Communication Skills by Rakesh Godhwani

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Communication Skills –

Critical Thinking – Try to see the problem from various angles

Good leaders are good readers

 Critical thinking means evaluating a problem from all sides before reaching a

decision.

 This requires reading and understanding the experts' view both in support of and

against the topic.

 The chief aspect of critical thinking is to listen, read and view each and everything

precisely.

 Critical thinking is vital for making informed and right decisions.

 The entire critical thinking process involves four main stages: Research, Analyse,

Build Personal Opinion and Express your View.

 Developing a reading habit, surfing the web or talking to some intelligent people will

help gain information.

Argument requires deep research. Argument is a set of sentences that prove


your point. It also proves the point of view of others which is in your favour.
Your argument should be original.
This module is divided into two main sessions:
1. Elements of Good Writing

2. Effective Professional Writing


The first session deals with the basic six basic principles of writing
- Sincerity, Readability, Simplicity, Tonality, Brevity and Clarity. We will
understand each through real-life examples of famous world leaders and their
day to day communications.

Moving on, we will learn a few basic writing frameworks to keep in mind while
writing any document. These are the AOM framework, OBC
framework, Minto's Pyramid, Mind Maps, Fish Bone diagram and more.
You will also learn about the importance of feedback in the writing process and
how to use them judiciously to develop quality content.

In the second session, you will be taught how to master the three major forms of
professional write-ups:
 Emails

 Reports and Summaries


 Proposals
These forms of professional write-ups will be covered by using essential
frameworks and formats to keep in mind while writing them.

This will then be supplemented with an understanding of what to write and what
to avoid in professional writing along with a segment on how to be
more persuasive and assertive in your writing.

Please make your writing simple.


These six elements of writing are summarised below:
 Simplicity: This refers to the ease at which the reader is able to consume your

writing. Avoid heavy jargons at all points to maintain simplicity throughout your

documents. Johnson & Johnson's Credo reflects this simplicity well.

 Readability: Documents that are prepared with an appropriate size of fonts, crisp

formatting and the right visual cues (photos and colours) are preferred by readers

because the information can be navigated with ease. Read the annual report by

Akshay Patra, for example.


 Sincerity: Being objective and authentic conveys a sincere message to the audience.

Read Stephen Elop’s Burning Platform Memo to understand why being truthful with

your readers helps build a better relationship with them.

 Tonality: Brian Cheskey’s email on workforce layoff reflects how leaders can be

respectful, considerate and compassionate while writing difficult emails. Tonality

helps set the right tone of interaction between the writer and the reader.

 Brevity: Everyone loves reading brief, to-the-point emails/messages. Furthermore,

this is considered a key trait of professionalism within organisations. Read this short

yet powerful speech of 272 words by Abraham Lincoln, widely cited even after 150

years of creation.

 Clarity: Clarity refers to informing people what exactly is expected of them instead

of beating around the bush. Jeff Bezos drives meetings and directs his stakeholders

towards Amazon’s objectives. One of the early memos to Amazon shareholders

portrays his razor-sharp clarity about the purpose of his communication.


 First-person vs third-person writing: When the writer conveys the message to the

audience using the pronoun ‘I’, the writing style is known as first-person writing. On

the other hand, when the writer conveys the message to the audience using the
pronouns ‘He’, ‘She’, ‘It’ or ‘They’, the writing style is known as third-person

writing.

 Formal vs informal: Formal style of writing is professional and controlled. It

involves minimal expression of emotions, for example, the phrase “I am pleased to

inform you” is used in formal writing, which is recommended for external

stakeholders. In contrast, informal writing is more conversational, friendly and

expressive.

 Use of narratives/anecdotes: Adding bits of personal experiences or incidences make

your writing more relatable for the reader. It also makes the content enjoyable and

easy to recall.

 Grammar and spelling: These are some of the most basic hygiene factors that should

be considered while writing but are often overlooked. You can use tools

like Grammarly to make your writing error-free.

 Formatting: This refers to making your documents presentable. Formatting includes

using appropriate fonts, aligning the text correctly, choosing the right size for your

fonts/images and structuring the paragraphs that you wish to add to the overall written

piece.
The first framework covered is summarised below:
 Audience: A simple way to identify your audience is to ask yourself “Who is going to

read this email/message?”, and then identify how you can adapt your writing to best

suit their needs and understanding.

