Sunday, October 26, 2008

The so called "Communication skills"

Ever since I remember, I've been filling up my CV and company application forms with "Good communication" skills as a core competency ... but today a 10 year old kid proved better at the very art...

As a core-team insight (www.iima-insight.com), I was posted at the registration desk ... reminiscent images of freshie year in engineering college flashed through the mind, but here I was using a laptop instead of a desktop ;)...

Looking at the banners and hoardings placed in the city, a certain 60 year old veteran was curious to know what insight was ... Entering the brick and mortar campus, I happened to be the first person he encountered at the "welcome" desk. And here I was, struggling to sift through the form of a 10 year old standing in front of me. (A 10 year old, who insisted on calling me uncle !). The old man, let's call him Mr. AB asked one simple question :

"Your banner claims lifetime ki masti ek din mein... Aisa kya hai yahan ?"

And I was speechless !

And then the natkhat 10 year old came to the uncle's (me!) rescue... With vivid images of a food-mela, fun-fair and adventure sports camp all in one, he painted a picture which I would have simply said " We have games, stage shows and a food court"... No matter how precise and bs my answer would be, that of the kiddo would still be sweeter and more convincing...

Damn, the MBA is teaching me to communicate in short, but what about conversations which are done just for the heck of talking ? Read an article somplace which said that even though trinity colleges of IIM A,B and C may teach you how to talk to the CEO of the world's largest oranisation, you'll never learn how to talk to the labourer working in your house in a MBA ... point proven, subtly, but still...

1 comment:

Pritesh Jain said...

That's nice. Why I love working at such desks and public relation (public bole to aam aadami) is that you get variety of experiences. I too had many interesting experiences today. Will post them sometime. :)