 Good morning. Approximately what time 8.30 occurs on a Thursday morning? It is Tuesday morning. So, what any morning when does 8.30 occur? I was asking them approximately when does 8.30 occur in the mornings. So, they are all smiling. For them 8.30 has occurred well before 8.30. I thought I was late because I knew I will take 5 minutes to set things up, but this is later. What do you advise? Because this is not a one and a half hour class, a one hour class and you will have another lecture after this. So, 9.25 sharp we should quit and it is already 8.40. So, what do you suggest? To begin with, I will suggest the following. You come over here and you come over here, so that if there are any late comers, they need not disturb everything and they can quietly go and sit there. No, you have already introduced me to us. Yes, last time, please, please, please. So, I will try to… So, I will try to remember that this is a course on effective communication. What I have tried to do today is to put together some thoughts about what I call situational communication. Those of you who came in late, by situational communication I mean how exactly do we handle ourselves in different situations. Now, mostly this course has been about the situation where you are students and you are submitting assignments or you are preparing reports and submitting them. The course has been by and large about that. So, to enhance your ability to write well, enhance your ability to speak well has been the main points. However, I submit that there are several situations where you are required to exercise your communication prowess and you still have to be effective in all those situations. As a matter of fact, if you study the requirements of different situations and imagine yourselves to be in one of those situations and try and understand and appreciate how best you could deal with that situation in terms of communication requirement, it will probably be useful even when you are communicating normally as a professional. That is the point that I am trying. First of all, a brief review. All of us know this. Verbal and written communication is excessively stressed. It is required because the bulk of our communication is like this, but an important point to remember is that we also communicate through our actions. So, in fact, before some of you came, the discussion that we had was about cheating and the cheating is reflected and understood by the other party only out of an action. It is not understood by the simple communication like return or verbal communication. So, when you act, that time you indicate whether you meant well or you did not mean well and it is that action which people take notice of. So, your thoughts for example, as communicated verbally or in writing make a lot of sense, but unless they are backed up by your action, people will start discrediting even your verbal and written communication in types to come. So, the credibility of communication depends not just on what you write, but what you do, what you act. I have also written a common, actually this is not really a part of the types of communication that I mentioned, but I mentioned body language as a independent characteristic which is not significant in written communication sent by posts or in text, but any visual communication as in a film clip or whatever video clip and any personal communication when you are physically present or being physically watched, your body language is of utmost importance and your gestures, your facial expressions, your eyes, whether you are attentive to people who are listening to your communication and whether you are listening and not just hearing, whether you are observing and not just saying are important. You will be surprised that we are able to detect these subtle changes in the speaker by the body language. You would have listened to so many lectures, you would have heard so many people, you would have interacted with so many people, you can immediately instantly guess, you may not be able to articulate it, but you can instantly guess whether that person is looking at you or looking through you, whether the person has you in mind or something else in mind, whether the person is attentive or not attentive, whether the person is serious or not serious and whether the person truly desires to communicate what he or she wishes to say or he is doing just a task. These are subtle differences as professionals of tomorrow, you need to understand these nuances and learn to counter them when the ball is on the other side, namely you are communicating and somebody has said yes. The body language is of utmost importance and that is why extraordinary rehearsal is a mandated thing while preparing any presentation. In fact, you would have noticed that many presentations appear very natural without any preparation, they do so appear because they have been extremely well rehearsed. I do not know whether I have shared this with you or not, but when I was a young teacher, I used to actually stand in front of a mirror and give complete one hour lecture and record it on a tape recorder, those days we had only tape recorder as a techno and would listen to that and correct the a, u, a etcetera in order to ensure that my presentation is as best as it could. So, it requires that kind of hardware. If you are making a seminar presentation, that is why many times you have these mock seminars. The objective of mock seminar is that you prepare well, time yourself properly. Many people start reading from the slides, that is the biggest nonsense that you can ever do, never ever read anything that is written in the slide. You are supposed to write some points on the slide, but you are supposed to explain. As a small digression, I am tempted to tell you an anecdote that happened in IIT, a person like you a M. Tech student, he was professor, Sardar student, I was the