Sep 12 2008
Communication and Interpersonal Skills
Communication skills are an essential component in every organization. People in organization spend up to 75% of their time communicating with one another; whether it is at the interpersonal, inter-group, intra-group, organizational, or external levels. Poor communication skills can lead to poor public image, misunderstandings, mistakes, loss of productivity and can affect the morale and performance for the company.
By practicing good business communication skills, your employees and organization will perform better because everyone will know what is expected of them and what it takes to communicate effectively. We need to have a program that aims to help individuals to learn how to communicate clearly, avoid jumping to conclusions, seek clarification and avoid making assumptions that distorts the information received. They will know how to create the positive impact required to gain the confidence of their subordinates, bosses, customers and suppliers.
Such program can be designed to meet the needs of a highly competitive business environment, by equipping its personnel with the practical know-how and skills to communicate more effectively – to enable them to meet the challenges posed by competition and external factors.
Communication and interpersonal skills is the initial process to possess the ultimate power of influencing people
Getting people to do what you want/need them to do can be the most difficult task faced by leaders, managers, CEOs, or anyone in this situation. How do you influence people successfully? Do you have the skills in influencing them? What type of “secret weapon” do you have? Do you count on the power of your position, or do you believe that good people should not have been told what to do? That’s why, before we move to the next stage which is the ultimate power of influencing people, we need to establish our communication and interpersonal skills.
When I was at my secondary school, I’m very poor in this so called interpersonal skills. I’m even worse when it comes to public speaking or open presentation. However, I trained myself very hard. At university level, I joined few society and practiced tested my capability. Well, it was still very poor. However, 7 years after graduating, I work and had a presentation in front of about 200 students. Without realizing it, I found myself quite comfortable speaking in front of a massive crowd. I’m truly delighted and happy with that. I believe I’m now capable of speaking and giving speech in front of a crowd. I can influence my audience (i think so). It all came from training and believing.
As for conclusion, train yourself. Trust and believe in yourself… 
