Communication skills, the key to success

Happy Birthday Mr President

Barack Obama turns 50 this week, the first non-white president of the United States.  Follow from my last post, Obama is a person I admire and respect.  A big part of his success to achieve presidency is his communication skills.  To get there is a testament to his own personal leadership and competency,  coming from a humble poor family.  It shows anyone is able to achieve greatness with the right focus, attitude and skills.

Communication is not just Speaking

I was pinging a fellow Toastmaster, and I said to her, that it is a 2-3 year journey to achieve competency in communication (anything else too), but at the end of it you can basically combine the mastery in communication with any field at work, at home, with friends, at church etc to propel yourself to the next level to get a promotion, to deepen relationships and so on.

Communication is not just speaking, it is understanding and connecting to others with respect and empathy and as equals

Communication is not communication without any of these elements.  It is not just about speaking, but listening, empathizing, connecting and doing the right thing always, sitting on the rock of integrity and respect.  Communication skills has been one of my biggest challenges, going to the worst school in NSW Australia, didn't help.  I was fortunate though to meet some excellent role mentors though.  I still struggle with communication and my old bad habits, however I try to improve it every day consciously, half of it is just listening and acting on your inner "golden compass", and tapering your response with genuine concern for the other person.  I need to apply it to all aspects of my life including my family.

A Place to Practice Communication

The Toastmaster Club is an excellent cheap way to learn and practice communication, it provides a safe haven to learn critical speaking, listening, non-verbal communication skills which benefits one in all areas of life.  I am 2 speeches away from completing my Competent Communication (CC) manual, I look forward to some of the other modules particular Story Telling.  Here is a personal testament that I can relate to.

Further to my note on my colleague, I was telling her that all elements of the Toastmaster CC manual was in the keynote speech by Obama above.  Obama uses body language and hand gestures, "pregnant" pauses, connection to the audience, personal stories and emotions, powerful descriptive vocabulary, pitch variation and tempo and so on.  Just watch the end of this speech on how he issues a call to action increasing the intensity of his voice and his emotion, with a powerful unifying message.

You don't need communications skills if we are all Mind Readers

Its a pity that Communication Skills are so neglected as a core competency for success almost everywhere.

 Communication cannot be taken for granted, unless we are all mind readers!  

Spend time improving this core skill, and it will reward you handsomely in the future in all aspects of life.  

Peace,

Kirpal

ZenManager - Transparency, your ally at work... .. .

Picture "Protected" kindly provided by h.koppdelaney under CC

If there is anything I have learnt at work in the last 12 years of leadership related roles, it is the value of transparency.


There has been many times which I have been tempted not to be transparent, that is usually a signal for me to consider using the direct opposite instead to counteract the fear.  I took the following from my one of my posts:

Why invent things in your mind because of fear?

When the truth can be your best teacher and ally...

I use transparency to escalate issues, to share risk, and as a general communication tool to my customers to set expectations, to establish rapport, its application is endless, of course common sense and compassion is required to determine when transparency would be harmful, or the situation is too heated.

Read more here on the Zenmanager Blogspot... .. .

Peace,

Kirpal

Implement Viral Values for Positive Change

They say a step of a thousand miles starts with the first step, here is the first blog on the "Zen Manager", which focuses on bringing spiritual wisdom into the workplace.

Why do I need values?

I know from a spiritual perspective having strong guiding positive values is critical for an individual, I believe it is just as important at an organisational level.  At least half of our lives are spent on work, so why make this a painful long drawn experience at work.  Work is a place to learn and grow, as well as recharge with close relationships outside family.

Read more on zenmanager.blogspot.com

Peace,

Kirpal

Where are the Gandhi's of Yesterday?

Image via WikipediaI sit back, and watch the events in Egypt, and it concerns me.  However I am not surprised, I was chatting to a fellow "toastmaster", and I said to him, what is really lacking in the world is a lack of spirituality in World Leaders.  Don't get me wrong, I am not asking them to start chanting Om! in  Congress...

What is Spirituality, except being able to tap into the inherit goodness in your Core being?  What is it other than a sense of Compassion, a sense of Love, a sense of Tolerance, a sense of Self Control, a a sense of Concern and Service for your fellow Human Beings regardless of Caste, Creed or Color and a sense of Humility?

Where are the great spiritual leaders of yesterday? the Gandhis, the Martin Lurther Kings, that were more concerned about the people than themselves, and were deeply spiritual people...

Inherit in the world is a sense of corruption whether it be obvious or subtle and indirect, this degradation is nothing more than a lack of degradation of spirituality and integrity.

Surely being a leader of any sort one should have some sort of true spiritual foundation.  The world is coming to a Climax, and we need the Gandhi's of yesterday to lead the way.

Lets start with only ourselves, this sets forward a snowball effect, with others surely to follow...at the end only truth is sustainable...

Wishing Peace to the Planet,

Kirpal

This work by Kirpal Chauhan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License