Communication is the key to success
Learning is a lifelong process. We can learn different things from our daily life through communication. Communication is very important in every walk of our life. It is only communication through which we can develop and can be confident.
WE HAD a reading hour in school wherein all the students were asked to read stories from the novels available in the school library. I was in eighth grade then.
One day as the reading hour was about to get over our teacher asked all of us that who all can read the newspaper Times of India.
I couldn’t raise my hand unlike the other students as only a Gujarati newspaper was read at my house. Almost all my friends had their hands up and so my sir started discussing in detail the sports section, the headlines etc. I was patiently listening to the conversation between my friends and my teacher. Then, sir asked all of them to tell about their favourite section and my class sounded like a zoo where monkeys were screaming and yelling and jumping from here and there. Sir said in a loud voice-pin drop silence kids...and it was finger on your lips for all of us. Then a girl told sir that her favourite section was the ‘Speaking Tree’ column which was accompanied by the sacred space. Sir was too impressed and said that it was indeed a good piece of writing and all of us should read it. I thought that there was some tree which could actually speak and there's some news about it. As the bell rang, reading hour was over and I just forgot about the whole thing.
Next day I was sick and was on a leave. The other day when I went to school and went to my class teacher to show her the leave note in my calendar signed by my father, she asked, “What happened? Are you feeling well now?” It was such a simple question but somehow I struggled for words and couldn't reply anything. The teacher didn't say anything to me. Probably she felt I was still feeling sick.
But my problem was completely different. I knew what I wanted to say but I couldn’t say that in English. I started fumbling and somehow felt blank. It was a big eye opener for me. The whole day I was upset. I thought that being a student of an English medium school and already in secondary section can't speak English. What a shame! I just made up my mind that I will make my command over the English language and even my mother tongue so strong that never ever in my life I would fumble or struggle for words.
I told my mom to start taking the Times of India (TOI) newspaper. When I read TOI for the first time I came across this section called the Speaking Tree which had lovely stories about life, humanity, emotions and a sacred space which had spiritual quotes. I realised that what happened back in school. Everybody in the class was discussing about this column which I thought of as an actual tree which could really speak. How foolish was I!
I started reading newspaper everyday, and also started solving grammar exercises from the Wren and Martin grammar books. I even started to speak in English with all my friends. There were times I was teased by my friends that I am trying to show off and to be different from others but it all fell on my deaf ears. I was determined enough to learn and also let others learn. But my friends didn't understand my motive. I read essays, novels and even bought an English dictionary. Whenever I came across a new word, I used to note it down and then look back to refer it in the dictionary. I didn't know when I fell into the habit of reading the dictionary itself.
A year passed by and then I decided to participate in an English essay writing competition. I still remember the topic given to us was ‘Importance of Value Education’. I just wrote it and was very satisfied with the way I had written. It was the last lecture when our principal announced the winner but I couldn’t hear the announcement. I was not even expecting my name as there were more scholars in the class. But when I went out of my class all my friends congratulated me and then I realised that it was me. I was very happy. It realised that whatever hardwork I was putting in has shown results. By the time I stepped in tenth grade my teacher asked me to write essays and make grammar assignments which she then distributed to the whole class. I was now spreading the knowledge that I gained.
My classmates who teased me for always speaking in English now come and ask me for advice. The situation had turned around. I continued to get awards for writing essays in my college days and there were compliments written on my answer papers as ‘I wanted to give you a 11 on 10’, ‘you write very well’ and the ‘keep it up’ notes. I almost started taking tuitions for my cousins and kids in my neighbourhood.
When I entered into engineering, we had a subject called presentation and communication skills which we called as PCT and I was asked to give an impromptu speech and I chose to talk on smoking. The audiences loved it and my professor was happy too. Since that day my professor always read my case studies and took interest in my group discussions and then I went on to conduct a presentation called Fashionista which we as a team of 10 people performed very well and we were all praised by the audiences.
I never stopped learning. I then started reading the GRE word list and the Barron's and books like ‘Word power made easy’ and what all people do to prepare for a TOEFL examination. Then I appeared for the CAT MBA examination where the verbal ability, reasoning and the reading comprehensions have a lot of weightage. Not only I concentrated on enhancing my vocabulary and the way I speak but also increased my reading speed to almost 1000 words a minute.
