Utilising Communication Skills for Personal Development (Part 4)

The Social State of Man

This is the aspect of man that describes his relationship with people. Hargie (1997:10), citing Combs and Slaby, defines social skill as ‘the ability to interact with others in a given social context in specific ways that are socially acceptable or valued and at the same time personally beneficial mutually beneficial or beneficial primarily to others’.

 

The Professional/Vocational Aspect of Man

This is usually an offshoot of all the other sides of man as they affect his job or career. The professional state of man has to do with his competence and performance at work. In other words, this can be described by his competence and performance in relation to his job or tasks.

Having thus established the foregoing, let us now go on to consider how the four communication skills can be used to enhance these aspects of man to attain a maximized life style.

Utilising Communication Skills for Personal Development (Part 3)

What is Personal Development?
We cannot attempt a definition of the term Personal Development without first taking a look at the keyword “development”. So what is development? Adesanoye (1995:4) citing Mabogunje, describes development as ‘a many-sided process. At the level of the individual, it implies increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility and material well-being’.

Taking a cue from this, we can then define personal development as a conscious, disciplined and sustained series of investment in the self through the acquisition of knowledge and skills, as well as applying the acquired knowledge and skills for enhanced lifestyle. 

Areas of Personal Development

The development of the self is as composite an entity as the nature of man himself. It consists of various interdependent forms of human, which all work together to produce a better person when cultivated, or result in a debased existence when ignored. These different aspects of man that need cultivation for development are his:

§  Spiritual state

§  Mental state

§  Emotional state

§  Physical state

§  Social status, and his

§  Profession or vocation

Before we go ahead to consider how communication skills can be used to develop these different aspects of man, it will be appropriate to examine them briefly.

 

The Spiritual State of Man

Man is a tripartite being. He is mainly made up of a spirit, a soul, and a body. The spiritual side of man has to do with the state of his spirit in relation to God, his Maker. However, it is appropriate to state at this point that due to my subscription to the Christian faith, all my discourse on the spiritual state of man will be treated from the Christian perspective and the Christian scriptures, the Holy Bible.

 

The Mental State of Man

The Mental state of man is one of the two components of his soul. The soul, which is said to be the real man, comprises the mental faculty and the emotions. The mental faculty involves the mind (thoughts bank) as well as the intellectual state of man.

 

The Emotional State of Man

This is the second side of the man’s soul. The emotion, according to Hargie (1997:38) has three main components; “the direct conscious experiences or feeling of emotion, the physiological processes that accompany emotions, and the observable behavioural actions used to express emotion”. In simple terms, emotion comprises the feelings and desires of man in their expressed and unexpressed form. 

Utilising Communication Skills for Personal Development (Part 2)

What is Communication?

Different scholars have proffered various definitions to describe communication. However, for the purpose of this study, we will make do with Hybels’ and Weaver’s (2001:6) proposition that “Communication is any process in which people share information, ideas and feelings. It involves not only the spoken and written word but also body language, personal mannerisms, and style - anything that adds meaning to a message”.

Going ahead to stress the importance of communication in daily existence, they also say that:    

It is vital in all areas of life. You use it to persuade; to influence relationships, to inform and to share, to discover and uncover information... Communication, and how to communicate, is so important to daily life that it spawned [sic] an entire industry of books, articles, and seminar explaining how to do it better.

To live…is to communicate. To communicate effectively is to enjoy life more (2001:5-6).

Communication Skills

There are a number of skills involved in the art of communicating. Beck, Bennet and Wall (2002:125) highlight a general list of communication skills as:

§  Speaking, listening, empathizing

§  Reading and observing

§  Identifying and using sources of information

§  Planning and structuring a presentation

§  Oral presentation skills

§  Dealing with questions

§  Reviewing own performance

§  Using IT to communicate

However, in this discourse, we shall focus only on the four major communication skills, which are also known as the four language arts. They are: 

§  Listening

§  Speaking

§  Reading, and

§  Writing

Utilising Communication Skills for Personal Development (Part 1)

Man is innately selfish in varying degrees, depending on the extent of\; hence, the focus on what I am getting as opposed to what I am giving.

should The This is an anomaly, Rohn (2005a) notes that:

What you become is far more important than what you get. The important question to ask on the job is not, “What am I getting?” Instead, you should ask, “What am I becoming?“ Getting and becoming are like Siamese twins: what you have today you have attracted by becoming the person you are today.

