Communication as I understand it, is about relaying our message to other people. Getting our message across. It is also about receiving information that others send to us thus making it a two-way street. When both come hand in hand, we have good and effective communication.
Communication can be verbal, non-verbal or in written form. Communication comes so naturally to us that we often forget to appreciate it. We forget how a simple breakdown in communication can lead to damaging consequences. For example, during my stint in the Police Force, I was in the middle of a case involving 2 men brawling and trying to rip each other apart. The reason? The victim kept staring at the aggressor and was displaying “threatening” body language that the aggressor took offence to. This is an instance of non-verbal communication gone wrong I suppose.
Communication is an integral aspect of our lives as it helps build relationships. If we do not communicate, there is no way we can build healthy relationships with our family, peers, teachers and friends. I am sure before this module, most of us didn’t know our fellow group mates (be it CG1102, CG1108 or CG1413). Now that we have met them, the only way to slowly bond and build a good relationship is through communication.
Another reason why communication is important because it helps us in decision-making especially when we are working in teams. If a disagreement emerges regarding an issue and a decision has to be made, we have to deliberate (i.e. communicate) within our team and reach that decision.
As I mentioned earlier, I believe that to communicate effectively, we must not only pay attention to the message we have for people but also pay equal amount of attention to the message people have for us. This effective communication is vital in a team. A team consists of members who all have a common goal. Working together and achieving that goal I believe is what we call teamwork. Teamwork is important in many settings these days. In the corporate world, the military and even in school. With effective teamwork, we can achieve many great things that an individual alone will struggle to.
I feel we should regard teamwork quite seriously because as engineers to-be, more often than not we will be working in teams to complete projects and assignments in the workforce. Every individual has his/her strengths and weaknesses and by working individually , the end-product might not be as impressive as the one done by a team. In a team, we have people of different strengths and weaknesses and when these people come together, they complement each other resulting in a high quality end-product.
For teamwork to be effective, we must first have a good leader. A leader who makes tough decisions, motivates and inspires people and basically keeping the members focused on the task. The members also have an important role. They must know their duties well, be sensitive towards each other, trust each other and most importantly have each others’ back. A team with these attributes has a great chance of achieving great things.
To sum it up, communication and teamwork is going to be vital in most parts of our lives. It is going to be put to the test in the upcoming weeks for us CEG students!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Communication and Teamwork: Why are they important for me?
Posted by Ganesh at 3:12 AM
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7 comments:
Nicely done! I think your understanding of communication far exceeds any of our batch's students, especially the part on decision making. True, good communication skills leads to debates(not quarrels) in order to come up with a good decision!
Wow, your example of miscommunication shows how serious the effects can get!
Working in a team might produce sub-standard work too. No matter how good their communication skills are, if the whole team is un-motivated, little can be done to save their product.
Btw, sorry for the deleted comment above, I had some problem with the browser. Also, your blog links are incorrect.
Simple gestures (Non-verbal) are often the most obvious way of expressing our thoughts and feeling. Sometimes, we cannot control it and it becomes a way of habit. About 70% of communications consist of non-verbal actions. Thus, with self-awareness of our actions, many misunderstandings can be avoided. :)
Hey Ganesh,
Your post truly reflects your understanding of teamwork and effective communication. You have really dealt with most of the important topics in this regard .The example showing non verbal miscommunication is good. Good leadership is very necessary for the proper working of the team. Teamwork and effective communication are skills we would need forever to be successful in life whether it is in our modules in university or at workplace with our colleagues. Your post is a bit long. As conciseness forms a part of the 7C s for writing you could try to make it more concise. At last, very nicely written...Good job!! It was a pleasure reading your post.
:)
Hi Ganesh,
I find your post very constructive about how communication and teamwork are important in working as a team. However, I have yet to see how they are important to "most parts of our lives", as stated in your conclusion. Would you like to explain more to me about this? Nevertheless, you have done a good job for the rest :).
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