It’s not what you say it, It’s the way how you say it, sometimes!!!🙂😡
Communication can be tricky, sometimes. It has its own way to either get better or worst. “It is not what you say, but It is how you say it matters a lot!”… At some point in our lives we have all been in a situation where you meant to say something else, and it came out in the wrong way, haven’t we?
We tend to think that communication is a verbal exercise, while in fact communication — particularly public presentation — is a physical activity as well.
Remember, it is you, in physical form, who are presenting those words to the people in front of you, and your body carries its own spontaneous messages through your gestures and your tone of voice. So it’s possible that your words may be saying one thing, but your body language or your tone quite another. Unfortunately, it is your body language which resonates most with people in front of you.
Growing up, I had and always have a direct communication style. Coming from a liberal family, where free expression was encouraged, I was someone who spoke my mind without any thoughful consideration. I never realized that I may have unintentionally appeared insensitive to others’ points of view. I once got into an argument with my friend, saying – “That is not what I meant. Is it my fault if you interpreted it that way?” Of course, my friend, being a mature one, chose to keep quiet at the time, as she did not want to encourage this conversation any further. Later, when we met again, realizing that it was my mistake, I regretted. She lovingly told me its okay dear and then calmly said – ” It’s not what you say. It’s the way you say it that matters!” Those wise words have resonated with me ever since and I always never forget to keep those in mind.
Communication can be hard and tricky! There are different communication styles out there, and there is no communication that is inbuilt. It’s more to do with understanding different personality traits and learning how to communicate accordingly. I have an organic communication style. Being detail-oriented, I would converse with my family members and friends by going through each and every detail from start to finish. I had to make sure that I had not missed anything. On numerous occasions, my family would patiently wait until I would finish what I had to say. At other times they would say, “Can you come to the point please!” Later, as I stepped into the real world, this pattern continued. Then I joined an IT company as a software test engineer. After joining there,
I learned that my project leader was someone who preferred that when people communicate with him, they cut right to the chase. Then very quickly, I learned that both an intuitive as well as an analytical communication style since my job role demanded that as well. And after he was one of those people that preferred talking to the point. While he was was comfortable with big ideas and out-of-the-box thinking, he was firmly in facts and data as well. In one of my meetings with him, he had asked me to come up with a new test strategies for the testing. I was about to gravitate towards my usual process-driven, detailed communication when I stopped. Those wise words- “It’s not what you say. It is the way you say it” kept echoing in my ears. I immediately changed my strategy and gave him short bullet point recommendations and then asked him which of those would he want to hear more about. By presenting it this way, he was able to pick and choose the recommendations that he wanted to explore. The outcome of this meeting was that he not only loved my ideas, but he made me lead the entire project. He was well aware of my detail-oriented nature and my love to implement processes to get things accomplished. This time, my communication style worked in my favor.
I also discovered that I possessed a personal communication style. I valued emotional language and connection with my co-humans, and I used that as a mode of learning what they were thinking. People felt comfortable approaching me with any obstacles they encountered. As I was a good listener, I was able to smooth over most of the conflicts that took place. They always turned to me as the ‘glue’ that held people around me together.😎🤗🌹
– Manimozhi Ilango
My Fatty Brain Cell 