Did I do it right?

This incident happened during my time in National Service. I was from a specialized unit in the Navy where our operations required us to work in small teams of about 8 people. In total, there were 40 men in my platoon, I was one of the team leaders of the 5 teams and the overall platoon sergeant of the 5 teams.

In our operational department, we were provided with 5 bunks and to facilitate efficient communication, each team occupied one bunk. As time passed, although the 40 of us went through 9 months of training together as a whole and were tightly united, naturally we began to get closer to the members of our own teams and started forming our own cliques.

As my unit was a very specialized unit up till the time i was enlisted in it, we had very little rooms for accommodating everyone. Each intake grew from 40 to 80 and eventually 160 a year when i enlisted. Due to this problem, 4 men bunks became 8 men bunks and the entitlement of one individual to a cupboard was reduced to sharing one cupboard with your buddy. Hence it was inevitable that people were feeling uncomfortable. This became the root of tensions and conflicts among my batch when my junior batch passed our from their course and was posted to my department.

Prior to the junior batch moving in, we were told to give up one bunk. Doing the math, sizing down from 5 to 4 bunks meant splitting one room up. As we were already comfortable in our cliques, splitting up was a problem. The layout of the rooms were such that my team was allocated a room isolated from the other 4 rooms, plus it was the room that was least ventilated. Naturally, our room was the chosen one to be given up. It would have been convenient then for my team members to split up, which we were unwilling to do so. In a bid to work something out, we called for a meeting which included everyone to discuss the situation. There were some among us who felt that we should split up and there were some who like us, were unwilling to split up and were empathetic. At the end of the discussion, as my team was unwilling to split up, we came to a conclusion to draw lots.

Finally, the outcome was for team 2 to split up. Although it was a fair and square result, team 2 were unhappy with us and in addition to that, I had previous personal unpleasant encounters with the leader of team 2. From the days following, I felt that the 40 of us were less united and the relationship between the leader of team 2 and myself deteriorated. We never spoke after that and only spoke during missions and operations. Some felt that I used my authority as the overall platoon sergeant to 'protect' my team from having to split up and felt that the outcome would have been different if my room weren't the chosen room to be given up.

Recently, after years, I had a gathering with my batch boys and although the leader of team 2 and I now talk, we only touch on superficial topics, at the back of my head, I still think of this incident and wonder if he still bears the grudge against me. Up till this day, I still wonder whether I had handled the situation the right way, as the team leader to my friends, and as the platoon sergeant to my batch boys.

Why developing effective communication skills are important for me

Communication may seem simple and common sense to most people, but it has many aspects to it that one can learn about that may make a whole world of difference in their personal communication experiences. I used to believe that communication is merely the process of conveying information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium. However, after taking 2 lessons from this course, I realize now that there are aspects such as the facial expressions, the body language, the tone used and eye contact etc that could make explicit content conveyed differ from its actual intended message.

I feel that an effective speaker must have a good command of the language with the ability to make the right choice of words while conveying a message either to a person or a group of people. Similarly, a good listener must also have a good command of the language, together with the knowledge of the barriers that prevents one from being an active listener as thought in this course, one could better provide feedback that are unbiased if he or she is able to minimize the effects of these barriers. In both cases of an effective speaker and listener, understanding the nonverbal communication cues play a part in helping one understand better the state of mind of the the person conveying a message or the audience.

I feel that the knowledge of these skills would greatly help me in the future in both formal and informal communicataion as it helps with reducing misunderstandings that arise easily from misinterpreting the nonverbal communication cues. As a person conveying a message, I would also be more sensitive to my tone, my facial expressions, my body language etc. to avoid the possibility of sending the wrong message while communicating. Hence, I feel that developing effective communication skills are really important for me.