Guest Post: Aravind Bharadwaj

Aravind is one of Chris Summer 2010 Professional Speaking students, and writes here about oral communication.

Have you ever played this party game? About 5-6 people sit in a circle and a message is passed around by whispering to the person sitting next to you. The original message turns to gibberish by the time it goes around once. Oral communication arguably has the largest proportion of information loss among all means of communication. Several statistics have shown that less than 7% of what is said orally is remembered. However, in a world inundated by bits strewn all over the place, oral communication still holds its ground as a very personal mode of communication. Oral and face-to-face communication is predominant in instances which tickle the human emotion.

I remember the day when I got my first job. It was the 4th round of interviews and I was speaking with a senior MD of the firm. Since the previous rounds were not nearly smooth sailing, I had to convince the interviewer that I was the best fit for the position. I believe it was the harmony of oral communication and body language that helped me express my candidature and land the job. The power of oral communication as a tool for persuasion is immense. From a parent having ‘the talk’ with her teenager to great leaders sparking revolutions, oral communication can influence people like no other form of communication.

The personal touch of oral communication is clearly evident when it comes to difficult conversations. In the movie ‘Up in the Air,’ George Clooney’s character (Bingham) works for a firm that fires people. Bingham and several other consultants are successful solely on their abilities to communicate and convince laid off employees about the ‘bright future’ ahead of them. A new technology that promises to lay off people from a remote location fails miserably resulting in the return of the good old technique. The personal touch of oral communication is key in holding difficult conversations such as laying off an employee or breaking up with your lover.

Oral communication provides us with subtle hints to determine the personality type of the speaker. As Professor Labash mentioned, the tone, choice of words and sentence structure can help us determine if the speaker is a sensor, an intuitor, a thinker or a feeler. Recognizing the personality of the speaker will let us alter our communication style quickly and align it with theirs. While other modes of communication will let us gauge the personalities over time, oral communication gives us a heads up from the very first sentence.

While oral communication has its disadvantages, I believe it is irreplaceable by another form when it comes to connecting at a personal level. There may be instances of couples breaking up over a text message. But the day when it becomes a norm is still far away.