Page 190 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

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• Respect status with your eye contact.
• Adopt a handshake that matches your personality and intention.
Remember, few gestures which convey meaning in and about themselves
have to be interpreted in clusters, and they should reinforce your words.
It should be remembered that the above outlined strategies should be used
with appropriateness and with relevance.

IMPROVING YOUR ORAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Speaking and listening are the communication skills people use most. Given
a choice, people would rather talk to each other than write to each other.
Talking requires less time and needs no composing, keyboarding, rewrit-
ing, duplicating, or distributing. More importantly, oral communication
provides the opportunity for feedback. When people communicate orally,
they can ask questions and test their understanding of the message; they
can share ideas and work together to solve problems. Talking things over
helps people in organizations build the morale and establish a group
identity. In addition to this, oral communication satisfies our common
need to be part of the human community, and it makes us feel good.
Whether you are using the telephone, engaging in a quick face-to-face
conversation with a colleague, or attending a meeting, oral communication
is the vehicle you use to get your message across. When communicating
orally, make it your goal to work in improving two key skills of speaking and
listening.

Speaking

Speaking is such an ingrained activity, that we tend to do it without much
thought, but that casual approach can be a problem in academic or business
setting. You have far less opportunity to revise your spoken words than to
revise your written words. If you let your attention wander while someone
else is speaking, you miss the point. You either have to get along without
knowing what the other person said, or admit that you were daydreaming
and ask the person to repeat the comment.
Another problem is that people tend to confuse your spoken message
with you as an individual. They are likely to judge the content of what you
say, by your appearance and style of delivery.
To improve your speaking skills, be aware of using speech as a tool for
accomplishing your objectives. To do this, break the habit of talking sponta-
neously, without planning what you are going to say or how you are going to
say it. Before you speak, think about your purpose, your main idea, and your

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