This module provides a platform for us to communicate confidently in front of public or friends. In working world, many times a company requires us to perform presentation professionally. If it is a marketing presentation, messages should be conveyed concisely and persuasively as it is going to affect the company’s sales, subsequently it affects my job too. If it is just a presentation related report, I want to ensure everyone understands as much as they could. There is not much platform for me to practise presentation skill when I was studying secondary school in Malaysia. Therefore, I hope to leverage on this module to hone my presentation skill.
I think persuasive oral communication is a crucial skill if we acquire, we can achieve our goal easier. For example, a famous entrepreneur in China, Ma Yun, he is the founder of commercial website namely Alibaba and Taobao. When he started the business, he was alone. However, he was so good in communication that when Sun Dan Yu looked for MaYun so that MaYun would invest in his advertisement, Sun Dan Yu did not secure a deal, instead he became a capable aide of MaYun. When Chua Chong Xin invited MaYun to invest, Chua Chong Xin changed his career to become MaYun’s chief financial officer. After listening to MaYun’s speech, 35 Harvard MBA competed for the opportunity to work under MaYun. Therefore, it is important to acquire persuading skill.
Communication in our everyday life is vital too, because most of the time, miscommunication leads to fight, dispute, lawsuit, confusion, and dismay. It can also cause a good project to fail. For example, I was in a design group last year with two group members from Boston. The problem lied in allotment of task. Me and my other group member thought they volunteered for the job of editing and writing introduction. However, after clarification, we found out that they were very frustrated as they did most of the work. Other than this, we also argued on the issue of time for presentation. I suggested allocating more time for explaining design, but he preferred everyone utilised same amount of time. In the end, we could not finish the presentation on time. If we had known how to communicate diplomatically, things would have turned out the other way around.
I will end with a famous quote: “No man is an island”. We are highly sociable living things; therefore we shall capitalize on this advantage which is communication to show our fullest potential.
5 comments:
Thank you, Carolyn, for the post. I like the way you connect one of the key topic areas with your own needs. You also provide a good example of the importance of persuasive oral skills. Great!
My only reservation about this post is some language problems. Those are very apparent in the final discussion of your design group tasks. I have a hard time understanding that. Did your blog buddy help you with this? (Don't hesitate to further revise a post even after it has been posted...if you can.)
I hope we can help you develop your writing skills this term.
Thanks again!
Persuasive oral skill is indeed very important. It will put you in a more advantageous position when it comes to group projects and work, and even in quarrels. However if a person gets too engrossed in his persuasion, he may neglect others' opinion.
Anyway, it is a good post, bringing points that are really relevant and useful.
Communicating Diplomatically is crucial at times, especially when we have constraints and limited resources. Flexibility is required to achieve it. Overall, I enjoyed and learnt from the examples you have cited, namely your personal experience within a project group presentation. Not neglecting also the success story behind Chinese entrepreneur Ma Yun, on the communication techniques he employed to turn things around. Great post overall, way to go!
I have also had negative experiences related to breakdown of communication within project groups and I can relate to the feelings which you have mentioned. If I had a choice, I would prefer communication over frustration.
Also, I noticed that your writing seems to follow the style of Chinese writing. It is not easy to switch between two languages with almost completely different "language structure" (no idea what the technical term for this is!); we can see and appreciate the effort you put in as the semester goes on. Try your best! :)
Thank you for mentioning the grammatical errors. I am always not been aware of those as editing has always been a tedious job for me. From now on, I will put more effort into editing.
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