Even today, I am learning and finding out ways to put my skills to test every time because communication is really important in every walk of life, be it making friends, in the professional life, to be able to talk to the world in face and feeling confident.
I wrote this article in an effort to share that it is only we who can make a difference in our lives. If we think we can, then we will be able to do. Else as the saying goes: "Either you make the choice or the choice will make you".
I couldn’t raise my hand unlike the other students as only a Gujarati newspaper was read at my house. Almost all my friends had their hands up and so my sir started discussing in detail the sports section, the headlines etc. I was patiently listening to the conversation between my friends and my teacher. Then, sir asked all of them to tell about their favourite section and my class sounded like a zoo where monkeys were screaming and yelling and jumping from here and there. Sir said in a loud voice-pin drop silence kids...and it was finger on your lips for all of us. Then a girl told sir that her favourite section was the ‘Speaking Tree’ column which was accompanied by the sacred space. Sir was too impressed and said that it was indeed a good piece of writing and all of us should read it. I thought that there was some tree which could actually speak and there's some news about it. As the bell rang, reading hour was over and I just forgot about the whole thing.
Next day I was sick and was on a leave. The other day when I went to school and went to my class teacher to show her the leave note in my calendar signed by my father, she asked, “What happened? Are you feeling well now?” It was such a simple question but somehow I struggled for words and couldn't reply anything. The teacher didn't say anything to me. Probably she felt I was still feeling sick.
But my problem was completely different. I knew what I wanted to say but I couldn’t say that in English. I started fumbling and somehow felt blank. It was a big eye opener for me. The whole day I was upset. I thought that being a student of an English medium school and already in secondary section can't speak English. What a shame! I just made up my mind that I will make my command over the English language and even my mother tongue so strong that never ever in my life I would fumble or struggle for words.
I told my mom to start taking the Times of India (TOI) newspaper. When I read TOI for the first time I came across this section called the Speaking Tree which had lovely stories about life, humanity, emotions and a sacred space which had spiritual quotes. I realised that what happened back in school. Everybody in the class was discussing about this column which I thought of as an actual tree which could really speak. How foolish was I!
I started reading newspaper everyday, and also started solving grammar exercises from the Wren and Martin grammar books. I even started to speak in English with all my friends. There were times I was teased by my friends that I am trying to show off and to be different from others but it all fell on my deaf ears. I was determined enough to learn and also let others learn. But my friends didn't understand my motive. I read essays, novels and even bought an English dictionary. Whenever I came across a new word, I used to note it down and then look back to refer it in the dictionary. I didn't know when I fell into the habit of reading the dictionary itself.
A year passed by and then I decided to participate in an English essay writing competition. I still remember the topic given to us was ‘Importance of Value Education’. I just wrote it and was very satisfied with the way I had written. It was the last lecture when our principal announced the winner but I couldn’t hear the announcement. I was not even expecting my name as there were more scholars in the class. But when I went out of my class all my friends congratulated me and then I realised that it was me. I was very happy. It realised that whatever hardwork I was putting in has shown results. By the time I stepped in tenth grade my teacher asked me to write essays and make grammar assignments which she then distributed to the whole class. I was now spreading the knowledge that I gained.
My classmates who teased me for always speaking in English now come and ask me for advice. The situation had turned around. I continued to get awards for writing essays in my college days and there were compliments written on my answer papers as ‘I wanted to give you a 11 on 10’, ‘you write very well’ and the ‘keep it up’ notes. I almost started taking tuitions for my cousins and kids in my neighbourhood.
When I entered into engineering, we had a subject called presentation and communication skills which we called as PCT and I was asked to give an impromptu speech and I chose to talk on smoking. The audiences loved it and my professor was happy too. Since that day my professor always read my case studies and took interest in my group discussions and then I went on to conduct a presentation called Fashionista which we as a team of 10 people performed very well and we were all praised by the audiences.
I never stopped learning. I then started reading the GRE word list and the Barron's and books like ‘Word power made easy’ and what all people do to prepare for a TOEFL examination. Then I appeared for the CAT MBA examination where the verbal ability, reasoning and the reading comprehensions have a lot of weightage. Not only I concentrated on enhancing my vocabulary and the way I speak but also increased my reading speed to almost 1000 words a minute.
Even today, I am learning and finding out ways to put my skills to test every time because communication is really important in every walk of life, be it making friends, in the professional life, to be able to talk to the world in face and feeling confident.
