How to Talk to Anyone (Junior Talker #4) by DeYtH Banger (top business books of all time TXT) 📖

always advisable.

 

Verbal Communication:

 

Effective verbal communication skill is much more than just talking. It is highly ranked on the candidate evaluation parameters used by many corporate job interviewers.

 

Verbal communication is a two way street, in other words both, how you deliver messages and how you receive them.

What constitutes effective verbal communication on the job depends on the relationship between communication partners and reference of their communication. If it is a personal communication the communication partners are family and friends and at workplace the communication partners are different individuals and groups such as co-workers, bosses and subordinates, employees, customers, teachers and students, and speakers and their audiences.

 

Verbal communication occurs in many different contexts including training sessions, presentations, group meetings, performance appraisals, one-on-one discussions, interviews, disciplinary sessions, sales pitches and consulting engagements.

 

A few examples of effective verbal communication skills are:

• Advising others about an appropriate action. 
• Selecting language appropriate and suitable to the audience 
• Speaking at a moderate pace, neither too fast nor too slowly 
• Communicating confidently but with modesty 
• Using affirmative sounds and words like yes, I understand, for sure, yes off course, I see etc. to demonstrate understanding 
• Using humor to engage an audience 
• Utilizing self-disclosure to encourage sharing

Source: Ezine Articles is brilliant

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cultural Values and Respect, Do They Still Exist?

 

 

By Adebusoye Adeleke Ayo 

 

 

What is happening to simple but graciously, self-defining magical expressions that made the society graceful and fun to live in? Should we blame the degradation of cultural values on the internet? Growing up with an unequivocal understanding of the essence of expressing simple acts of courtesy, gesture and respect, particularly when requests were to be responded to either in the affirmative or in disagreement; translating from the smaller family groups into the larger society was pretty easy and smooth, considering the fact that every child would want to be treated with love and respect.

 

The crop of parents that existed about five to six decades ago, paid very careful attention to inculcating cultural and societal values into their children, grooming them to face the harsh realities of the outside world. In spite of family challenges, high levelled marginalization at the workplace, societal instabilities coupled with unending technologies and scientific breakthroughs, there was no comprising ethics, morals and values.

 

There was high sensitivity to respect and cultures, regardless of race, religion or nationality. Emphasis was placed on courtesy and respect. There were well defined forms of addressing a person with regard for age, gender, relationship status and societal influence.

The contemporary society is characterized by attitudinal influx of technology driven activities. Virtually everything we do is hi-tech; from coffee making to documentation; musical productions to diverse services; the place of technological advancement, which has helped in improving our lives tremendously, is gradually taking us off the regular deployment of our kinetics for daily activities.

 

Hence, to a large extent, we concentrate more on how to set things right, ensure better ways of generating income, fashion out improved ways of getting our kids to school and fixing official chores in the most sophisticated manner; whereas, we silently grapple with the gradual erosion of simple but gracious, self-defining forms of courtesy and respect.

 

Values are not culture bound. Just as acts of respect are culturally universal, each culture has its own specific forms of respect, well defined to suit definitive contexts, bearing in mind the plausibility of such values being transmitted across other cultures. For instance, greetings are culturally universal but accompanying expressions of greetings could differ from culture to culture.

 

In the Philippines, elders are greeted by young ones taking one of their hands gently and pressing it on the foreheads. In Japan, people greet one another with a bow, with slight variations in angle and duration, depending on the person being greeted. Firm handshakes are expressive forms of people in British Culture. The Yoruba men of West Africa prostrate while the women genuflect, with a reflection of respect in their use of language. Hello, How do you do? Thank you, Yes please etc are verbal expressions that are supposed to be learned and imbibed over the years.

 

To make the society a better place, it is expedient for all and sundry to revert to those days, where cultural values were of paramount importance. Simple acts of gesture will not only present an individual as being cultured, but will go a long way in helping the youths to understand the essence of cultures, societal stability and respect for individuals, values and governance.

 How to Express Your Feelings Without Worrying What Others Think

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you may vent with a friend to get something off your chest however, if you want to really change the way your relationships move forward and help YOU become a better version of yourself, this article shares a simple how-to formula to get over the basic fears all humans have when sharing their feelings in relationships.

 

This post is not a permission to blab and just say what's on your mind. A lot of people are doing that on social media and off-line to your face, these days - and we're not seeing a lot of benefit from that.

 

When we consider how much random emotion is being expressed in the world, you may start to wonder if emotion has been so hidden by our cultural socialisation for such a long time - and now we are just starting to take the lid off of it - so that it now gets expressed in random situations and in ways that doesn't have any regulation or a stop button.