examiner, an external examiner and a chairman, spinal defense and he had used slides, points written in details and he started reading them. So, after three slides everybody was getting irritated, Sardar did not know what to do. The chairman of the defense stopped him and said, look young man, we can also read the slides. So, he said sorry sir, went to the next slide and just stood there for some time and everybody was wondering what happened and then after two minutes he says over sir. So, he took that comment so seriously. Now, you cannot have a better example of miscommunication or bad communication. So, please remember this. Anyway let me continue with the discussion on the verbal return and other communication, but what I am talking about is situational communication. So, different situations what do you handle things. So, first of all one situation is social interaction. By social interaction I do not mean a Bornheim and get together and so on. Any two individuals interacting is a social interaction. Any group of people interacting is a social interaction and this can this interaction is required is necessary, is part of our lives. Because it is such a natural part of our life we do not feel, we do not understand that such situations require extra care and extra concern. For example, we are discussing with friends, we are working together days, months, weeks. During these days, months and weeks certain things will happen. I might make a mistake somewhere. Somebody else might make a mistake. Somebody else may do a very nice thing. Somebody may be extremely useful to you in some situation. Do we always without fail take the trouble of using the following words effectively. Indian communication has not developed to say these things explicitly. Although like all other human beings in the world we also go through the same emotional experience. We do feel nice if somebody else does something nice. We do feel bad when we make some mistake. We do feel very good when somebody helps us, but we often do not explicitly express it. Developed world has figured out certain ways and when I say developed world I do not mean only the west. If you go to that era in India which during which India was a developed world economically, do you know what was that era when more than 50 percent of the world's not more than close to 50 percent of the world's GDP or more than 50 percent of the world's GDP was produced in India and China alone. In fact, the Indian and Chinese GDP in that era was larger than the entire European GDP combined. United States did not exist. Do you know what was that era? I am talking about economic wealth, which century? Sorry? No, earlier than that. 16th, 17th century the European Renaissance started and the European expansion to the rest of the world started. This was essentially from 13th century to about early beginning of 16th century and the reason this GDP was so high was because the entire domestic product of any nation or any country or any society was essentially agrarian. The economy was agriculture based. And agriculture means what? More the people, more the production. China and India had very large populations even there and that is why Chinese and Indian production was the highest and because the agrarian production was highest the exchange of barter system permitted Indian traders to exchange this high wealth to get other things from all over the world and that is why trading was of a great consequence in both China and India as far as the entire western world was concerned. During that time, if you look at the cultural development, societal development, you will find that such explicit expressions had become part of the common link. So, some of you who would have known or studied or heard, let say Urdu spoken in North India of that time, what we call an adab, a way of speaking so, if somebody does a good thing to you, people will invariably say shukria, but we do not say thank you that frequent. Now, this is exactly what needs to be adopted by human beings as the society's progress on the path of culture, development and prosperity. We are on that path and it is high time we incorporate some of these features because they make life extremely enjoyable and livable for all concern. We mean it, but we do not say it and because we do not say it, the other person is always worried whether the fellow means it all does not mean, not clear. Of course, it is stupid to say these things when you actually do not mean it because the other person being smart can immediately figure out that you do not mean anything, you are just saying it for the sake of it. So, no make belief, it has to come genuinely and therefore, you have to learn to feel it genuinely anyhow, you have to feel it genuinely and then that is true about any communication, unless the communication reflects your inner thoughts, it is not truthful and believe me you may think otherwise, but every human being listening to your communication is sensitive enough to understand whether what you are saying is coming from the heart or is coming just super feeling. You can figure it out right, when somebody talks you can figure it out, you may be nice and polite and not say anything, but you can figure it, but do not forget that everybody else can figure it out too, this is a common humans and sensitivity is available amongst all. So, coming back to this, I would strongly suggest and this has to be practiced because this is an acquired syndrome. Please remember what I said, child has some of the greatest psychological advantages in terms of basic characteristics, curiosity, boldness, perseverance, ability not to give up and passion and excitement, they are natural, but a child does not have ethics and humility because these are not natural traits created by nature in its evolution, these are social traits which only human societies have