Improving Communication Skills

SSB involves a lot of communication. You need to communicate your ideas, thoughts. You need to interact with other candidates, make friends with them and emerge as a leader in your group. For doing any of these things you need to have good communication skills. Now communication skills are not something which can be built in a day or two. You need to practice it continuously and systematically for a long period of time. Here are a few tips on how to develop communication skill for the SSB.

Your voice is what makes you different from the crowd. When 10 people are speaking simultaneously then there is only one person who is listened to in the end, it’s like survival of the bestest. In order to be a good speaker/orator you first need to identify that at what level your voice sounds the best. Of course while interacting with friends and the IO you must have a lower tone in comparison to that which you’ll have in the GD. So identify that tone for yourself, and speak like that only. If you have a shrill voice remember not to raise it much otherwise it’ll sound not that good.

When you speak then you are either having a strong point to put or just making your presence felt. This marks the difference between successful and unsuccessful candidates. In order to mark your presence you must have a strong point to put in the GD’s or anywhere. So you need to organize what you speak, to do this you must have a good knowledge about the general awareness type of issues and things. Also while putting your point you must be capable enough to put the important thing in beginning and less important one’s in the end.

You can attain a good flow only if you practice. Well command over language is the same thing the more you speak the more fluent you get. Fluency is utmost important while communicating. If you are fluent then your audience will have a certain level of interest. Especially in lecturette, interview and GD. Thus you need to practice a lot of speaking, stand in front of the mirror and practice or catch a family member. Also you must be good and fluent in English if you have studied from an English medium school. Many of you say that Officers communicate in Hindi with men and all these things but let’s admit it being fluent in English gives you a certain level of advantage you can’t deny that. So instead of applying your brain and arguing so as to why English is considered more important and not Hindi, it’s better to practice English and be fluent in it. You are not going there to debate and protect Hindi, Hindi is our mother tongue and we all respect it but it is said “When in Rome do what Romans do”. Your aim is to get recommended isn’t it?

These are two most important parts of effective communication. When you are speaking something its power is enhanced if you are doing some hand gestures with it. Maintaining an eye contact with the listeners makes them interested.

You must maintain a respectful body language while speaking. Getting alarmed and rising up from your chair while GD is not a sign of a good body language.

You must be good listener in order to be good speaker. This is last but one of the most important points of effective communication. Letting others speak makes you appear more adaptable and respectful towards others. It gives an impression that you care enough to listen to them and are ready to accept their views which makes you more adaptable.