Communication is the act of conveying or transferring an information, thought, feelings or an idea from one entity to other, which can be a group of people, an individual or a mass. Communication involve exchange or action.

Why is communication important?
Communication helps us to express ourselves. I helps us to share our ideas, t helps us to polish our idea, It help us to make others understand what we know in the job interview, It helps us in executing a project plan, move up the career ladder and so on. Imagine this, You know everything about a project, from bottom to the tip, the project may be your baby, but what if you do not have the skills to explain what it is all about? Will your career move up?

What are the components in effective communication?
1. Source
2. Medium
3. Receiver

When you converse face to face with another person, the source is you the communicator. the medium is air and receiver is the other person sitting at the other end[ Source -> Medium -> Receiver ].
But is this effective communication? No, communication is not complete till you get a feedback from the receiver. Communication is effective, only if the idea/information/thought …etc. are conveyed to the receiver in a manner that the receiver understand it properly.

For instance if I do not understand Chinese and if some one is talking to me in Chinese, we cannot say that there is a communication happening between that man and me. [Talk to me in English/ Hindi/ Malayalam/ Tamil and I'll respond!]

What are communication skills ?
Last week I was going through a magazine(CTO Forum) and an article, titled “The Inner Ear caught my attention. After reading that article, I formulated the essence of communication. “TO LISTEN”, is what we need to do to communicate effectively. I am not forgetting the other essence like the Presentation skills, linguistic skills and feedback skills. But, if you can listen(not hear), and add value to the conversation, people will love to communicate with you. So basic skills required to communicate would be listen, speak, read, and write in the order of priority.

So what is listening?
Listening is the conscious act of hearing, understanding, analysis, interpreting, raising objection or feedback, and adding value to the discussion. Once you listen to a conversation, you will remember the idea/concept as well.

What is that hinder effective listening?
The main block to listening are mood swings(psychological), physical issues, poor transmission from source, not being attentive, close mildness (may be even because of prejudice), distractions.

What is to be done to enhance communication?
To conclude,
Be prepared to communicate
be ready to listen
be ready to give enhancements
be ready to deliver

* Communication can be verbal, written, in e-format, in media format and so on. This is a general introduction, and mainly applicable to verbal communication. Be in technical or non technical field, communication is extremely important in career perspective, especially when it decides your fate in job interviews, or promotion in the current company. In case of any assistance on this matter you can mail sysfun [at] gmail [dot] com or use the comment form of this technical / career blog.