One of the best speakers/communicators that I know
personally is my sister Nikki. There are several traits that contribute to her
way of communicating: 1) She is open minded, 2) she tries her best to remain unbiased
and to see all perspectives of a situation, 3) the style of the speech (the
words she choices, her “voice”), 4) she speaks with confidence, and lastly, 4)
she is a very attentive listener. As stated in this chapter being a good
listener is key in any type of interaction or communication. And I believe that
Nikki’s amazing listening skills has a great affect on all of her other
speaking attributes. For example, Nikki tries her best to listen to all points
of a situation without any biases or prejudgments. This in turn, gives her a
better perspective on things.
I can’t pinpoint anyone in particular who I think is a
horrible speaker, but I do know what traits a horrible speaker has; the number
one trait being terrible listening skills. I strongly dislike anyone who is closed minded and unwilling
to hear anyone else’s opinion or understand anyone else’s perspective. Being
unwilling to listen makes two way communication (or any type of communication
for that matter) almost impossible because only one person is transmitting
messages without there being any receiving or feedback.
I like how you mentioned some of your sisters best traits when it comes to communication. Those are all very important communication skills. I agree with you, about listening skills being very important. When we have good listening skills, we are open to many ideas and points of view which we can learn a lot from. From your example, under your sister's Nikki trait, I think number 1 and 2 mean the same thing which is being open minded. You gave good examples that we all should apply in our communication skills.
ReplyDeleteI agree that a speaker shouldn't be closed minded, but at the same time I believe that we all have our differences and should be able to stand on our grown if we strongly believe in something. As long as we respect the other person's opinion and are good listeners then we are doing a good job in interacting and keeping the communication going.