A guest post from Irma, a dear friend, blogger, people-analyzer. I hope you like it! And thank you Irma for sharing your voice!
A week ago, while I walked down the street heading to a bus shelter, a young street-boy approached me. He said with a half-teasing voice 'Hey Miss! I know you’re tired. The bus has one last seat for you." He was standing at the shelter, close to the bus door, so I smiled politely, thanked him, and took that lucky last seat. It was definitely a lucky seat, since most of the time it’s hardly possible to get a seat on the bus after office hours. I had desperately needed the seat after a long rough day at work and facing bad traffic on my route heading home. I still remember that moment to this day. The boy had simply teased me, as he might normally does, but it made me think a lot about the way we should communicate with each other.
How many times do we say something with the right understanding of the situation or the people we talk to? Some people might call this is empathy for others. In my opinion, the young boy did not need empathy to say what he said to me. It was my visibly tired face that, in his head, matched with the last seat. He might have deduced this based on his daily experiences. So I see this as an example of understanding the situation without involving empathy.
How many times have we attended seminars, meetings, discussions, with not-so-interesting talks? The way speakers present their slides made them forgettable as soon as the session ended, predictable questions from the audience, or sometimes no questions at all, or very few intriguing questions. Well, I sum these up with a question: how many times do we find interesting conversation/communication every day? Second question: how important is it to have a good/interesting communication?
The first key of good communication that I learned from the young boy is understanding. Understand the situation, background of the people we talk to, their concerns and everything else related with the context of our communications. I (and many friends I met recently) applied for the 1st batch of Indonesia Mengajar – an initiative that sends the best graduated college students to remote areas to teaching elementary school students. We had applied because we felt Anies Baswedan’s (founder of Indonesia Mengajar) letter was very thoughtful and appealing. It moved and touched us, like it’s been written and dedicated specially for us as a person. He understood our anxiety and concerns towards education in Indonesia, and embraced the spirit we had for helping others.
How do we understand people we talk to? Think and learn. The young boy understood the situation because it was his daily experience. He learned about it every day. I believe Anies Baswedan had also done his research and learned from his experience, before he wrote that inspiring letter. Interesting communication is not an instant process. It requires us to think, learn and understand. The process can be from anything and anywhere. Talk to a stranger and learn to understand them. Read various books or interesting articles or videos, all of which we can easily find online. Practice, to anyone you talk with to, even with your cat or dog (they are good listeners, trust me).
Why did I write this article? I am anxious with the communication situation I face every day. People reply long email with only an ‘ok’ statement. People keep silent in the meeting room, even when feedback is needed to develop the program. People do not talk to each other at dinner table, keeping busy with their gadgets. We are human. Communication is our basic need. We have a mouth as part of our body for a reason. We may forget how to speak in the future if we don’t care about it now. Do we use it only for bad intention? Cursing, saying something meaningless, gossiping other people, and so on.
Furthermore, there will be time in our life that we have to say something of importance to others. It could be that proposal moment, graduation speech, presenting to client, asking critical issue in a meeting, and so on. Don’t miss the moment. It might only come once in a lifetime. We have many opportunities to learn about it in advance. Why not start from today?
Irmayani Sembiring
Daily Meaning - People Development Consultant
A week ago, while I walked down the street heading to a bus shelter, a young street-boy approached me. He said with a half-teasing voice 'Hey Miss! I know you’re tired. The bus has one last seat for you." He was standing at the shelter, close to the bus door, so I smiled politely, thanked him, and took that lucky last seat. It was definitely a lucky seat, since most of the time it’s hardly possible to get a seat on the bus after office hours. I had desperately needed the seat after a long rough day at work and facing bad traffic on my route heading home. I still remember that moment to this day. The boy had simply teased me, as he might normally does, but it made me think a lot about the way we should communicate with each other.
How many times do we say something with the right understanding of the situation or the people we talk to? Some people might call this is empathy for others. In my opinion, the young boy did not need empathy to say what he said to me. It was my visibly tired face that, in his head, matched with the last seat. He might have deduced this based on his daily experiences. So I see this as an example of understanding the situation without involving empathy.
How many times have we attended seminars, meetings, discussions, with not-so-interesting talks? The way speakers present their slides made them forgettable as soon as the session ended, predictable questions from the audience, or sometimes no questions at all, or very few intriguing questions. Well, I sum these up with a question: how many times do we find interesting conversation/communication every day? Second question: how important is it to have a good/interesting communication?
The first key of good communication that I learned from the young boy is understanding. Understand the situation, background of the people we talk to, their concerns and everything else related with the context of our communications. I (and many friends I met recently) applied for the 1st batch of Indonesia Mengajar – an initiative that sends the best graduated college students to remote areas to teaching elementary school students. We had applied because we felt Anies Baswedan’s (founder of Indonesia Mengajar) letter was very thoughtful and appealing. It moved and touched us, like it’s been written and dedicated specially for us as a person. He understood our anxiety and concerns towards education in Indonesia, and embraced the spirit we had for helping others.
How do we understand people we talk to? Think and learn. The young boy understood the situation because it was his daily experience. He learned about it every day. I believe Anies Baswedan had also done his research and learned from his experience, before he wrote that inspiring letter. Interesting communication is not an instant process. It requires us to think, learn and understand. The process can be from anything and anywhere. Talk to a stranger and learn to understand them. Read various books or interesting articles or videos, all of which we can easily find online. Practice, to anyone you talk with to, even with your cat or dog (they are good listeners, trust me).
Why did I write this article? I am anxious with the communication situation I face every day. People reply long email with only an ‘ok’ statement. People keep silent in the meeting room, even when feedback is needed to develop the program. People do not talk to each other at dinner table, keeping busy with their gadgets. We are human. Communication is our basic need. We have a mouth as part of our body for a reason. We may forget how to speak in the future if we don’t care about it now. Do we use it only for bad intention? Cursing, saying something meaningless, gossiping other people, and so on.
Furthermore, there will be time in our life that we have to say something of importance to others. It could be that proposal moment, graduation speech, presenting to client, asking critical issue in a meeting, and so on. Don’t miss the moment. It might only come once in a lifetime. We have many opportunities to learn about it in advance. Why not start from today?
Irmayani Sembiring
Daily Meaning - People Development Consultant