Effective Communication Strategies

I am definitely guilty of communicating differently with many of my colleagues, family members and personal associates. During professional time, I have learned a lot about my colleagues and how they feel about certain aspects of life concerning race, religion, politics, sexual orientation and disabilities among children and staff. I do not discuss in details with others about topics that are very sacred to them or connected strongly with their family views. One thing I do stress is that these feeling do not affect their work because I will not tolerate that. We all have our religious beliefs and our political choices, but I also say we keep these parts of our lives to ourselves because in this program we teach our kids about the world and that includes every religion and holidays that we can.  I do often find myself avoiding conversations with certain individuals because I know we will continue to butt heads and that just leads to more miscommunication.  Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to allow people to speak their minds without passing judgment. Being a good listener can help me to become an effective communicator and allow others to feel comfortable with me.

            Concerning family members, we have spent our lives getting to know each other, and we know what topics to avoid. I have family members that follow different religious paths e.g. Muslim, Hindu, Christianity and Pentecostal. We all know who celebrates what holidays and we do our best to respect each other’s special time and we definitely restrain from making comments. Religion is a big topic in my family that we cannot agree on, so we “Agree to Disagree.” I know my communication varies depending on what role I am in because I try to learn and absorb information that is provide to me by the people that I interact with. I keep my relationship happy by respecting. My family and I have learned to share our joys and sorrows with each other and we have learned how to support each other in a productive manner. In my family sometimes staying quiet is the best advice you can give. We are very big and giving hugs and making each other laugh, and that usually removes the tension in the room.

In order to make my communication more effective, I try to maintain a professional manner by following three strategies:

1)      Learn to listen without talking.

2)      Do not offer my opinions or suggestions unless they are asked for.

3)      Remember respect and acceptance builds try relationship while ignorance creates more conflict.

Communication is important me because it a way that I get to know people and the way I get to express who I am to others. I always feel people tend to “Judge A Book by its Cover”. I want to change what people think of me when I express who I am underneath.