The ability to speak English well does not automatically make you a good communicator. There are a few natives who can communicate much better thru sign language than we can with our artery of words. Communication is a 2 way process and involves a feedback loop. The speaker sends a message, which is received by the other person. Now how does the person interpret the message? Do both the speaker & the spoken to understand the message in the same spirit? Often no.
Get into the habit of verifying and summarizing what you have heard and clarify whether the message that you received and understood is the same as the one that was intended. This feedback mechanism will help you avoid a lot of heartache & stress.
Gone are the days when one person knew all that needed to be known to execute a project. Nowadays with the rapid obsolescence of knowledge and the need for specialists and consultants, it does happen that you often have to assemble more than 2 or 3 people of differing backgrounds in order to complete a project successfully. You will then need to cooperate, and collaborate with the different members of your team, with external consultants and of course with your supervisors and higher management. For this you need excellent communication skills to ensure that there is harmony and excellent deliverables.
There is an excellent example of 2 competitors collaborating to execute a huge project in Wipro-InfoSys-UnitedBank’s http://www.123projectmanagement.com/crm-cooperate-wipro.html
The project – While Infosys will provide the core banking solution Wipro InfoTech will be responsible for the end to end implementation and integration of the bank’s centralized IT system. Said Mr. N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies Ltd, “These are days of specialization – while Wipro has tremendous experience in hardware, Infosys has the best software package. Both Wipro and Infosys have been working as a team in several such projects for the past two years and we are at once fierce competitors and good collaborators.”
Naseem Mariam is the editor of “Management that Soars” Newsletter & author of “Project Serenity – How to gain happiness and peace”. Her ritings draw life from her 18 years experience as software Project Manager. Let her guide you towards Faster All Round Success and a Stress Free, Joyous Life. Her free ebook and Newsletter tell You How. Subscribe with mailto:projectdioxide@sendfree.com Visit her at http://www.123projectmanagement.com