created. And the human societies have created these traits in order to make group living comfortable and enjoy, human beings always live in groups and that is why these traits have to be acquired. Now, since these are not necessarily part of a syllabus in school education or college education and there are no marks awarded, no grades awarded, probably these are neglected, but it is never late to start with, some of these I acquired only when I got a greater exposure to the world and there is no harm in saying, yes I did not realize the importance, but now onwards I will do that. So, please remember this, whenever somebody does anything and the developed world is not just western world, you take Japan, you take even the hill areas of the world anywhere whether it is Tibet or Han mountains in China or Himalayas here or Nilgiri's downstairs, if you look at the behavior of people who live on hills, you will find this other very natural, helpfulness as well as to interact with others with great politeness is very natural and I think this high time we all loved it. So, learn to say thank you, learn to say sorry and learn to compliment somebody who has done some good work completely in unconnected with, does not matter, but some appreciating something good, it has to be a genuine appreciation, it has to be a genuine good thing, because it you see when you use these words you are not merely communicating, you are actually thinking like that in your mind that is how you will use this. So, when you say thank you, you actually thought that yes somebody has done a good turn, when you say sorry you are actually learning to admit your mistake to yourself first which is the most difficult part. The human ego does not permit these things to come out easily and that is where the cultured human scores over ordinary and that is what we need to adapt in our own life. Appreciation of good work done by others is important in some other aspect as well which you will realize when you reach leadership positions and you are all smart people you will have an IIT pedigree, you will naturally rise in whichever organization you work for within 8 to 10 years you will be actually working with large groups at least 10, 20 people may be 100 people may be 200 people. Those people will then look up to you as a leader, this is not a class on leadership. So, I will not spend time on mentioning variety of attitudes and attributes that a leader must acquire and I do not believe for a second that leaders must be born. There are natural leaders who are born, but leadership can be learned and can be practiced. Restricting myself to the communication aspects of a leader I would like to tell you one thing, if you have 100 people working for you and if you make it a point that somebody has done well you just go to that person and say well done or more importantly in another group meeting of some 10 people where that person is not there you say this person has done this I have heard I think that is a good job. You know it you feel it, but you say it you know what happens that person will work with double the efforts particularly when that person comes to know that his activities were praised in his absence that is by the way a great Indian tradition which all of us have forgotten. If I want to criticize him I must do so in his presence I have no right to say bad things about him when he is absent. If I want to say good things about him I may say it to him, but in general it is a good idea to say it when he is absent because then the geninousness is understood by all kinds. Otherwise, now you will understand that what I said in the context of a leadership situation does it not apply in ordinary situation. I have 20 friends, I have 50 classmates, I have teachers whatever whatever and there will be empty occasions when you will find somebody has done something good. How many of us make it a point to go to the topper of the class after an examination where let us say a teacher renounces that so many marks were never scored by anybody in last 10 years. How many of us go to him and says well done we are proud of you we are happy to be with you. Half of us feel jealous and the other half won't care. So, please remember this that a situational communication is relevant in multiple situations although it is well targeted and well required in specific situations more than others. So, do you agree with these observations that is worthwhile to adapt to learn to say thank you to say sorry and to go and appreciate somebody else's good work just out of niceness reflecting your true feeling. Basically these feelings are always there whenever anything happens we will always either feel sorry internally or we would like to thank somebody or we would like to appreciate they are always there, but we somehow suppress them we do not convert them into action we do not convert them into words and in fact the entire effective communication is about this is about taking out the dormant and silent thoughts in your own mind and articulating them proper, but articulating. So, that is what I wanted to emphasize here there are a few more things that yeah we still have to yeah please yes. So, what he is saying is that yes yes. So, let me repeat the question he is saying that some people may not be may not be may not articulate these words, but they may be able to show those through actions. You must of course show the feelings through actions there is no substitute for that what I am trying to say is that communicating these in words and communicating these in actions are not mutually exclusive it is not either this or that in fact both are important. So, he brings out another point that when I say sorry it cannot be a moody khai sorry my action subsequent to that event must ensure. I hit you on the head and say sorry 5 minutes later I again hit you and say sorry that if you have seen that