Communications Task - Assignment Example

Part 1. Oscar Wilde, the renowned Irish and aesthete, is famous for his aphorisms. According to him, “the essence of thought, as the essenceof life, is growth”. It is generally understood that life progresses through growth of some kind or the other. When there is no sufficient growth in life as expected, people tend to get upset about it. The same is the situation when thoughts do not grow from one thing to the other. The idea of “essence” itself brings a lot of life to the statement. It refers to the significance of thought in one’s life. An integral part of life is experienced through thoughts. In fact, it is not what happens to us that becomes an experience, but rather, how we think about what happens to us. This way, thoughts progress eventually and become part of our growth. 2. Clarence Darrow, who had the reputation of being an excellent American lawyer and civil libertarian, feels that the power to think rests in the power to laugh. If you are unable to laugh, it means you create a situation where your thoughts are stifled by unnecessary stress. The positive energy of laughter creates an ambience for clear, proactive thoughts. People who are ill-tempered are also known to be thoughtless. On the other hand, those who are able to see the lighter side of life in everything emerge as true winners where the power of thoughts is the need of the hour. Moreover, a person with a sense of humour connects well with others, and her/his thoughts can very well be communicated to others quickly because of this. 3. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American writer who led the Transcendentalist Movement in the mid 19th century, believes that the hardest task on earth is to think. There is a common misunderstanding that it is quite easy to ‘think’, but the truth remains that real thinking calls for intelligence and logical aptitude. Otherwise, one may end up acting thoughtlessly. It is not the quantity of thought, but its quality that matters ultimately. Anyone who is capable of using quality time thinking about something relevant is apt to come up with new perspectives n life, and in some cases, even solutions to the most difficult problems in life. None of the scientific inventions and historical discoveries could have materialized out of thoughtless endeavors. Thoughts are tough to materialize out of vacuum; it calls for dedicated work for a prolonged time. 4. Voltaire, the French philosopher and writer, reveals how those who think are excessively few in the world. And he adds that those who do not think set themselves to disturb the world. This statement contains a lot of truth in it. Those who think are generally the ones who care for individual and social betterment. On the other hand, the thoughtless ones are never satisfied with themselves or their immediate surroundings. For them, the beauty of inventive thinking and its good effects are totally alien. Their destructive streak arises from a deep frustration that comes of having nothing worthwhile to think about and later act upon. An analysis of the life and thought processes of anti-social people will reveal that they are ruthless because they were never taught were able to pict up the habit of creative thinking. Part 2 A major part of our life is shaped by unpredictable situations and their outcomes. No matter how hard we try to be cautious and stay away from it, certain courses of life turn out to leave us helpless. It is during such situations that we have to retreat a bit and think about surrendering to the pattern of life which is much larger than what we could imagine. However, this does not mean that we have to give up our thoughts and planning. In fact, one learns to surrender to certain situations after immense amounts of thinking. For those involved in work that depends on strategic planning, there is an equal possibility of being derailed by totally unexpected events and consequences and also of being highly successful. Unforeseen circumstances that lead to temporal failures might be taken as they are, since there may not be any meaning in thinking negatively about the things that could have worked differently if we did something differently. It is better to surrender to the situation when it goes out of hand, but instead of giving up totally, one should sped more quality time to analyze the whole affair and try to see where something went wrong. This will definitely lead to a better situation where an informed decision could become the saving grace of a day in the future. The more experiences of surrender one has, the more capable s/he becomes. It is healthy to surrender in personal and social life, in order to be perceptive and proactive in future ventures. Part 3 Face-to-face presentations and virtual webinars need a lot of homework and planning. Since both rely on an audience-friendly approach, one should try to towards a good balance of visuals/graphics and narration. The target group of audience and their possible attention span has to be negotiated in advance. Virtual webinars call for a lot more of inventiveness. In a face-to-face presentation, one gets direct feedback, and can improvise on the spot. For instance, if one feels that the audience is not really grasping or responding to the facts and figures in verbal explanations, one can make more use of presentation slides and video clips. Or, one can even think of asking pertinent questions that may set others to think and stay active during the presentation. On the other hand, a virtual webinar has to rely totally on preconceived notions of possible responses from the audience. There could not be even a second of distraction from the main idea. Moreover, there is no real face-to-face interaction possible while doing a virtual webinar, and this may lead to a situation where one has to pack the presentation with attention grabbers. Since it may not be possible to check whether the audience has grasped the concepts completely, it may be a better idea to repeat them systematically and provide a very comprehensive conclusion. Extensive research and proper homework should be the key elements when one tries to a virtual webinar. Proper enquiries should be made about the target audience and their priorities. It may also be a good idea to have a trial face-to-face presentation among colleagues who could provide constructive criticism. Part 4 The power of proper communication in building up a diverse community is evident in most of the corporate work settings across the world. Though there could be exceptions to this, as conflicts arise out of a lack of proper understanding of diversity, one could very well work towards bridging such gaps through effective presentations. One may need to work on effective problem solving by identifying the problem, reflecting upon the possibilities of addressing it, planning with the right kind of information and performing the required act in order to bring in a solution to the problem. Diversity could exist in simple social structures like the family as well as the complex intangible realms of individual and social ideology. In order to deal with it properly, one should need a clear perception of the very idea of diversity. What makes an individual or a specific community different from another? Most of the time the reasons for antagonism and hostility arise among groups when there is no proper understanding of diversity. Difference from each other marks the harmony of human groups, rather than marring it. It is the proper acceptance and balancing of differences that brings in cultural diversity to good effect. The narrow-minded prejudices regarding, colour, gender, race, age and physical attributes will naturally lead to chaos while a realistic approach to these and the understanding that it is foolish to dream of a world of clones who look, think and act the same way would take any organization to great heights. Effective presentations take into account the diversity factor in the target audience. It avoids racist, sexist and ageist remarks and tries to be inclusive to the core. The messages, concepts and exhortations will gain a lot more meaning if the audience feels they are all addressed and included equally in the project. Proper homework on the demographic constitution of an organization pays a lot as far as effective presentations are concerned. Moreover, an effective presentation will also address possible cultural misunderstandings among a target group. It will try to negotiate diversity among the group on the basis of mutual understanding and respect. The reasons for prejudices may be identified beforehand and addressed in a friendly yet provocative manner in order to impart clear thinking and reflection on being at the receiving end of any sort of unjust prejudice, leading to empathize with those towards whom one might have had unnecessary prejudices. Effective leadership ensues from the realization that there are more things to differences than we perceive. It is a good idea to pursue a path of learning and recognition of diversity, but even better is to be willing to respect even those differences that we are unable to understand fully. It should be understood that everyone is entitled to have personal opinions, tastes and ideologies the way we have it. A good communicator among cultures would have an inclusive stance on diversity, and this will reflect on any sort of public address that involves requests and exhortations. As a rule, one should shun sexism, racism, ageism and other sorts of prejudices even in thoughts. Read More