Perhaps the above 4 words are the most important words of my 2nd Semester at NUS: "Effective Communication and Teamwork". Communication skills hold a lot of importance for me. Defining it -

Effective
- Communication is about getting and receiving thoughts with little or no distortion.
- Team Work is about believing in the team, and advancing aggressively towards a common objective.

I am a person who keeps bubbling with ideas, and getting my ideas across with minimal amount of distortion, means Effective Communication to me. Effective Team Work, a quality that I still feel that I have to nurture and develop, holds real importance as my future jobs will require me to work in teams.

Instead of going deep into the details of communication and teamwork, I will just use this space to talk about why I would like to be an effective communicator, and why I want to be the best team-worker. I dont want to talk about "what" is communication and teamwork. It is actually just a "Good-habit" and "Great qualities" that I want to imbibe over the 4 months of this module.

The best learner is the one who learns from his previous mistakes and experiences by reflecting on his thoughts. To give me an incentive to be the better person I want to be, I will rather confess and actively realize some of the mistakes that I might have committed.

I dont think that I am a really good communicator of my thoughts.
The main reasons I can attribute to this is that perhaps I think a lot and dont like being involved in lots of conversations that involve others' points of view. (This doesnt mean that I dont talk. Give me a topic of my interest, and I can put my whole mind in front of you!)
But the key thing is communicating effectively. The thing I really dislike about others is the way they attach a point of view to every single existence on earth, and then propagate that point to everybody. Perhaps this is one of the barrier of communication that I have. I have a point of view, but I keep it to myself, and thus miss being part of important conversations.
Communication not only involves points of view, but also ideas and thoughts. My work later on will require me to communicate my ideas effectively, and I think that this quality can be nurtured heavily.

Coming to team work, I have worked in a team before and I am working now too. I have teams for almost all my modules. I think the best part of being in a team is that you really come to know of your short-comings and believing in others. You learn the art of motivating others and also staying motivated towards the same goal.
My experience in working in teams has been good so far, but I still feel that I do lack a bit in "Putting in my best".

This is all I have to say about being an effective communicator and team-member. The blog is about reflecting on myself, so I dont expect to write much about "What" the things are, but "why" the things are. Learning the "What" part is eventually the main aim of this module, but getting a window to write something that perhaps might improve me, is rare :P

Pointing out strengths does not require strength, but pointing out weaknesses in one-self does require strength. Also what good a learning is if it just strengthens your strengths, and talks nothing about your weaknesses. I dont say here that my communication and team work skills are really down-under, but yeah, there is always a scope for improvement :)