Apart from warmth, the sun generously offers so many other ingredients to make the universe beautiful and a livable place. The moon comes up in the east, radiates the silvery and cool rays, illuminates the night and vanishes secretly in the following morning. If the moon does not present on the sky night becomes miserable with full of thick darkness.
The sun and the moon do not gain anything for their own profit but serve others. The earth we stand offers an enormous range of comforts for healthy existence of living beings with no reluctance. The earth never expects back an appreciation for its generosity but stays calm. Rivers flow down peacefully providing precious water to the survival of living and “non” living beings and flow down to the sea quietly. Rivers do not consume their water but they remain alive only for the benefit of the rest of the world.
Seeds grow quietly, become huge trees, bare yields, not for the consumption of trees, but to protect the lives of the earth. Trees in addition, provides oxygen, shade and a variety of basic needs to ensure the happiness of mankind, birds, beasts, etc. and maintain the stability of the environment . Flowers boom every day beautifying and imparting nature with their pleasant scent and fragrance and noiselessly fade away. Flowers never grieve or whisper over the service they render.
——————————————–Most telephone conversations taking place are based on playful and teasing talks. The purpose of the telephone is to deliver a significant message, urgent information to our relatives, friends or official counterparts.
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The deep sea keeps huge amounts of precious assets in its bottom, makes no comment on its wealth and capability. These non living attributes of nature offer all the comforts and necessities for the continued existence of living beings on the planet.
The lifeless features of the natural world merely exist ensuring the benefit of others. These environmental features neither exhausted with the incessant process of service provision to keep others happy nor do they make a loud noise to highlight their performance. They are silent but perfect performers. The great example these natural assets refer is to work diligently for others’ wellbeing and stay calm.
Noisiness has no value.
During rainy weather one can see a large number of waterways appear here and there and flow down noisily. When the rain ceases they automatically sink into the ground and disappear. These small waterways are unable to make significant effect to nature and its beings during their short period of existence. The sea beach is shallow, “deadly” turbulent, but makes loud noise. Unwise people with little knowledge are always talkative.
Today we all live in a noisy world. Our requirements in day to day life are complex and multifaceted. Our daily life consists of waiting for the train or the bus, commuting in public transport, going to market to purchase our requisites and visit the temple or the church to perform religious duties. Moreover, there are ceremonies, functions and varying types of social occasions which need our participation.
In most of these situations, we observe that people gather and start talking, chatting, gossiping and jesting each other until they leave the place. The place or occasion becomes terribly noisy. Talks are based on the facts such as weaknesses on the part of work places, drawbacks in their own home fronts or neighbors’, their girl friends and boyfriends, faults of others, politics and various humorous gossip.
Carrying tales and fabricating stories, focusing flawless people of their neighborhoods has become a popular fashion among some of them. They are of no relevance or importance to themselves and for the rest who stay silent in the vicinity. Their ears cannot bear up with the huge blare coming out of so many mouths as everybody attempts to talk over the other. After a lengthy chatter none of them is aware who talked and what was talked.
Such chattering and laughter do not contribute to reaping effective results apart from getting a lousy satisfaction by talkers and listeners.
Quite often, we experience those who are regarded as educated and knowledgeable put forward marvelous ideas, and solutions in public forums to rectifying issues arose in problematic situations.
The solutions and recommendations made remain dormant and be limited to discussion forums. Even if recommendations are feasible, none among speakers or listeners takes practical steps to convert them into action. There have been sufficient evidences over the past several decades to prove that majority of us are brainy talkers but poor implementers.
Most telephone conversations taking place are based on playful and teasing talks. The purpose of the telephone is to deliver a significant message, urgent information to our relatives, friends or official counterparts. We observe that telephone is used up to exchange rumors, hearsays and types of petty information at the expense of other tasks and priorities that the person has to carry out. Women are the most time wasters frequently having these futile conversations over the telephone.