I wrote this article in an effort to share that it is only we who can make a difference in our lives. If we think we can, then we will be able to do. Else as the saying goes: "Either you make the choice or the choice will make you".
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Twenty-first-century corporations will find it hard to survive, let alone flourish, unless they get better work from their employees. This does not necessarily mean harder work or more work. What it does necessarily mean is employees who??????ve learned to take active responsibility for their own behavior, develop and share first-rate information about their jobs, and make good use of genuine empowerment to shape lasting solutions to fundamental problems.
This is not news. Most executives understand that tougher competition will require more effective learning, broader empowerment, and greater commitment from everyone in the company. Moreover, they understand that the key to better performance is better communication. For 20 years or more, business leaders have used a score of communication tools??????focus groups, organizational surveys, management-by-walking-around, and others??????to convey and to gather the information needed to bring about change.
What is news is that these familiar techniques, used correctly, will actually inhibit the learning and communication that twenty-first-century corporations will require not just of managers but of every employee. For years, I have watched corporate leaders talking to subordinates at every level in order to find out what actually goes on in their companies and then help it go on more effectively. What I have observed is that the methods these executives use to tackle relatively simple problems actually prevent them from getting the kind of deep information, insightful behavior, and productive change they need to cope with the much more complex problem of organizational renewal.
Years ago, when corporations still wanted employees who did only what they were told, employee surveys and walk-around management were appropriate and effective tools. They can still produce useful information about routine issues like cafeteria service and parking privileges, and they can still generate valuable quantitative data in support of programs like total quality management. What they do not do is get people to reflect on their work and behavior. They do not encourage individual accountability. And they do not surface the kinds of deep and potentially threatening or embarrassing information that can motivate learning and produce real change.
Let me give an example of what I mean. Not long ago, I worked with a company conducting a TQM initiative. TQM has been highly successful at cutting unnecessary costs, so successful that many companies have raised it to the status of a management philosophy. In this particular case, a TQM consultant worked with top management to carry out a variety of surveys and group meetings to help 40 supervisors identify nine areas in which they could tighten procedures and reduce costs. The resulting initiative met its goals one month early and saved more money than management had anticipated. The CEO was so elated that he treated the entire team to a champagne dinner to celebrate what was clearly a victory for everyone involved.
Twenty-first-century corporations will find it hard to survive, let alone flourish, unless they get better work from their employees. This does not necessarily mean harder work or more work. What it does necessarily mean is employees who??????ve learned to take active responsibility for their own behavior, develop and share first-rate information about their jobs, and make good use of genuine empowerment to shape lasting solutions to fundamental problems.
This is not news. Most executives understand that tougher competition will require more effective learning, broader empowerment, and greater commitment from everyone in the company. Moreover, they understand that the key to better performance is better communication. For 20 years or more, business leaders have used a score of communication tools??????focus groups, organizational surveys, management-by-walking-around, and others??????to convey and to gather the information needed to bring about change.
What is news is that these familiar techniques, used correctly, will actually inhibit the learning and communication that twenty-first-century corporations will require not just of managers but of every employee. For years, I have watched corporate leaders talking to subordinates at every level in order to find out what actually goes on in their companies and then help it go on more effectively. What I have observed is that the methods these executives use to tackle relatively simple problems actually prevent them from getting the kind of deep information, insightful behavior, and productive change they need to cope with the much more complex problem of organizational renewal.
Years ago, when corporations still wanted employees who did only what they were told, employee surveys and walk-around management were appropriate and effective tools. They can still produce useful information about routine issues like cafeteria service and parking privileges, and they can still generate valuable quantitative data in support of programs like total quality management. What they do not do is get people to reflect on their work and behavior. They do not encourage individual accountability. And they do not surface the kinds of deep and potentially threatening or embarrassing information that can motivate learning and produce real change.
Let me give an example of what I mean. Not long ago, I worked with a company conducting a TQM initiative. TQM has been highly successful at cutting unnecessary costs, so successful that many companies have raised it to the status of a management philosophy. In this particular case, a TQM consultant worked with top management to carry out a variety of surveys and group meetings to help 40 supervisors identify nine areas in which they could tighten procedures and reduce costs. The resulting initiative met its goals one month early and saved more money than management had anticipated. The CEO was so elated that he treated the entire team to a champagne dinner to celebrate what was clearly a victory for everyone involved.
Very good
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