We Sit, You Speak; We Ignite, You Shine
Verbal Communication or Non-verbal Communication; Is any better?
Good communication skills are the abilities that assist you to become effective at interacting with others. Every communication involves (at least) one sender, a message, and a recipient. Sometimes communication can take place with yourself. Communication skills are critical in all aspects of life.
There are two types of communication: Verbal communication and Non-verbal communication.
Improving your communication skills requires understanding the differences between verbal and nonverbal communication.
Non-verbal communication involves body language while verbal communication relies on words.
Verbal communication can be a conversation, a meeting, a note, a write-up, or even a speech. Verbal communication is powerful in that it allows for input from every part of the social communication model. You can encode your thoughts into the spoken word and look to your audience to decode and take the message in. You can then directly ask them for feedback to confirm their understanding of your message. Verbal communication also makes it easier to ensure understanding by addressing objections and clearing up misunderstandings. With verbal communication, you can adjust your message as you communicate, based on the feedback you’re getting from your audience. Verbal communication allows you to walk away from a conversation with a higher degree of certainty that your message was received.
Non-verbal communication involves the use of gestures, facial expressions, and body expressions to pass a message to someone. For instance, if you are smiling at a friend, you are communicating with your friend; making him or her understand that you’re at peace with him or her. Non-verbal communication can also reveal your feelings. Let’s say you are afraid of something or someone, your body and facial expressions can communicate your fear to everyone around you at that moment.
People tend to learn more from non-verbal communication than verbal communication, as people learn more from actions than words. Actions, they say, speaks louder than words.
Effective communication means a lot, and it also starts with you. It starts with how you speak to yourself and how you communicate your self-worth. Having good communication skills helps you to have meaningful interaction with others which fosters better relationships personally and corporately.
The way you talk or interact with yourself after a mistake or repeating an event means a lot. What words do you tell yourself? Do you affirm negative things only? Do you put yourself down? The way you communicate with and to yourself, is the same way you will communicate with other people.
Mind you, it is what you have in you that you can give out to others.
Having said all, we believe that having both communication skills is important. You need to understand and learn the two types of communication skills because they go hand in hand, and none can be exempted.
The question then is: What are you doing to equip yourself? How do you communicate with your colleagues? Are you able to give clear instructions or directives to your subordinates? Do you have a boss who is always unclear with his/her instructions but believes they have communicated effectively?
As our lead consultant highlighted in our featured video for this topic, you can always reiterate what has been “communicated” to you to be sure you have perfect understanding.
You must learn to communicate appropriately to yourself so that you will be able to communicate to others with understanding, compassion, and love. Your words, both to yourself and others, must be filled with compassion, love, grace, and peace.