Speech is a wonderful gift endowed to human beings and only to human beings. It had been a direct mode of communication, prior to digital communication technologies coming into existence. Even during this digital era, verbal conversation is an effective method of expressing and sharing our sentiments, emotions, feelings, likes and dislikes in day to day life. In the case of official affairs, we, in most occasions, use verbal conversation to pass and exchange knowledge, ideas and information. Eye contact, body language and facial expressions involved in face to face talking make the conversation live and more effective. Talking is a human right, no one can rule out the individual’s right to talk, whether his words are sensible or not.
The misdemeanor is many of us are not conscious of the power of words and how to use them skillfully and appropriately in a given situation. Words can create happiness, pleasure and help, healing mental agonies among people. On the other hand, words can hurt, humiliate and insult people. Incorrect use of one’s mouth always generates harmful results.
However, the proverb, “Empty vessels make more noise” represents that talking too much displays one’s stupidity and emptiness.
When a stupid person stays silent nobody realizes his foolishness. Excessive talking results in harmful consequences to both talker and listener. Senseless speaking destroys the image of the talker himself. It also can damage the self esteem of listeners. If one gets badly addicted to talking, he will never be able to acquire novel knowledge since there is no sufficient time for him to listen and think.
Quiet people are supposed to be mature and intelligent. Once Plato said, “Intelligent people speak because they have something to say -, fools because they have to say something”. Intelligent people remain quiet and start talking when the situation arises.
The inputs of smart people in a discussion, is often based on constructive facts and be beneficial to listeners. What is significant is the quality of words rather than the quantity of words we speak. Words illustrate the stupidity or the intellect of the talker.
Thoughts of quieter people are loud and brilliant so that they can add value to a discussion, though they speak a few words. Wise men believe the idea behind ‘actions speak louder than words’. So they spend the precious and limited time on listening, thinking and implementation.
Talking In An Organistional Entity
Communication is a fundamental requirement in an organisational setting. Any organization has its work plan showing objectives, schedule of activities, targets and goals. Completion of work plan within the specified time is a shared responsibility of employees working in the organization. Achievement of organizational goals basically depends on the functional efficiency of its workers.
Verbal communication in this regard is a key function of employees to interact with different categories of stakeholders. They take the form of meetings, group discussions and individual conversations. In this task, right verbal communication stands as a key approach in building up team spirit. Conducive relationship among employees make them comfortable to voice their ideas, receive inputs from each other and arrive at viable decisions. During these interactions employees should be talented enough to make their talks, presentations or clarifications focusing the subject and create a positive impact on work environment. We must be careful about the calibre of the listeners.
The facts we put forward should be aimed at the interests and requirements of addressees to whom we talk and be relevant to the subject. In the absence of correct awareness concerning the importance of effective communication techniques you are unable to articulate your ideas.
Talk should be organized in such a way that it does not confuse the listeners. Before talking, the content of speech, the way it is presented and how much to talk must be decided. This will help us to catch the attention of listeners until the end and usefully manage the time of participants.
If one person makes a lengthy talk with detailed explanations he dominates the forum, others hardly have chance to express their views. Many people who are accustomed to excessive talking often voice to show their smartness pretending that they are knowledgeable.
We all know infants do not have ideas to convey to others, therefore, only thing they do is to be noisy.This signifies the stupid person’s talk that comprises nonsense. In all conversations, he repeats almost the same stuff he already knows since he does not have new ideas, innovative concepts and experience to share with or educate others.
This type of attempts reduces the value of words. In addition to wasting time, it shows emptiness and immaturity of the speaker. Listener/s loses interest in the conversation and the presenter is unable to grip their attention. Presenting irrelevant stuff exceeding the boundaries of the given subject indicates the talker’s bareness. Going into minor details may sometimes insult some listeners.
Once such damaging words are out from our mouth we never can take them back. Care must be taken not to use insensitive and sarcastic words. Talking only the relevant essentials, avoiding unnecessary jargon and keeping quiet are impressive. If someone requests for clarifications then substance can be further explained at a second stage. Setting an example to other workers in the organisation through being consistency in talking is commendable.