 Objective: Here, the purpose is to convey your point of view with an argument.

Objectives should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and

Time-bound.

 Message: Message refers to the core matter of your written material. You need to

decide on the outcome that you want to achieve before crafting your message.

Writing a compelling message is the same as narrating a powerful story. In the


previous video, you learnt about the various aspects of writing good messages,
which are as follows:
 Opening: This is used for greetings, introductions and to set the right context for the

reader. They need to be hooked right from the beginning.

 Body: Writing the body of your message is the same as taking the audience through

the plot of a movie. It contains details and brief peeks into the problems and solutions

of the conversation at hand.

 Conclusion: In the end, summarise key takeaways and any action you expect from the

reader here.
Rakesh refers to these three points as ‘scaffolds’, a structure that helps you build
the entire write-up.
Scaffolding Tools -
 Minto’s Pyramid: This is a tree-based matrix that can help you break down your

main idea into three subideas, which can be further divided into three more subideas,

thereby creating a decision tree.

 Mind Maps: This is a tool that can help you think visually. The core of the map

contains the topic at hand, which branches out further. This aids in structuring all your

thoughts as a core concept.


Two additional frameworks briefly mentioned in the video are:
 Spider Diagrams: This is an alternative way of visualising mind map. It includes

breaking down a central idea into subbranches until you reach the end of your content

break-up.
 Fishbone Diagrams: Fishbone diagrams are useful when you are writing a piece that

revolves around the elements of a cause, its effects and possible solutions. This link

will give you detailed information about Fishbone diagram. Also, you will learn about
it more with the problem-solving course.
Polishing your Prose:

Now, we move on to a few tips that will help you polish your prose. A few tips to
keep in mind while sculpting your write-up and removing certain small errors are:
 Words such as ‘very’, ‘basically’, and ‘actually’ should be avoided because they add

an unnecessary exaggeration to the written material. These are most commonly used

in informal oral communication while talking to peers and making a speech at an

event.
 Another important tip is to write short sentences. You should use a full stop and

commas to pause so that the audience does not get bored while listening to your

speech.

 You should make it a practice to rewrite your sentences twice or maybe thrice to

achieve minimalism in your content. Less is considered more when it comes to

business writing.

 After writing the first draft, sleep over it or go for a walk. And then, return to the

draft and remove the words that are not important.

Fishbone diagrams are also called a cause and effect diagram, or Ishikawa diagram.

How to create a fishbone diagram


Fishbone diagrams are typically made during a team meeting and drawn on
a flipchart or whiteboard. Once a problem that needs to be studied further
is identified, teams can take the following steps to create the diagram:

1. The head of the fish is created by listing the problem in a


statement format and drawing a box around it. A horizontal arrow
is then drawn across the page with an arrow pointing to the head.
This acts as the backbone of the fish.

2. Then at least four overarching "causes" are identified that might


contribute to the problem. Some generic categories to start with
may include methods, skills, equipment, people, materials,
environment or measurements. These causes are then drawn to
branch off from the spine with arrows, making the first bones of
the fish.

3. For each overarching cause, team members should brainstorm


any supporting information that may contribute to it. This typically
involves some sort of questioning methods, such as the 5
Why's or the 4P's (Policies, Procedures, People and Plant) to
keep the conversation focused. These contributing factors are
written down to branch off their corresponding cause.

4. This process of breaking down each cause is continued until the


root causes of the problem have been identified. The team then
analyzes the diagram until an outcome and next steps are agreed
upon.
Here, ‘taking feedback’ refers to showing your draft to people for their opinion on
it.
You can get quick feedback through any of the following methods:
 Self-review

 Review by peers

 Review by seniors
Now, the final product is ready to be published. Once you have added all the
flavours together for publishing, you can gauge the response on your draft in the
following manner:
 Pick insights from the target audience based on their response

 Review the bits that you need to polish and improve your draft

 Track how people are perceiving the content that you are publishing
Sometimes, the answer to our problems lies in the reflection of the problem.
Communication can sometimes be brutal. Therefore, feedback is the loop that can
help you write better. It can help you understand why people rate something higher
or lower.

Just to give you a quick recap, the following topics were covered in this session:
 Basic principles of writing

 Applying frameworks like AOM, OBC

 Using scaffolding to develop your first draft

 Polishing your draft

 Receiving feedback from those around you


This process, when it becomes a habit, will make you a writer that audiences
respond to.

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