Page 184 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

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upward flow of communication, believing that debate is time- consuming
and unproductive. Some other institutions work to maintain an open
communication climate. They encourage openness and honesty and their
employees feel free to confess their mistakes, to disagree with the superiors
and to express their opinions.

Facilitate Feedback

Giving your audience a chance to provide a feedback is crucial in
maintaining an open communication climate. Psychologists opine that
the thing employees wanted the most from their employers was personal
feedback (money was rated second). But eager to avoid conflict or to be cast
in the role of critical boss, many managers avoid giving a frank feedback to
under performing employees until it is too late.
If you encourage people to be open and to tell you what they really
think and feel, then you have to listen to their comments objectively. You
can’t say, ‘Please tell me what you think’ and then get mad at the first criti-
cal comment. Your goal is to find out whether the people in your audience
have understood and accepted your message. If you find that they haven’t,
don’t lose your temper, and try not to react defensively. After all, the fault
is at least partially yours. Instead of saying the same thing again, try to find
the source of the misunderstanding. Then revise your message. Sooner or
later, you will succeed. You may not win the audience to your point of view,
but at least you will make your meaning clear, and you will part with a feeling
of mutual respect.
Let us take an example. Radha is a content writer in a software com-
pany. She was asked to develop content for three modules. Sastry, who is the
project leader, gave clear instructions as to the content to be developed by
Radha. Sastry helps Radha, by giving the accepted structure followed by the
company and suggests her to strictly adhere to the pattern. After a fortnight,
Radha submits the work. Sastry is annoyed at her work. She did not follow
the pattern and she has written two modules afresh in addition to the mod-
ules assigned to her. The two modules have already been written and final-
ized by another content developer. Sastry was wondering whether to really
give a feedback on her performance in terms of time and efforts she has put
in. In this kind of circumstances, it is essential to offer a feedback as Radha’s
work is detrimental to the productivity, and team-work. Time, effort, and
manpower of the company is also at stake, if a constructive feedback is not
given to Radha.

Committing to Ethical Communication
The second guideline for effective communication is a commitment to ethics,
the principles of conduct that govern a person or a group. Unethical people

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