‘Effective communication should be short and simple’— Prof. Gadzekpo, Kwaku Sakyi-Addo share ideas on springboard

Effective communication skills are fundamental to success in many aspects of life. Many jobs require strong communication skills and people with good communications skills usually enjoy better interpersonal relationships with friends and family.

Effective communication is part and parcel of every successful organisation. Communication should be free from barriers to be effective. Effective communication is a key interpersonal skill and learning how to improve one’s communications has many benefits.

It is for this reason that Springboard, Your Virtual University, a radio programme on Joy FM, used this Sunday’s edition to educate listeners on “Effective Communication and Public Speaking.”

The programme is hosted by Rev. Albert Ocran and the Board Chairman of the National Communications Authority, Mr Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, and a Lecturer from the University of Ghana, Professor Audrey Gadzekpo, were on it to share their thoughts on how people could communicate effectively to get the intended results.
The two communicators indicated that for communication to be effective, the content of the message must be short and simple.

Mr Sakyi-Addo pointed out that communication was a two-way process in which the message sent by the sender should be interpreted in the same terms by the recipient, and it was, therefore, necessary that the message is short and simple to be understood by all parties.

“I am a firm believer in communicating simply because it is more effective. When you are communicating to a mass audience, it is most effective when it is simple and short,” he stated.

“Whether you are a columnist, whether you are writing a report, remember you are communicating and you want to be understood so keep it short and simple,” he added.

Abuse of power point

Mr Sakyi-Addo also advised listeners to refrain from an abuse of power point presentations.

“Power point is supposed to be power point, which means making your points powerful, simple and effective. One of the things I find unacceptable is when what is expected to be a power point is projected and it’s an essay and the presenter reads the script to you,” he mentioned.

“That is not what power point is and it’s not effective communication because you are missing the purpose of power point,” he added.

Cutting down on acronyms

For her part, Professor Gadzekpo also advised the audience to cut down on their use of acronyms and explain them whenever they use them.

“We need to tell people what we mean. People tend to interpret acronyms differently so we must explain our acronyms,” she said.

She also stressed on the need to pay more attention to punctuation when communicating through writing.

“We have forgotten the rules about punctuation because people don’t care about it anymore; but punctuation is very critical in communicating effectively. They are sign posts that tell us to pause or stop but people forget about them when they write. You can change the position of a comma, and it will change the meaning of the message you want to send out,” she said.

“We really need to pay attention to punctuation if we want to communicate effectively,” she added.

Professor Gadzekpo also urged listeners to avoid the use of jargons and big words when communicating.

Communication is everything

Sharing his thoughts on how critical communication is to career success, Mr Sakyi-Addo said communication was everything.

“Without communication, you will have nothing but chaos. In a corporate environment, for instance, the vision, mission and objective, and how to achieve them may exist in the leader’s head, but no one else will know about them unless it’s communicated,” he said.

“You cannot, therefore, achieve them unless it is communicated. You will not get any feedback to improve your services unless there is communication, so without communication, there is void, darkness and nothing happens without communication,” he stated.

Fulcrum for human existence

Professor Gadzekpo also said communication was the fulcrum for human existence.

“If you have a great mind or great thought but you are not able to express them, it’s very hard to be successful. Communication is the most useful tool in a workplace as statistics say people with good communications skills earn as much as 47 per cent more in their job,” she said.

She also pointed out that studies had shown people do more talking and listening than any other communication activities and that only 17 per cent of communication time was on reading and 14 per cent on writing.

“So when we talk about communication, it’s more about listening and talking,” he stated.

“Even if am talking to you and you don’t mind me, you are communicating something to me—which is you don’t want to talk to me. It is, therefore, necessary to pay attention to non-verbal communication as well,” she noted.

For communication to be effective, Professor Gadzekpo said the onus was on both the sender and the receiver.

“Both the sender and the receiver have a role to play because communication is interactive,” she said. — GB