…. Income rarely exceeds personal development. Sometimes income takes a Lucky jump, but unless you learn to handle the responsibilities that come with it, it will usually shrink back to the amount you can handle….

It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development.

With this background on the importance of personal development as an essential requisite to enhance one’s lot in life, let us proceed to examine the inherent potentials there are in communication skills to achieve personal development; and how we as communication scholars can utilize these skills to develop ourselves and ultimately build a life worth celebrating.  The objectives of this paper therefore are:

§  The draw our attention to the sacrosanct and utilitarian nature of communication.

§  To acquaint us with the different areas of personal development there are

§  To examine how we can use communication skills to explore the various forms of personal development training to enhance ourselves.

Meanwhile, it will be apposite at this point to define some key terms that we will come across in this paper to aid our understanding.

How to Write A Winning Business Proposal (Part 2)

7 Sins of Business Proposal Writing

1.   Failure to focus on the client’s business problems and payoff

2.   No persuasive structure

3.   No clear differentiation of one compared to other vendors

4.   Failure to offer compelling value proposition

5.   Key points are buried or not highlighted

6.   Difficult to read because they are full of jargons

7.   Contain credibility killers – misspelling, grammar and punctuation errors, wrong use of client’s name, inconsistent formatting, etc

The Value of Business Proposals

To Clients

- It helps clients to compare vendors, offers or price so s/he can make an informed decision

- It helps clients to clarify complex information

- It makes the buying decision more objective for the clients

- It slows down the sales process, so clients do not feel rushed into a deal or feel taken advantage of

- Helps clients to solicit creative ideas, become educated or get free consulting

To You

- It helps you to sell

- It helps you to sell on value instead of price

- It helps you to compete successfully without having personal contact

- It enables you to sell a technical solution to a non-technical buyer

- The proposal is your marketing tool

- It helps you to influence clients or make an impression on them

- It helps to demonstrate your competence and professionalism

How to Write A Winning Business Proposal (Part 3)

Seven Key Questions To Keep You Client-focused

It is possible to jump into developing a proposal with the mind of engaging people to sign up for your cause or patronise your services. However, if such a proposal is not developed with the receiver in mind, it will probably meet a brick wall and not achieve the desired result.

In developing a proposal, here are some of the important questions you need to ask yourself that will make the document speaks to the specific needs of your client, rather than merely publicize your own solutions off the mark:

1. What is the client’s problem or need?

2. Why is this problem worth solving?

3. Which of my product/services can solve the problem or meet the need?

4. What goals will be achieved by whatever action is taken?

5. Which goal has the highest priority to them?

6. What results are likely to follow from each of my recommendations?

7. Comparing these results to the customer’s desired outcomes or goals, which recommendation is best?

Thanks for reading!

How to Write A Winning Business Proposal (Part 1)

Proposals are selling instruments which you use to solicit the patronage of your offerings or a buy-in for your cause, idea or project. Proposals do not just present only facts about your goods or organisation, but also information on the processes of executing a given project or delivering a particular service.

Generally, proposals should be:

- Accurate in information

- Detailed in coverage and

- Persuasive in presentation

What Business Proposal is Not

- It is not just a price quote

- It is not just a bill of materials

- It is not a project plan or scope of work

- It is not all about the company’s history either

Ideally, all of these should be included in your proposal. But it is more than the summation of them together. A Proposal is a sales document designed to drive the sales process towards closure!

Proposals’Litmus Tests

Generally, proposals provide answers to three basic questions:

- Why are the goods or services you are proposing worth acquiring?

- What the receiver gain from the product, service or project?

- How can your claims or promised results be validated?

Qualities of a Winning Proposal

Good business proposals should…

1.   Identify with the problems of the client

2.   Contain convincing information

3.   Contain ample details and credible explanations

4.   Be thorough and clear

5.   Be consistent in structure, language and presentation

6.   Indicate the competitive advantage of your solution

7.   Be attractive to the client in terms of cost, and

8.   Contain selling features such as track records and profile of the company.