SOFT SKILLS

“Skill in the art of communication is crucial to a leadrer’s success.He can accomplish nothing unless he can communicate effectively” — Anonymus

What is Soft Skill ???

A soft skill is a personal attribute that supports situational awareness and enhances an individual’s ability to get a job done.

Some of the major soft skills that are necessary for every individual are:-

-> TEAMWORK

-> COMMUNICATION SKILLS

-> PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS

-> WORK ETHIC

-> FLEXIBLITY/ADAPTABILITY

->INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

The most important soft skill from the above mentioned skills is the communication skill.So in this post we shall discuss about some major aspects related to communication and how we can improve our communication skills to land in a great position in this world.

What is Communication ???

Transfer of an idea or thought from one being to another,when the recipent’s comprehension/understanding of the idea/thought is the same as or similar to the transmitter.The mode or medium isn’t important, but the effectiveness transmission and the reception is.The channel of communication can be visual, auditory, tactile/haptic, olfactory, electromagnetic or biochemical.Human communication is unique for its extensive use of abstract language.Development of civilization has been closely linked with progress in tellecommunication.

The main steps inherent to all communication are:-

1. The formation of communicative motivation or reason.
2. Message composition (further internal or technical elaboration on what exactly to express)
3. Transmission of the encoded message as a sequence of signals using a specific channel or medium.
4. Reception of signals and reassembling of the encoded message from a sequence of received signals.
5. Decoding of the reassembled encoded message.
6. Interpretation and making sense of the presumed original message.

The main two types of communication are:-

1. Non Verbal communication
2. Verbal communication

NON VERBAL COMMUNICATION

Non Verbal communication describes the processes of conveying a type of information in a form of non-linguistic representations.Examples of non verbal communications include haptic communication, chronemic communication, gestures, body language, facial expressions, eye contact etc. It also relates to the intent of a message.Examples of intent are voluntary, intentional movements like shaking a hand or winking, as well as involuntary, such as sweating. Speech also contains non verbal elements known as paralanguage, e.g rhythm, intonation, tempo and stress. It affects communication most at the subconcious levels and establishes trust.

Non Verbal communication demonstrates one of Paul Watzlawick’s laws:- You cannot not communicate. Once proximity has formed awareness, living creatures begin interpreting any signals received.Some of the functions of nonverbal communication in humans are to complement and illustrate, to reinforce and to emphasize, to replace and substitute, to control and regulate, and to contradict the denotative message.

There are several reasons as to why non verbal communication plays a vital role in communication.

Nonverbal communication is omnipresent.They are included in every communication act. To have total communication, all non verbal channels such as the body, face, voice, appearance, touch , distance and other environmental forces must be engaged during face to face interaction.Written communication can also have non verbal attributes .Emails and web chats allow an individual’s the option to change text font colours, stationary, emoticons, and capitalization in order to capture non verbal cues into a verbal medium. Non verbal behaviours may form a universal language system.Smiling, crying, pointing, caressing and glaring are non verbal behaviours that are used and understood by people regardless of nationality.Such non verbal signals allow the most basic form of communication is not effective due to language barriers.

VERBAL COMMUNICATION

Verbal communication is the spoken or written conveyance of a message. Human language can be defined as a system of symbols by which the symbols are manipulated.The word language also refers to common properties of language.Language learning normally occurs most intensively during human childhood.Most of the large numbers of human languages use patterns of sound or gesture for symbols which enable communication with others around them.Languages tend to share certain properties, although there are exceptions.

As previously mentioned, language can be characterized as symbolic. Charles Ogden and I.A Richards developed The Triangle of Meaning model to explain the symbol, the referent, and the meaning.

Contrary to popular belief, signed languages of the world (e.g. American Sign Language) are considered to be verbal communication because their sign vocabulary, grammer and other linguistic structures abide by all the necessary classifications as spoken languages. There are however, nonverbal elements to signed languages,such as speed, intensity and size of signs that are made.