BASICS OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS

BASICS OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Communication is a vital tool for perceiving, understanding and interpreting messages , people, their emotions and personalities. The 'context' of communication reveals the ideology of the communicator. Various perceptions are made about the communicator from his/her communication. There are two important modes in which communication is usually done, " Formal & Informal". Yet another important mode is "The Business Communication",it is though a part of formal mode of communication has its own importance in the professional / business world.

In order to acquire communication skills-Formal or Informal * we need to initially understand what exactly "Communication" is ? How can we define "Communication?".

The term Communication has been derived from the Latin word  The word communication comes from the Latin word "communis" which means common. The act of making common or known is carried out through ideas, thoughts,words, writing or even by gestures, 

General definition of Communication:  Communication involves the transfer or rather exchange of ideas, information , understanding, feelings emotions etc between two or more individuals unambiguously. The effectiveness of communication depends on various factors. such as the type of language used during writing or speaking, the aesthetics of speech  especially in verbal form etc. Let's check the importance of "Communication".

           OR

Communication can be defined as 'who' says 'what'and 'why' to whom through which channel and with 'what' effect.

IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION:  In a professional periphery communication is important and affects the following:

1. Organisational Productivity.

2. Effectiveness.

3. Efficiency.

4. Impression.

5. Creativity.

6. Maintaining healthy professional relationships.

Thus communication in any organisation is very important for the achievements of its objectives.

The basis of communication lies in its "A;, B, C" factors- ABCs of communication:

A- Attractiveness of communication.

B- Brevity of Communication.

C- Clarity of communication.

The message via communication should attract the receiver, Brevity- Need to use correct words /deeds in the message, and C-Clarity of the message means avoiding any ambiguity in the message.

What is the Standard "Communication Process"?

        ↶also called as Encoder                                     ↷ also called as Decoder

SENDER  → MESSAGE→ MEDIUM→ RECEIVER →↓

     ↟

     ↑  ←    ←      FEEDBACK← ← ← ←←←←←←← ↡

The Context of Communication:

The context of communication declares the correct meaning & simplified meaning of and understanding of the messge to the 'receiver'. The simplicity of the message depends on the simplicity of the language and used in it.

Let us know one by one the actual ingredients involved in the process of communication.

1. Sender or Encoder: The sender is an individual who drafts, designs or conveys the message through the process of communication via a reliable medium to the receiver-also called as the decoder.and awaits for the feedback.. 

OR 

The person from whom the message originates that is, one who initiates the proces of communication is called the 'Sender'. 

2. Message:  Whatever content is being communicated is called as the message

3. The person for whom the message is meant and is delivered to is called as the 'Receiver' OR Decoder.

4. Communication cannot take place in Vacuum. It has to have a medium or a channel.

After receiving the message, the receiver will react or respond to the sender when provision for that exists. This part of communication is called the "FEEDBACK'.

AUDIENCE: Audience are the people who participate as listeners/readers to to the communicator. We can classify audience as "Active"&" Passive" audience.

Active audience play a role actively in the communication process, whereas the Passive audience are those who are not directly involved in communication process. But may get involved into the communication process as and when needed for or requested for.

.BARRIERS IN COMMUNICATION: Communication ceases, or is discontinued or  possesses deformity. The following factors are important to determine barriers in Communication:

1. Incorrect personality traits.

2. Incorrect or Inexpressive language,

3. Inappropriate Non-verbal communication.

4. Mistrust of Source.

5. Exaggeration in communicating the message.

6. Distortion in message.

7. Uniqueness in behaviour.

8. Ego.

9. Badly expressed message.

10. Non-clarified assumptions.

11.Abstractions.

12. Absentmindedness.

13.Time Pressure. 

14. Conflicts.

15. Stress.

In the next part we will contribute and study each of the points as in barriers of communication.

Dear Readers,

Thanks a lot to have given a splendid response for my previous articles, and also to have spared your time to go through this article. Your feedback is valuable to us.

Regards,

Girlish. Kulkarni

CEO- Real Minds.Com

Virtual Office; realminds.com@gmail.com / realminds@hotmail.com.

Cell- +91-9890331683.

The Design Thinking.

THE DESIGN THINKING 

Design thinking has an ability to revolutionise the work that you are into.  As correctly defined in the Wikipedia,  Design Thinking is a methodology used by designers to solve complex problems, and find desirable solutions for clients. A design mindset is not problem-focused, it's solution focused and action oriented towards creating a preferred future.

