5 cities. 8 schools. 13 homes. This is the story of my life. My father had a transferable job, so relocation has always been an intimate part of my life. The immeasureable number of experiences from this constant change has made me who I am today. As exciting as it may sound now, I did have my fair share of challenges and difficulties. With each new journey, I was thrust into a completely new environment. I had to make new friends fast, understand the new educational system, learn the regional language and readjust to the new culture and lifestyle. In retrospect, it was during this transition period that I began to realize the importance of interpersonal relations and honest and open communication. I learned soon enough that having the support of one’s friends and the understanding of teachers made this transition a lot smoother.
In the more recent past, I’ve been intrigued about how people form opinions about others. What makes Goh Chok Tong or Barack Obama such great orators? What makes Jennifer Aniston the more popular “friend”, or Jim Jones (of Jonestown) such a compelling leader? At the common denominator, they are all effective communicators. They are able invoke from their audience the type of response they desire.
This led me to a good deal of self-reflection and self-awareness. I wanted to go a step further by bringing these subconscious subtleties (often manifested in what I often referred to as ‘gut instinct’) to a conscious level. I started reading books on body language. For instance, now I realize that the self-inflicted jokes that I so naively used to crack to “break the ice” when I was young, showed my vulnerable side, making me appear more human to my new classmates and hence more approachable.
I have just so much more to learn and realize about good communication skills, that taking this module seems like a natural choice to me. This is especially important to me for two main reasons. When I enter the working world soon, I know that through hard work and sheer determination, I would be able to grasp the technical skills required. But it is the more elusive soft skills that to me are of true value which (hopefully) would distinguish me as a leader. And isn’t good communication a mark of a good leader? And another important reason is that I want to travel the world, visit different places from the conventional to the exotic. I want to learn more about the different culture and get to know the people who live there. By improving on my communication skills and by being more aware of the non-verbal signals produced, I hope to make these trips more insightful and memorable.
Once I watched a movie named "The Perfect Man". In the movie, a divorced mother with two daughters will move to another city as soon as the mother breaks up with her boyfriend. The elder daughter is so upset about her mother in the sense that she cannot have a real friend at all due to their constant moving. She is so frustrated and hopeless in the movie. Maybe you did not go through such a tough time as the girl in the movie. But I am sure it is not easy for you, especially when you were little. On the bright side, all these experiences will help you to build your unique identity in the future. Imagine you work in a company, where your colleagues come from different cities and countries. If you ever lived in that city or country for a period of time, I believe it is pretty easy for you to communicate with him. And such a kind of experience is also a key to effective communication, isn't it ?
ReplyDeleteDear Lalitha,
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you start this post with the discussion of your background and how you tie the seemingly constant moving to your early need to develop a very specialized skill set, with a focus on the interpersonal. You go onto to explain how, in your reflection, you wanted to understand better what makes great speakers like Obama exactly who they are and how "body language" affects people's images of others. You wind things up by discussing your dreams of travel and broader interactions. You do all thise with a great deal of fluency and agility with words.
Only a couple language problems appear:
1) When I enter the working world soon, I know that through hard work and sheer determination, I would be able to...
>>> (real condition, not hypothetical; thius, don't use "would")
When I enter the working world soon, I know that through hard work and sheer determination, I WILL be able to
2) which (hopefully) would distinguish me >>> which (hopefully) WILL distinguish me
3) the self-inflicted jokes that I so naively used to crack to “break the ice” when I was young, showed... >>> the self-inflicted jokes that I so naively used to crack to “break the ice” when I was young showed....
I look forward to reading your next post!
Hi Lalitha,
ReplyDeleteI can relate to your predicaments of having to start afresh in a new foreign land. During the first few weeks of my exchange to Germany last year, I felt totally alien. I knew nobody there. As it was still during the holidays, nobody was around as well. The language was quite foreign to me although I did take some basic German. The weather was cold and the landscape, bleak. The food was new (now that I enjoyed), but there was nowhere to buy food during the weekends! After a few days keeping to myself, I decided to explore around. I was forced to mix around with people, mostly foreigners, but with locals as well. I got to know many new cultures from their native lands. The French, for example, have meals that might stretch up to 4 hours. Making new friends gave me the confidence that I will be able to fit into this new society. Looking back almost a year on, I really enjoyed my company during this brief stint and actually hoped that I had more time with them!
Jon
Hi Lalitha,
ReplyDeleteI am really sorry to hear that you have been relocating around more than most of us here. In retrospect, you can also see it from another angle that you have actually been through much more things than most of the people around you. In other words, you are actually quite unique! (This sounds really good, isn't it?)
Additionally, I do agree with you that good communication skills are extremely crucial in the workplace today. This is especially true if you are going to be a leader in your organisation. I am quite positive that you would want to send out all the right "signals" to your bosses, co-workers and subordinates. Failure to do so could be disastrous! For example, work progression would definitely be stagnated if your instructions or plans could not be enunciated clearly to the members of your team.
I look forward to your next blog post!