Effective Communication => Success

I was once told that St. Lucians, my native people, are horrible communicators. Do you think so? Now of course, everyone doesn't fall under this generalization but after measuring myself on the effective communication beam again, I found out that I too was falling short in some areas. What is it that makes us not respond to emails written specifically to us because we're not particularly interested in the request, proposal or information? Don't you think it would be polite to at least reply with "received' or "Thanks but not interested" or something similar to indicate that the message was delivered?

Another famous scenario is when something happens to Person A which causes his or her plans to change but Person A doesn't bother or see the need to inform Person B of those changes. I've wondered if our fear of conflict is behind this practice and since communication is a bridge to conflict, we sometimes try to avoid it at all cost. Unfortunately, we fail to learn that avoiding conflict in this scenario only breeds further conflict as person B's first response would go something like, "Why didn't you tell me that earlier?" And what about the way we communicate on facebook, MSN, BBM and and whatsapp? Why do people just walk away from conversations without saying "BRB" or "on the phone" or "I'm walking away from this conversation?" lol.

When you are not clear about something, it leaves room for other people to speculate and add their own versions or reasons for your action. So regardless of our feelings,moods or interests, we ought to take a more pro-active approach to communication if we want to build significant relationships that will propel us to success. Fight the urge to ignore that email or ping and try to respond out of courtesy in no less than 3 days. Dare to be different! It will make those who sent it respect you more for it, even if you said that "you were not interested." We can't get very far if we don't communicate effectively.