Apart from the content, style of talking is also important to maintain continuous concentration of addressees. It is good to use a strong voice to make them courageous and get their opinions. But faster talking with louder volume disturb listeners. They find it difficult to follow the speech and grab the points presented. This may sometimes leads to the talker being vulnerable to criticism.
We must be able to patiently listen what the other person has to say. By cautious listening you can understand the situation and others’ perceptions correctly. At the same time you will become a good communicator. Two way conversation can produce fruitful gains in terms of organistional efficiency. Talking less and listening more is a praiseworthy quality of a serene character.
There are some employees with the habit of talking to others going from cubicle to cubicle during work hours. There might be reasons like stress due to overworking, reluctance to deal with work entrusted and or lack of adequate duties for a worker to behave so.
S/he may exchange with friends on weaknesses and faults of others, personal matters and grievances. Sneaking, lying and destructive criticisms are areas of conversing which are not favourable in a working environment.
It harms the unity among workers, create animosities and break the team into different divided groups. However, we should be aware that revealing personal matters even to your close acquaintances will no longer be personal afterwards. Such behavior prevents the staff from working and run out of time to complete the work scheduled for the day, badly affecting the productivity of the organization. During whatever type of conversation, employees need to create a positive image of the organization.
Other critical issue connected to talkativeness is that such individuals tend to procrastinate their duties. Procrastination of work prevents him from delivering outputs at the correct point of time. This negatively influences the productivity and reputation of the organisation. Apart from that, frequent chatting is harmful to workers in their career prospects.
They have less time to acquire experience through working, observing, listening and take part in constructive discussions.
Intelligent people talk less, listen more and work more
Many people do not know why we have been given one mouth and two ears; Talk less, listen more. The popular habit even among workers is to talk more and listen less. Some people are reluctant to pay attention to others’ views because of their arrogance. They consider themselves the most knowledgeable among all. Listening has a number of benefits in a work environment. Person who respects others’ ideas gains respect.
He is appreciated and admired by the rest of the staff. Patient listening provides room for other workers including junior workers in the hierarchy and those who are shy to express their views . Cautious listening helps immensely in developing team spirit among workers. Silent observer will be able to gather new ideas, learn from others and widen the boundaries of his knowledge through listening and observing.
In This Competitive Business
environment time is a crucial factor for enhanced productivity of workers. To complete a given task one has a limited time. Valuable time must be utilized at optimum level to produce anticipated outputs evading from redundant chatting. He prepares his own work programme with tasks, outputs and deadlines and quietly work on it to make it a reality. He does not have time to chat with others what he does, how he does and how much has been already done.
When there is a problem, he seeks different ways out from superiors and counterparts and opts for the most comfortable solution. An energetic worker reduces talk time, listens and works to meet deadlines. He finds sufficient time to observe others, understands their thoughts and evaluates the problem in the organization before responding.
Some workers may come out with impractical proposals due to their ignorance of the subject or lack of knowledge on organizational culture for which you cannot agree. We should not express annoyance or displeasure over that. Patiently listen to him and later explain why it is not feasible.
There are four types of clouds roaming in the sky. First category of clouds gives dreadful thunders, yet no rain. Second set of clouds are extremely silent, gives neither thunder nor rain. Third group of clouds pour down cats and dogs along with heavy thundering.
The last type of clouds does not make thundering but pours down heavily. Great people exemplify the last category. A work place, regardless of public office or business entity, essentially needs employees of this nature; not talkers but listeners and quiet workers.
We, as sensible citizens and dedicated workers, need to understand the consequences of frequent talking and should not get trapped in such futile conversations, especially in our work places. Remember that, “the more we become knowledgeable, the more we realize how poor and how narrow our knowledge is.”
Bimba Gunatilke is a former Director of the Ministry of Nation Building and Infrastructure Development. She had been working in the Ministries of Planning, Plan Implementation and Regional Development in different capacities over a period of forty years. During the period her main responsibility was to planning and executing of foreign funded projects related to regional/rural development in the country"