first case, the hiring, I really wanted to inform them via oral communication as I was excited to hear their reaction and they could tell from me that I was excited to offer them employment and have them be included in our team. When letting a person go, I would have preferred to write a quick ‘sorry we had to let you go’ message on light pink paper, but that wasn’t an option. Knowing the components of oral communication I focused on ensuring that visually and vocally they could see in me that it was a difficult decision, that it is a painful process, and finally, there is a lot of grieving, fear and hurt for the soon-to-be former employee. I was careful to be an active listener, to be comfortable with the uncomfortibleness of quiet and to let them vent and not take anything personally and to visually and vocally accept what the person had to say. Most people I had to let go I have kept in touch with to some degree and still have a good relationship with them to this day.

When it comes to having important oral communication practice is critical. The best practice for oral communication is by role-playing. Feedback is essential since practice doesn’t make perfect unless there is improvement, and improvement will come by incorporating effective feedback and practicing again and again. One obstacle is that we don’t like to practice this oral communication. You never see many people excited about volunteering to role-play. Reviewing audio and video of the role-play can be helpful as it will give an unbiased reflection of how you visually and vocally performed.

- Troy Stevens

Infant: “Mommyyy….. Mommyyyyy…!!!!!”

Oral Communication is the first form of communication that a child begins to learn after entering the world. Even infants use their own style of oral communication language to express themselves. Oral communication forms a vital part of our lives and is used for various purposes such as: information dissemination, persuasion, consultation, guidance, business, preaching, expression, impression, social interaction etc.

One of the mobile company advertisements says: “A lot can be done over a phone call” emphasizing on how important it is to talk and communicate with others in today’s global civilization. Oral Communication or speaking is a specialized field of art in itself that has become an important part of our lives in the fast growing world of business and economics. At the end of the day, the one who can sell the product in the market is the winner. So it becomes even more important for all to be efficient, clear, precise and impressive while doing a real world communication.

Persuasion is one such tool that is most often used in all fields, industries and markets. The famous leaders of today and the past had this ability of persuasion and strong oral communication skills that helped them to bring revolutions from time to time. Not only the leaders but also common men like you and I need to have the skills of oral communication to succeed in our circumference of influence. For example: in my previous job where I worked as a consultant, there were many occasions where I knew I was right and the current adopted methodology was wrong; however it took great skills and efforts trying to persuade and convince the team of the way I wanted them to go. The same is the case in all spheres of life, where one needs to speak up effectively and convincingly to make oneself heard.

Things are not as simple as they seem…. Conversations are very difficult at times. Imagine, you have only a few seconds to convince the passing by customer to buy your product-What is the most effective statement that I should make that will catch the attention of customer so as to convince him to buy my product? So, one has to be pretty catchy and persuasive and appear as genuine as possible. In addition to that, conversations are important and essential not only in business but also in one’s personal life. Statistics mention that most of personal relations do not work well due to a communication gap.

Irrespective of one’s background, work area, environment and language; oral communication is the backbone of communication. A deal can make or break one’s business!!!

- Gurnimrat Kaur

Lee Iacocca- former chairman Chrysler Corporation, who is known as one of the most famous and successful business people in the world turned number three automaker- Chrysler from a sluggish moneymaker into a highly profitable business in 1979. The success story of Chrysler in a short span of time shot him to fame and eventually raised him to status of folk- hero by mid 1980s. Talk of Iacocca- for- president became increasingly widespread, and a 1985 poll of 1988 presidential preferences showed that the cocky industrialist trailed Vice President George Bush (1924- ) by only three percentage points (41 to 38 points)*.

What made him such a successful person and to rise as a public figure? Iacocca himself answers this question in the quote “Talk to people in their own language. If you do it well, they’ll say, ‘God, he said exactly what I was thinking.’ And when they begin to respect you, they’ll follow you to the death”. This is the power of oral communication.

Communication is the building block for great success. Behind every success story there might be just one brilliant idea but a thousand hands to execute it and it could only happen with effective communication across all the levels. The success story of Bell Labs is a noteworthy example of this. In today’s dynamic world 80% of businesses fail due to lack of communication across the hierarchy of organization. An organization or a system is like a machine and for it to work well each of the components has to work well, not only individually but as a unit. The varied people in an organization ranging from technical savvy to managerial tycoon may have totally different background and domains and yet they have to serve a common purpose. This purpose and the process involved should be well communicated to all and it is possible only if it is simplified for each and every individual to understand. Action is the sole motive of good communication. Anthony Robbins, a famous self author and motivational speaker, says “To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.”

