Page 349 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

Model Question Papers | 337

• Urgent matters are usually visible; they insist on action, they are easy and fun to do.
• Important matters contribute to our mission of life.
• Effective people stay out of Quadrants III and IV.
• Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management.

Quadrant III: Urgent but not important. This quadrant contains those activities, which
appear to be urgent (or at least seem to demand our attention as such) but are really not that
important. Examples include: needless interruptions, many phone calls, other people’s
minor issues (which they invariably seek to make major ones because they like to live in
this quadrant!), among others. A good example is that of phone calls during your study
time. Most of us are ‘phone addicted’ and find ourselves unable to resist a ringing phone.
If one really observes, one will find that most phone calls are not important. If it is important
the person will call you back!
Quadrant IV: Not urgent and not important. Here items such as excessive TV watch-
ing, time wasters, busy work, some phone calls, ‘escape’ activities and others are found.
Obviously one doesn’t want to do these things in excess. The key is ‘in excess’. Reading
escapist literature (Romance) is not bad in it self, but when taken to extremes (i.e. one
spends all week finishing off that novel instead of going over our notes) the danger should
be clear. The activities here all have a valued place as once-in-a-while rewards, if not used
excessively!
In summary, spending less time in Quadrant III and IV will give us more time to
spend in Quadrant II so that we can put first things first, with the added benefit that we
will also be finding ourselves dealing with fewer Quadrant I crises. Stephen R. Covey’s
approach is novel and is based on principle-centred paradigm.
b. Listening is an intellectual activity, our faculties function in different ways according to
the kind of listening required by the occasion.
There are a number of benefits that you can get if you train yourself to listen effectively.
Some of them are listed below:

• Can obtain more information.
• Can get acquainted with people and perceive how their minds work.
• Can improve good relationship with people.
• Can raise people’s morale.
• Can obtain suggestions and new ideas.
• Can know why people perform as well as or as poorly as they do.
• Can solve problems and face situations that present perplexity with a composed
state of mind.

c. Transmission of information, ideas, and feelings are the primary functions of commu-
nication. Effectiveness of communication depends upon the ability of the speaker to

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