“Birds do it, bees do it. Even educated fleas do it...”
Don’t let your mind wander. What I’m talking about in this context is communication!
Communication has been part of our lives since time immemorial. Whether it’s about the spoken language or the written language, man has always felt the need to communicate.
In fact I’d say even a common language is unnecessary for communication. Even early man would make do with simple hand actions. Of course, in those days there was nothing much to communicate about, other than “sleep”, “want food”, and perhaps “scratch head, there’s a flea stuck”!
Jokes apart, in today’s era, almost every walk of life requires us to work in a team or a group, whether it’s in university life where group projects and discussions will be an everyday matter, or in our professional lives, where your boss might just hand you over with a problem one day and expect your team to come up with solutions, the next.
For instance, in my final year in high school, we, the members of the student council, were in charge of organizing a major event in school, without any help from the staff. So right from collecting funds, arranging the decor, printing the invites, making the souvenirs and putting up the final show, all were managed by dividing the work equally amongst us, and making sure everyone's ideas were implemented, which was only possible through effective communication and teamwork.
While working in a team we might have to work closely with people of different cultures and backgrounds, dissimilar ideas and contrasting points of view. It is in such scenarios that effective team communication comes into play. And in order to get the best outcome of the job at hand, the essential thing needed is collaboration and cooperation. Through teamwork and collaboration, each member can co-operatively work on the project, solve problems, negotiate and resolve conflicts easily.
In other words, effective team communication is what will bridge the team together, maximize the group performance and voilà, you’ll create genius!
I came across an interesting video about Understanding The Importance Of Team Work and communication - Ants Building A Farm Over A Two Week Period (In fact more than the video, it were the quotes, shown intermittently, that drew my attention)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKucprXVGMU&feature=related
Dear Sasha,
ReplyDeleteI liked the way I was introduced to your post with a very interesting photo which easily summarizes the ideas of communication. It was through these primitive methods that human communications evolved after all.
Followed by that, the quote caught my attention, drawing me to read on. I thought to myself, "What has bees and birds got to do with communication?"
The topic was livened up with your bubbly and cheerful personality which was prevalent through the post. Nice!
Just a sidenote, you can embed videos into your blog posts. Just go into "Edit HTML" when creating your post. On Youtube, they do provide HTML codes which you can copy into your HTML under embed. :)
Good luck with all your future posts!
Hey cy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the help reagarding the videos:)
Looking forward to reading your blog
Hi Sasha,
ReplyDeleteI like your video! It shows me the strength of communication. And the early time part makes me laugh and fully agree.
As you write, communication is wanted by man in every stage of time. It makes projects done and connects the whole world. When we post a comment we are actually convey information to others.
Hope to read your next post soon! :)
Cai Qidan
Hi Sasha,
ReplyDeleteYou have a very interesting way of starting a post. I think it is good to start with a joke because that keep readers go on reading no matter whatever boring contents the post might have. That is exactly what we should aim for, because usually readers do not realize how useful the post may be for them before they read.
You also did a good job summarizing the use of communication and teamwork in daily life, short but precise and to the point. Other than that, the video is also pretty interesting.
Keep up the good job!
Ha Xuan Truong Kris
Hi Sasha,
ReplyDeleteThis blog post has been both informative and intriguing. The limitless use of examples and scenairos really helps to bring your ideas across to the readers and also makes your post more interesting to read.
The most interesting takeaway from this post would be the point that communication does not require a common language. As we all know, it is almost impossible to relay specific instructions or comments without a common spoken/written language between two parties. However, simple non-verbal forms of communications can often do what many languages can’t . A simple smile or a warm handshake can often convey more than what an essay can! Mastering the art of communication certainly is not just about being good in our command of a language. It is about mastering all forms of communication techniques and learning how we can use our command of languages to get our point across to others.
Enjoy!
Hi Sasha,
ReplyDeleteI like the video of ants.
It seems that in the great nature, there are much more than one species understands the power of teamwork. The similarity between human and ants is, we all know that teamwork is essential. For ants, the simplest benefit from teamwork is getting complicated jobs done easily and effectively. However, for highly intelligent human being ourselves, teamwork will ensure that we can accomplish something we are not able to do alone, share different sorts of ideas and inspirations and learn the experiences as well as mistakes from others, in order to finish different tasks and develop oneself and the entire group.
However, the difference between us and ants is, we are able to communicate verbally as well as through other forms of communication but the ants cannot. We are able to reflect and exchange ideas about how to improve our abilities whereas the ants will only “communicate” simple information like ”where the food is” and “how are we gonna do next ”, and their communication is therefore, not effective.
This is what your video tells me.