I have some of my own experiences, which reinforce my belief in the importance of being a good communicator and the power of effective communication. I have worked in a team and have got to see instances where “communication” or “lack of communication” among the team members and different interacting teams has done “wonders” or “blunders” respectively. During my job tenure in IBM as a Software Tester I experienced that despite the ceaseless efforts of testing team and development team the project underway was not making much progress and we had to do repetitive tasks. The negatives of poor communication piled up over the time as generally both the teams had this tendency of being biased for their respective work and eventually the application has to be closed abruptly due to heavy losses in terms of time and money. While working for United Lex, a startup firm, I got to work on a project, which was similar to the project at IBM in terms of the efforts it demanded. But this project progressed rapidly and was working brilliantly without any errors and it happened over a small span of time without any hassles. A closer look at the two cases reveals that in the former case even though both the Testing and Development teams had skilled personnel they lacked coordinated effort. They hardly had any interaction, wherein the job necessarily needed a healthy and frequent sharing of information and improvements made by each of the teams. On the other hand at United Lex the testing and development team worked hand in hand with almost daily updates of each others’ activity. This frequent, open and unbiased interaction resulted into a much better application, which brought praises from the client and thus further boosting the confidence of the teams.

After understanding the importance of oral communication the next important thing that comes is how we define an effective communication and what the qualities of a good communicator are. Any conversation has two parties involved- speaker and listener. All of the famous leaders in the world have been and are great speakers and listeners. The great speakers of all times used no fancy speeches, it’s the simplicity and veracity of their words that made them sound coherent and impressive. The biggest of the ideas are said very simply like Mahatma Gandhi said “Be the change you want to see in the world”. Though speakers can move masses but it’s the listening that connects people and can have everlasting impression. Because good communication is not about conveying one’s point of view it is rather more about listening to the people and understanding their needs and eventually addressing the issues effectively. It is listening that creates everlasting bond between the speaker and the audience and thus producing great leaders out of impressive speakers on whom people can have blind trust.

For effective sharing and greater understanding it is very important to have as much keenness in listening as is for speaking. A person who is good at listening acquires a lot of knowledge and understanding over the time and is more successful than people who just believe in their own views rather than listening to others. For one to be a good listener it is important to show interest while listening and should be emotionally neutral. Any tendency to evaluate the speaker during conversation is impediment for good communication. Listening patiently till the end and then summarizing and evaluating the content with evidences and eventually giving feedback is a nice way to have some healthy conversation and could result in ideas mutually beneficial to all.

Summing it all, one should consistently strive for building good communication skills. In Anne Morrow Lindbergh words “Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.”

As the famous saying goes “First impression is the last impression” so keep marching and keep communicating to make a mark on sand of time in this life.

- IRA TIWARI

I don't know when my girlfriend started to complain that I did not listen to her. She thought she was speaking to a stone and for many times I made no response to her words at all. Sometimes I realized the problem too. It seems like after finishing listening to her story, I immediately started to talk about my story without responding to hers. This made her very upset and we have quarreled about this for many times.

I tried to figure out what is the matter with us. People intend to blame others first and so did I. At the beginning, I had such ideas that most of the problem was caused by her. For one thing, she talks with so much detail that bored me. I prefer to listening to something in fast pace. For the other, most of the topics are what happens to her and she seldom talks about me in initiative.

Then I started to think in her position after there seemed to be no improvement between us. Maybe I should not neglect her story and try to give some feedback. Maybe I should stop thinking other things during talking. Maybe I should stop arguing her opinion all the times. I need to become much more active in talking. One of the reasons that frustrate me is that she talks so much. It, in fact, is due to that I am a poor talker and always plays a passive role in conversation.

By taking the class of Professional Speaking, I understand more about what has happened to us. People often fail to listen to others attentively. We always try to pick holes in the speech of others. And usually people are more willing to talk about themselves.

Also in the class I have learned ways to be a good listener. The first one is to be focused. We need to follow the speaker as I were walking in his shoes. The second one is that we should avoid judgment. Listen to the other person rather than think about counter arguments. The third one is that we need to show our interest to the conversation. We may ask question to clarify but avoid interruptions unless necessary. When we practice this kind of listening, the other person will feel great about themselves and want to continue talking with us.

I guess finally I have figured out how to solve the problem between my girlfriend and me.

- Sheng Zhao