 

It's also not just negative emotions that we struggle to express.

 

How many of you may find it difficult to say how you feel about someone you love?

Or find it squeamish to give a compliment to someone just because you feel authentically inspired by them.

Somehow, in the socialisation of young children we have made the expression of emotions conditional; OK sometimes, OK not other times. And in terms of positive emotions we also have become really tainted and boring about celebrating them.

What once was natural for us as children to express glee, joy and laughter becomes awkward and uncalled for when we are an adult or a teenager.

 

So it got me thinking about why, when and how do we transition from easily expressing joy or sadness to struggling with that.

It's natural that we want to be accepted and liked, but why choose to prefer someone else's opinion and liking of you over what makes you happy?

 

For each of us there is the point or an age or event or a series of accumulated events where a growing child stops enjoying who they are and become more worried about how they are perceived and received by others. The tipping point, where you focus more on who you think you should be - to be acceptable - is unique for every individual.

Why we want someone to accept us is very much about survival. The more someone likes you, the more likely you will be accepted as part of the tribe that looks after you.

However, if you can't be honest with your feelings, subconsciously you feel the cost. And the cost is: you can't be your authentic self. But you're prepared to lose your authenticity or explain your needs or your point of view in order to "keep" the perceived status quo, not rock the boat and go along with the tribe - and your perception of what the tribe believes.

 

If you grew up in a traditional family structure, you know what that means: you have to turn up for family dinners, you don't talk about certain topics with certain family members, you never talk about that really hot topic because it's taboo. In personal relationships, some of the have to's include: I must reply to texts immediately, I have to like what my loved one does or who they hang with etc.

 

What I've learnt working with people is that a person will invest more energy in hiding their authentic self and feelings than risking speaking up for many diverse fears such as:

someone they care about feeling left out or not important

being perceived as impinging on someone else's needs

fear of upsetting someone with a touchy topic (politics, trauma, bad experience in past)

being seen as weak, not self-sufficient and not competent

not being like "everyone else" (the tribe)

fear of pushing back because you may create conflict

fear of being seen as contrary to the group

fear of being too independent or seen as selfish, putting your needs before others

fear of asking too much.

People create great stories about why others may not be able to handle their feelings. And this is always influenced by the culture's interpretations of what's appropriate.

 

On the personal level, we put a lot of energy into sustaining the cultural story about what is appropriate in our own heads, rather than actually talking with people to share what is authentically going on for us.

Part of the struggle in modern society, is that cultural norms are changing and while we wish to measure our expression of feelings by the past cultural norms - they have shifted to a degree where we are no longer sure of how to be "respectful" of others while also being authentic and expressing our individual needs. In the past, people's roles were pretty clear, but now there's so much more freedom about how you can behave. That makes people a little crazy because they actually don't know what to do with all the new found freedom. And then sometimes revert back to past cultural norms where you "should" do what the tribe said.

So if you are looking to be authentic and respectful in expressing your feelings here is a basic formula.

This is best done face-to-face. If you're not good at face to face - you can try this through text, however your body will feel more relaxed if you are face to face.

 

Start your conversation with the intent to connect with the person and have the best outcome for both of you. Begin your expression by foregrounding something you appreciate about the person like "hey I really think about you when I hear that song x" recall a memory you have together, recall something that connects the two of you in a good way or something fun that they will connect with. Ask yourself, what am I afraid of happening if I tell them how I feel or what I want? Consider telling the person "look I am concerned about x, but I want to share something with you". Don't hide your fear, but don't make it a sob story. Tell them simply what you're concern is and then go straight to sharing. Don't use the word fear, use a word like "I'm concerned" or make it even more vague like "I was thinking x". Tell them what you want in the simplest shortest way possible (without a story) and then be quiet. Wait for them to respond, check out their face, breathing, body language. The longer you wait - they will talk. And you will be far better off staying quite - because that gives them the signal that you want them to speak. If they don't speak after a long time, prompt them - what do you think? or what are you feeling?

Each relationship will have its own quirks.

 

So not everyone is going to be civil, sit down and listen. And you may need to tweak the words to suit that person's language style.

However, what I've learnt from step 1 - just focussing on the intent of the best outcome for the relationship has made people who normally wouldn't chat - soften and also be natural and responsive.

 

From Step 2, foregrounding something you like about the connection has also had huge results. It has made people soften, opened up conversations to flow in way that was completely unexpected, got the other person to start telling stories they never shared and resulted in family outings that never would have happened... and so on.

 

So for the touch cases, focus on Steps 1 and 2... and wait til the moment arises for you to air the