A powerful tool of human kind

InnerBliss · Jan 21, 2012

Anthropologists had revealed once in their research that humans and chimps share 96% of the same genetic material! The question that amazes is that 'what is that something that has led human far more ahead than Chimps?'. What do you think could be that?

I think, it is our great communication skills. Isn't it the greatest and powerful tool or weapon that rules the planet! We can communicate verbally and/or nonverbally! We can communicate with the help of different means and medias! We can communicate directly or indirectly! We can convey message in different ways using different type of means of communication. We convey the message everytime whether we speak or we don't, whether we smile or don't smile, whether we look into the eyes of the person or we don't look. We convey our feelings to others everytime! 'Others' include people from all age groups including small babies!!
Silence does also speak most of the times! It may say whether you are interested or not interested in the things going on in the room, it may always convey a message, sometimes, out of our assumptions. Most of the times, as per others selected perception. Indirectly, we may convey different messages to the person depending on the person's interpretive skills. We leave an open ground of assumptions to other people!

If given a chance, if I am not wrong, people would interpret more negative outcome of your unspoken words than the positive one. The reason maybe that if given a chance to our mind, I think, we find drawing negative assumption easier than taking effort to assume something positive. Some people might be an exception to this.

Should I say that the wisdom is to communicate clearly, directly without letting people around you to assume on what you think. Is it wise to assume that people would understand us themselves? Should I say that it was different scenario when we were a young child and our mothers used to assume various things for us. She used to assume if we are hungry, sad, angry or are experiencing any other feeling. She used to find the solution for us and make us happy. She used to do this as we didn’t learn communicating our feelings verbally. But when we grow up and master the verbal efficiency, does not it become our responsibility to convey our thoughts, feelings and intentions to others in the way that is meaningful, clear and specific? We do not want to leave the ground of assumptions. We don’t want to confuse people with what we speak. Nor do we want to create ambiguity in our conversation. We want people to find meaning in what we speak so we would prefer to speak what we really mean. We of course do not like to speak what would not yield any meaning. Maybe, sometimes we want to carry the childhood comfort throughout the life and want people to assume our feelings and understand our needs by reading our faces or seeing us in some situations!! Maybe, sometimes, we want others to solve our issues for us assuming our feeling correctly and solving them exactly in the way that we want!! Practically, it does not work everytime. There lie the chances of misinterpretation. People might think or assume according to their perspective or with the thought that matches their objective. Explaining what we mean makes the thing easier. Speaking our needs, feelings and wants is the most important task that parents can teach to their kids in their initial years. Verbalising the feelings make many of our tasks easier. Verbalising our feelings prevent frustration of not being understood. Being able to explain others how we want our needs to be accomplished is the great skill that make us feel confident.

World's majority of the problems could be resolved by mastering communication skills and problem solving skills. However, there are some barriers to communication skills and those should not be ignored. The purpose of communication is to convey our message to the other person that would result into some positive action. Positive action that we really desire to achieve. So speak out!!

To summarise, Never leave space for assumptions. We all have common goals. We all want to be loved, cared, valued and understood. Speak out, Is that something what the person means? Make sure that what you have interpreted from the speaker is also correct. Be clear, Be specific. Cultivate healthy communication, healthy relationship. Enjoy mastering the powerful human tool/weapon!!

(With this blog, let me confess that I am too a learner and not a proficient in communication skills.)

Viswamitra · Jan 21, 2012

What a great blog. I have learned at a very young age that communication is not to impress but to express clearly. But now I am convinced that we can do a lot more with it after seeing what all writer Sridhar does with his communication skills.

We can communicate without a word being spoken. The perfect example is in Ramayana when Rama meets Sita for the first time. Our actions can also speak louder sometimes. We can speak words and make others listen but if we need people to believe us, we need to show it in our action.

I used to be the Vice President of Mergers & Acquisitions in a public company and I used to travel worldwide meeting number of companies that we pursued to buy. When I sit in the meetings, more than what they tell in their Power Point presentation, I always used to focus on what they were not telling us. It was also very interesting to observe that culture was so different in each country.

I have a friend of mine who migrated from Italy at the age of 12 to the United States. He did not know a word of English when he migrated. When he went to school, he did not know how to speak to the fellow students. He slowly learned to observe the body language of each student. He became an expert in watching the body language. Even now, even though he has become a good communicator in English, still he could read people by understanding their body language.

Lastly communication has created history in the world through revolutions. Communication also resulted in ruining the nations. As you rightly said, the communication should be used to develop positive energy. Who can forget, "Ask not what country has done for you; ask what you have done for the country" speech given by John F. Kennedy. After 47 years, still, it is fresh in everyone's memory the speech "I have a dream" given by Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. No one can forget Mahatma Gandhi's famous quote, "Be the change you wish to see in this world".

Viswa

InnerBliss · Jan 21, 2012

Thank you Viswamitraji for your precious comment. Wowww... as usual....I get so much to learn from your thoughts. I would like to read them again and again and contemplate on what you said. Thank you so much for always being there providing your invaluable feedback and directing my thinking cycle in right direction.