The power of communication

A leading business school recently conducted a survey of its former students’ careers, grading them after 20 years of completing the course. Surprisingly, the successful ones were not the academic toppers, but those who knew how to work in teams and, more importantly, had good communication skills.

Chanakya knew the power of communicating well. In fact, he highlighted how it’s even easy to use words as a weapon, and to avoid the same: “Defamation, vilification and threat constitute verbal injury” (3.18.1).

When you get down to it, you realise that every person requires ‘appreciation’. If you cannot appreciate others, you certainly cannot indulge in the opposite:

‘Defamation’

It means to defame or insult a person, among others. This is used often as a tool by opponents to get public support. Politicians, celebrities and well-known people always use and abuse defamation. Any top-level official in an organisation also becomes a soft target for defamation. Basically, it questions the credibility and good-will of the person. You should never do that, unless and until you have your facts right.

‘Vilification’

It means backbiting. But you should remember: “If you want to appreciate someone – do it in front of others; if you want to tell him his wrong doings do it when he is alone”.

Backbiting does not solve any problems. In fact, it’s a sign of a weak person. If you feel there is something wrong, go and explain directly to the person concerned why you feel the situation needs to be corrected.

You see, backbiting creates a lot of negative energy which is harmful not only to the person targeted, but also to the one who does it, as well as those who listen to it. This has to be avoided.

‘Threat’

This means warning a person and trying to infuse fear into him. While dialogues like “Do this, or else...” are common among competing youth, it is defined as a crime as one matures.

Never try to infuse fear into a person. The reason being that it is not only dangerous in the eyes of the law, but also for you in the long-term as you never know when the person will have the will to hit back.

The best way to communicate is in a soft, yet firm manner. Chanakya had once said: “When you communicate, it should be Satyam and Priyam, i.e. being truthful in a nice manner.”

Develop these qualities to succeed in life.

(The author is a ‘strategic management’ trainer and consultant, and is the Director of SPM Foundation, vision of which is to bring back ancient Indian knowledge in modern day applications. He can be emailed at rchanakyapillai@gmail.com)