Communication, in my perspective, is a fundamental attribute that shares a symbiotic relationship with both cognitive and affect aspects of the human psyche. Essentially, communication affects, and in turn is affected, by the mental processes of perception, memory, judgment, reasoning, as well as the emotional and volitional processes of the human mind.
The need for effective communication and discourse stems from the intent to establish a point. Such an empirical requirement presents itself in innumerate forms in my future career as an engineer. An engineer’s task is to effectively marry the applied disciplines of science with the practical constraints of economics, culture, and ethics; in order to deliver a sound product.
As engineers, the ability to understand technical jargon is both our strength and weakness. Often we find ourselves speaking in jargon only we understand. Yet the whole point of speaking as part of a team comprising engineers, architects, business personnel and accountants, is to share pieces of vital information. There is a need to demystify these pieces of jargon we, albeit with comfort, so arrogantly speak.
For me as an engineer, effective communication skills provide the avenue to which I can understand what the various levels of audience wish to know, to cater to everyone’s abilities; and ultimately deliver a message with conviction and intent in an effective, inoffensive, and compelling manner. This, I believe, is the bridging factor for an engineer to achieve the optimal balance between productivity, safety, and welfare for both the industry, and the society.
7 comments:
My apologies if this piece came off as somewhat abrupt. I assumed that there was a maximum word limit of 250, ergo the length of this blog post.
You've really hit the nail right on the head. Good communication is about connecting with people not impressing them with big words or jargon.
Thank you Dr Radhika for the comment.
"An engineer’s task is to effectively marry the applied disciplines of science with the practical constraints of economics, culture, and ethics; in order to deliver a sound product."
True indeed. A good engineer may not know everything from these fields of study and hence, good communication skills are required for one to grasp the situation. Effective communication skills encompasses even that of telling others that one is lacking in knowledge for a particular subject. It is important to be able to swallow one's pride(a communication barrier) and to show a sense of humility when confronted with experts from that field. In that way, one is communicating effectively that he or she is someone who is open, humble and receptive to new knowledge from these experts.
I think your blog post is very concise. It was a pleasure reading over and over again. Each time I learn something new(words, terms, ideas).
Thanks once again for strengthening my blog post with your comments.
Thanks Jensern for the comments!
To add to that, I believe one of the biggest challenges for us as engineers, is to fully and effectively convey our thoughts and positions on concepts pertaining to the morals and ethics of engineering.
As professionals, we have a moral obligation to the society. If I may say so in the words of the Code of Ethics; our actions as engineers require a high degree of honesty, impartiality, fairness, and equity, in dedication to the protection of the public's health, safety and welfare.
As such, the need to properly convey our professional and ethical views is vital to the protection and preservation of our society.
Concise yet impactful post. At the same time, it melds a wide variety of effective communication skills in order to deliver its intended message.
In most societies, engineers seldom work alone. Projects are usually completed due to the collaborative efforts put in by a team of engineers and professionals from various fields. Therefore, I do agree with you that engineers should not just put their ideas across with technical terms, expecting others to be able comprehend. Unknowingly, they might come off as aggressive, and this can intimidate others in the team. With effective communication skills, engineers will be able to work effectively and efficiently with others as a cohesive unit, motivating one another to maximise their potentials.
This is truly a well constructed post which gives an informative insight of the challenges of engineers and their need for effective communication skills.
Kudos to you!
Hence forth, my display nickname will be just Eric Lim instead of yakizuya in order to minimise any confusion.
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