It is said that, no matter how great an idea is, it is of no value unless communicated well. For a person to flourish, having domain skills or specialist skills alone are not enough, one needs to be able to communicate her thoughts succinctly based on the audience.

Communication is important in all stages of the professional and personal life. Mere technical knowledge is not enough for the success in career, to avoid stagnation in ones career, communication skills must be developed and nurtured.

Communicating today is much different from what used to be as recent as couple of decades ago. The advent of the blogosphere, email communication, tools such as Microsoft PowerPoint, etc. have changed the way people communicate. With a menu of options available to the communicator, she needs to judiciously pick the medium that would be most effective.

The communication skills assume importance especially in today’s ‘flat world’ where working across borders is commonplace. It is important to understand the cultural differences while getting ones message across. For instance, it is important to tone your message according to the country in which your recipient belongs to. An impact of globalization is that the borders have started to crumble. Especially in the knowledge industry, where people can be connected via the internet and they work from geographically spread locations. In this scenario, a face to face communication is often not an option. Thus, it is important that employees are savvy with audio or video conferencing. A growing trend is to conduct even interviews via video conferencing. Thus, one needs to have a neutral accent, a proper pronunciation and be able to articulate points in a precise manner. Apart from oral communication, written communication too assumes significant importance in today’s work place. While in the past, in India, human resources personnel used to convey information via unreadable circulars, punctuated with incomprehensible legal terms, today’s human resources personnel communicate using email, using colourful graphics and posters.

Modern companies allow its employees to work from home, this is also known as telecommuting. In such a situation, the team does not go away, however the team is connected via wires. To get work done effectively, it is important that each member of the team can communicate effectively over phone and email.

Email communication is used instead of letters and circulars today. It is important that the employees of modern companies have good communication skills to deliver a message effectively. Since email is not a direct contact communication, the tone and mood of the sentences is important. Wrong choice of words and tone can have disastrous impact on the team.

Today’s executives are on the move, travel related to work is inevitable for managers whatever function they belong to (delivery, marketing, finance, training, etc.). In such cases, possessing very good communication skills are a key as any of the other critical skills. A manager should be able to deliver instructions over phone precisely, especially in a situation of crisis.

The tools made available by technology aids in efficient communication. However, whatever be the mode of communication, clarity of thought and clarity of transmission are crucial in making communication effective.