Effective communication is hard to define. What’s the measurement for what’s “effective” and what’s not? Sometimes communication has delayed effects. Are we measuring the effects in the short term or long term? It’s nice to pump up the ego and think our communication is effective. But what are others feeling and thinking? How are they receiving our stories and what deep ideological connections are you awakening?
Truth be told, I wasn’t aware of the extent to which many
people have a fear of speaking in public until a light switched on a few days
ago. Before my corporate public speaking training sessions, I run linguistic
analyses with each individual to get a sense of their needs. I then group the
needs together to create collective narratives. What emerges is always
fascinating. People experience a range of speaking problems related to psychological,
linguistic, and social aspects. Even though this is what I do every day, I don’t
think I truly understood the issue in its fullness.
Many people are living in a state of being muted. Because of
their apprehension to use their voice, they end up communicating their needs,
pains, concerns, thoughts and feelings in other ways. Sometimes these
alternative ways aren’t helpful or healthy and can miss out on a lot of
opportunities.
There’s a heap of noise out there. A lot of stories being
told by the same minority of people dominating the story space. We need your
voice to balance out the noise. It all starts with a step of courage to be a
little open with your feelings, experiences, perspectives and thoughts. If you’re
not a risk taker, this may be out of your comfort zone. But remember, with risk
comes the possibility of reward – for yourself and the collective narrative.