Design Thinking practices are followed practically all the sectors of Industries. Complex problems are being solved by adopting various skills by group of people related to the problem. Let us consider a  following practical example

In a scenario where a person, any person really, lets say a person, walks with full hands to his vehicle. As his hands are full he is unable to easily open the hatch door. What to do? Perhaps, if the car is already unlocked, he could hold his precious cargo, tempt gravity, with a swipe of his foot under a sensor the door could then open. This is a spectacularly simple idea that for a number of people could be helpful. And no interface required! ..Golden Krishna ..Courtesy.

What could be the basic aspects of "Design Thinking"?

The Design Thinker should consider four basic aspects. namely.

CURIOSITY....

1. The design thinker should be CURIOUS .It is all very important that his/her curiosity should be deep enough to not only reason out things but,to know and understand about small things that the end user needs. It is not only that the innovation that matters, but it is important to understand even the smallest thing that the client/ user needs. For instance if a Television is being manufactured with all the current facilities, the consumer may not prefer because he may want to have something more in his Television, for example he may need a TV phone in it, so that he can stand in front of the TV screen touch it, Dial the number and have a Video call with may be recording facility. Thus the design thinker needs to focus on the solution now that his consumer needs. No doubt Curiosity may lead to innovation in this case if successful observations, experiments, surveys etc are made.

ATTITUDE 

2. Every design thinker must have a genuine attitude.to reach to the end conclusion and acquire an appropriate solution.One needs to be passionate about his/her ideas into projections and finally into applications.Researching is very important, one needs to be inquisitive in asking himself " Why, when , which, how, what, and where etc.". This attitude will lead to solution based thinking. Surveys play an important role in finding solutions. The advantage of conducting surveys, is that one can come to know the amount of potential that the product has, besides it can help in upgrading one's product matching to customer needs. Obviously there has to be a consistent followup and surveys for this.

THE HIPPO CULTURE

3. The "HIPPO" culture, The word HIPPO is actually an created abbreviation of Highest Individual Paid Person Opinion. I recently heard Mr. Mukesh Jain on a webminar speaking wonderfully about this HIPPO culture. The design thinker should always move AWAY from this culture. Now let us understand what really is is HIPPO culture. Just imagine that there is a meeting with the most Senior person of the organisation, and decides to take a decision and that all agree to his decision without suggesting him new ideas, opinions or views, or he imposes his decisions on to subordinates, then such a culture is a HIPPO culture in the organisation. It is not that the senior most person decides something and others accept it, but what is a bit wrong here that everyone accepts it without presenting their views, ideas, opinions, or suggestions. This culture prevents the organisation from its growth. The design thinking minds should boldly participate and convince the senior most person accordingly or even demonstrate him to his satisfaction. If HIPPO culture is avoided the organisation becomes more democratic.

INNOVATION

4. The next important aspect for design thinking, is Innovation, by innovation I do not mean to do something new or manufacture some thing new. I do not mean invention here, By Innovation what I mean is that doing things in a different way to get better or best results. It could be anything like increasing the efficiency of a machine, human resource etc. Thinking and doing and things differently even in small things. For instance, in older task bar of MS Word office had an 'Edit' option, which when clicked, used to give a list of options like, CUT, COPY, PASTE, MOVE, DELETE etc, now as these are frequently used option in MS Word in the latest version of MS Word, these are consolidated so that we can quickly glance and use them without searching them in the list. Thus this could have been a small observation made by some design thinkers in the organisation, surveyed them, experimented, had them in beta versions, tested for feedback, and then after approval have been launched in market after upgrading, This was related to innovation.

There are SIX important elements of "DESIGN THINKING"

1. Empathise- Understand your user and conduct a research.

2. Define- Combine all your research and observations and locate the user's problem.

3. Prototype- Build a real, factual representation for a range of Ideas.

4. Test- Return to your user for feedback, and record the feedback.

5.Implement- Put the vision into effect.

6. Task- Work yourself and welcome design thinking.

Friends, as you all know there has been spectacular changes in the industrial approach. I am always effortful to keep on passing the latest updates that are practised in industries. However, if there are any shortcomings or suggestions please feel free to communicate on the following email ids.

Thanks a lot,

Best Regards,

Girish. Kulkarni- CEO- Real Minds.Com

contact- realmind.com @gmail.com,  realminds@hotmail.com.

cell- +91 9890331683.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 

& 

KNOWLEDGE SHARING.

Dear friends, 

 I dedicate this article to my beloved Mother who passed away on the 14th of December 2017. Still in her memory...

I humbly thank all those who were directly and indirectly into our prayers.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Today most of the industries, appreciate knowledge based models. Especially the Information Technology sector highly appreciates Knowledge Management (KM) systems. It is claimed that the any knowledge based industry develops a passion for growth. One of the most important criteria for any knowledge based organization is " Knowledge sharing. Thus let's see what is Knowledge Management and Knowledge Sharing and their systems to the basics.

