The Secret of Communication Skills From Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

When communication is not effective, it creates a rift between people. Everything suffers because of that.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: In order to achieve a task one needs to develop certain skills.
You all are going to be organizers tomorrow. What will you need to get the perfection in your work, the perfection in yourself to become capable for anything you need to achieve??

When we have to work on a project, everything is not going to be smooth. There is going to be a lot of chaos. Most of the time, things are not going to be smooth. There are going to be a lot of challenges.

Perfection develops only when you are faced with challenges when there is chaos. Where everything is smooth, skills don't develop.
It is only when you are faced with challenges that you are tested and it gives you immense scope to utilize your skills and get closer to perfection.

There have been big big companies and big business houses who have broken down because communication between people in the company is not proper.
A personal Assistant can very subtly create a rift between two partners and destroy the entire business house.

In some companies where the communication between the management is not effective, even someone who is just a Secretary or at a managerial level can destroy the whole setup. HE will make two business partners against each other or two directors fight so that he can come into their good books and this he will do very subtly. When two directors are not meeting each other very often he will just very subtly say to one director after the other director leaves, that "I have been given instructions by this so and so director that he wants to check everything that has been done before it is put to action." Just this subtle statement will create anger in the mind of the other director, as his ego will be hurt, by stating just this much the secretary very subtly creates an impression that the other director has undermined his authority or that he distrusts him. And because of his ego, that Director will not talk to this Director. They will not communicate with each other so rifts are created. The manager or the secretary will be very sweet to both of them and talk nicely with both, but internally he is breaking up the management. In India, many big business houses and many big family business setups have broken up because of these middle people who are of only ordinary supervisory or managerial level.

We need to communicate. Had these both directors communicated, no third person could have broken them up.
Even if they communicate, they do it at a very superficial level. They say hello hi and talk nicely with each other but inside there is a storm burning. It is better to let it out and communicate to clear the misunderstandings than to keep it inside.

Your communication has to be very precise very clear. You need to be very calm when you communicate. Usually, when you see something has gone wrong you get very angry and aggressive. (He asks the crowd, how many have experienced this? Almost all raise their hands)
So what happens when you get angry? You lose perception, you are unable to gauge what next step to take. Your mind is so blocked with emotion that you cannot think clearly, you are not able to remain stable and figure out, ok now this has happened so what next, how can the damage be salvaged, what can be done to correct this, or save the situation. If you are aggressive you will not even listen to the other person, you will simply blame others. Communication can never happen with an angry person. It is useless to try to talk to a person who is angry because he will not listen he will get more aggressive, whatever point you are saying it will not register to him and he will make his own concept out of it. So when you see a person angry, you just have to wait for that person to calm down and then put across your point. This is a technique. Even in a family, when some family member is angry, the others should remain calm, especially between husband and wife, when the husband is angry, the wife should just stay calm or quietly move away from there and then speak after a day or two days. This would work rather than both persons getting angry.

And we need immense patience. IF we have to get the work done, we need to be very stable. We will not be able to do anything if we are carried away by emotions. We have to be able to think what is the solution to this problem, we need to be creative, and creativity does not come out of anger, out of a disturbed mind.

We need to have a lot of patience. Because when you have to work in the world, you are going face a lot of people who will make mistakes, no one is perfect. You will rarely find anyone who is totally perfect. Because mostly at the beginning we have to work with the raw material. We have to train them and then you start getting the perfection. So you need a lot a patience to accept the mistakes of other people, to forgive and move on to the next step. At the same time you cannot just simply smile and accept the work that is done as it is. NO you cannot compromise with perfection totally. You have standards to maintain. You have to get the work done properly. But in wanting everything to be perfect you cannot afford to lose your stability. There is a difference between wanting perfection and learning to accept mistakes but not compromising on perfection.