Colours of Conversation

I just attended a course on communication skills last week. I was hoping to pick up some tips on making conversation, in order to better network with other people. People networking is an important part of work, especially when you move up whichever corporate ladder it is that you’re climbing. This is one of those soft skills that one has to polish up in order to work effectively.

The course has an interesting title, Colours of Conversation, and it was run by Rebecca Low, a broadcaster for 25 years since the era of RTS. I can barely remember RTS. The course was kept very easy-going. I think everyone likes courses that are relaxing, because many people attend courses to escape the stress of their typical work day. Personally, I felt the pace was a little too slow. I don’t think it’s just because I’m the get-to-the-facts do-away-with-the-small-talk kind of person.

I find increasingly that many of these self-enrichment courses I attend are basically a large part of hashing up the obvious and the common sense things. It’s the kind of things that, if you think about it hard enough, you should already have known but for whatever reason you have not paid attention to, or failed to realize its significance. Maybe that’s because I’ve attended enough courses, seen and heard enough, that there is only so few earth-shattering revelations left to know about. Nevertheless, I still enjoy learning from these courses, because I need to be reminded about the obvious and the common sense things every so often.

But there was something interesting in this course. Rebecca brought along a video camera to shoot us making a simple presentation and later making conversation in a group. I’ve never really seen myself on “TV” (so to speak), and it was something I found very useful to see a video that focused on how we conversed. We’re seeing how others see us. I think, even without any input from Rebecca, we could at least pick up some things on our own that we needed to improve or fix. With professional input, as well as some input from peers, we learn a few more things.

Among other things, we saw quite a bit of video about how current US President Barack Obama was a good speaker that captivated the hearts and souls of so many people, both in and out of the US. Personally, I feel that typically politicians have to be good communicators, but their kind of communications might not be the same sort that we need or can practise in our lives. Is it the same sort of thing that captures the winning vote of millions of countrymen that will also work in making a sales presentation? Well, alright, there are perhaps some basic qualities that are the same.