Knowledge management is all about making knowledge  sources available to the right people at the right time. The knowledge sources  not only include media resources but also people.

However, " Knowledge Sharing" is the uppermost criteria of the "Knowledge Management Systems" (KMS).

In organizations a knowledge worker will always find knowledge sources. These knowledge sources could be anything such as : Social Media, Libraries, Searches, Linkedin, Facebook, Yammer, or even an individual too etc.

AS per Mr. Vaidyanathan-CEO of a leading organization tells us about the scope for "Knowledge Management" He statistically shows the approximate updates that are taking place in every 60 Seconds:

300+ Tweeter accounts are opened every day.

100+ new linkedin accounts every day.

500+ new You-tube accounts every day.

500,000 + new Facebook accounts every day.

1000+ new Blog accounts every day.

1000+ Mobile applications every day.

Thus many more updates on different media are being updated as well. It means that Knowledge sharing is well appreciated by majority of the classes in society.

Let us first know about the Knowledge Management (KM): A methodical means of managing "knowledge gathered from appropriate resources to implement for achieving success for a particular venture." Knowledge sharing is an important criteria in the KM.

Basics about "Knowledge Management Systems":

Knowledge management systems refer to any kind of IT system that stores and retrieves knowledge, improves collaboration, locates knowledge sources, mines repositories for hidden knowledge, captures and uses knowledge, or in some other way enhances the KM process.

Now, the thing is that how organizations can make use of "Knowledge Sharing" for their growth. Let's see what benefits the organization through "Knowledge Sharing"

Knowledge sharing depends on the habit and willingness of the knowledge worker to seek out and/or be receptive to these knowledge sources. The right culture, incentives, and so on must therefore be present. 
Knowledge management (KM) is involved in two ways here. Normally the area that is emphasized is that decision support systems can enhance the manager's knowledge through knowledge discovery and supply of relevant information. However, knowledge and KM activities are key components in how the manager uses the system, i.e. the direction of the analysis that he carries out, and the knowledge that he is looking for. 

The "KM" system has many defined areas such as:

1) Decision support system. Important tool via data driven support to take decisions,

2) Content Management System. 

   It is responsible for the creation, management, and distribution of content on the intranet,         extranet, or a website.

3) Document Management System. 
    As the name implies, are systems that aid in the publishing, storage, indexing, and                   retrieval  of documents. Although such systems deal almost exclusively with the explicit         knowledge.
4) Data Warehouse, Data mining, Data management system.
     Data warehouses contain information ranging from measurements of performance to            competitive intelligence .

5) Groupware system.

  Groupware is a term that refers to technology designed to help people collaborate and     includes a wide range of applications. Wikipedia defines three handy categories for     groupware:

6) OLAP System-( Online analytical Processing).

    OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) is the technology behind many Business Intelligence (BI)    applications. OLAP is a powerful technology for data discovery, including capabilities for limitless report viewing, complex analytical calculations, and predictive “what if” scenario (budget, forecast)  planning.

What is Knowledge Sharing?

Knowledge sharing is may be interpreted as the single most important aspect in this process, since the vast majority of KM initiatives depend upon it.

Knowledge sharing depends on the habit and willingness of the knowledge worker to seek out and/or be receptive to these knowledge sources. The right culture, incentives, and so on must therefore be present.

Adoption of Social Media is of critical importance as organization struggle to manage the ever growing information and knowledge.

Basic Determinants of Knowledge based sharing through Social Media:

1) Social Media 2) Local Information & Knowledge. 3) Location Experts.4) Sharing 'Tacit and Explicit Information. 5) Team Performance.

It is important to promote an opportunity to expand corporate knowledge repository & utilize weak ties among the staff. Influences of social media over organization workers depends on the information they have, personal identity, social interaction.  It is the Corporates and their staff determine the actual use of social media , their experience from its use and their positive attitude for the well being of organization. Remember that the degree of shared quality of knowledge will determine the culture of the organization.

Important Factors of Managerial Implications towards Knowledge Sharing:

1) Team Work.

2) Social networks in connectivity.

3) Communities of practice with whom knowledge sharing is taking place.

Intra and Inter Knowledge sharing can take place via various modes Viz: Chats, publish modes, discussions, blogs, instant messaging, or any social networks.

Many such social means for knowledge sharing  or communication sharing are accepted by the society for example E-mail. However there are strategic ways and means to implement "Knowledge Management Systems", which in turn point to acquire a change the way things are done in the organization.  This obviously requires careful planning and considerations, and should be regarded as the discipline.

Thanks a lot dear friends.

Please feel free to leave your comments.

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Best Regards,

Girish. Kulkarni-CEO Real Minds.Com

Virtual Office: realminds.com@gmail.com / realminds@hotmail.com

Cell: +91-9890331683.