some taxi number something where Nana particle hits that car and say sorry hit that car again say sorry that is not sorry. A genuine sorry is one where you desperately try to avoid repeating that mistake later that is the action yes. So, when you take that action the point is suppose you are hurt me by some mistake you are not said sorry to me, but you are now behaving differently. Now that behavior will be noticed by me only when such occasions happen in future suppose for 20 days there is no chance for you to make any kind of mistake then for 20 days I would not even know whether you are feeling sorry or not. 20 days later first time you behave differently I might notice it, but what would have remained in my mind is the stupid behavior of yours 20 days ago more. I do not know they have heard a Hindi. So, what you have lost by one indiscretion is not easy to capture it back by lot of very discrete thing, but still the actions will speak for it. My submission is that actions alone cannot be a substitute for words or words are a substitute for proper. So, thanks for bringing out that point that actions are important yeah amplification my god that is that is that is a that is a very very cute process I do not know we human beings are very good at amplifying assume thing. How many of you read how to solve it by polia 1, 2 not read heard about it it is a classic book how many of you heard of polia my god only 4 or 5 you are all scientists and engineers here how can you polia is counting theorem pigeonhole principle in logic you have not heard these things well polia was one of the greatest mathematicians in the last century he has done huge amount of research in maths, but what he has done in my personal opinion is the most important thing is to write that book how to solve it that book does not require knowledge more than 10th or 12th standard mathematics knowledge, but he beautifully tells you how problems are solved and in the process occasionally he dwells upon problems which are non mathematical logical, but they concerned logical behavior. So, here is this description of a person. So, this person is working in an organization and there are managers which control him and 10 other people like him he suspects that the manager is against him for some reason from the last 6 months or 1 year there are instances indicating that the manager indeed was angry with him, but there are also instances indicating that the manager was appreciative of this person. So, but look at the human psychology he has decided to amplify the negative instances and remember that the manager is against me and completely forget the other instance that is again human telling at the end of the year he is expecting a raise in salary like other people several other people get the salary raise he does not get it from then on his suspicion that the manager is against him is converted into conviction and from now onwards he behaves so badly that he actually makes the manager is in. So, this happens because human mind is very good in amplifying selected inputs and deamplifying other inputs in natural human process. So, what he said is correct that if I let the time pass and if I do not say sorry to you for some mistake in 20 days one man you would have actually churned that actual event so many times in your mind that you would have actually decided that I am a completely hopeless idiot and that I am not likely to improve and I am a bad person and after that conviction if some action speaks otherwise you will not take that in. So, it is best to reflect immediately as early as possible we also communicate through our behavior in very many social situations I will mention a few which are absolutely common and well understood and well encountered every now on the face of it they are trivial and that is the reason why we behave the way we behave take a traffic signal if the signal is red you are not supposed to cross signal is green you are supposed to cross what do we do this is an Indian social problem we are not we will stand there we look here and there and we will cross and the car comes we will rush many times we will say as if we are the policeman on what does a car driver do in fact in Mumbai used to be very disciplined earlier nowadays not so, but when I tried to drive in in Ludhiana and Pune and Ludhiana I remember I I stood at a at a junction because the policeman there was a policeman standing like this and he was directing traffic I stopped and below behind me two or three cars started honking so I look back and I I showed him the policeman they honk further and that policeman did this what does that mean so this everybody is in this I pride myself in saying that I do not cross a red light no matter what the temperature do you I learned this you are talking about West is some of the discipline in in Hawaii where there is a conference 1995 me and my wife and some other people from the delegation were being driven to the airport at two o'clock in the morning when an early morning nothing no traffic there and as the bus was moving the bus halted at a junction because there is a red light and you could see it is a plane you are visible about kilometer absolutely no traffic so one of the Indian delegates because we are getting late for the for the flight time and he says there is no traffic and you know what that bus driver said a practically far less literate person than anyone present in that bus he turned and said sir the buses to stop because the red light not because whether there is traffic on that is the discipline do we imbibe that discipline we do talk about others not following it do we please understand this this is very very important because this can be exemplified by an individual if I decide that no matter what the temptation I will not cross no matter what the temptation I will climb up the bridge while crossing from main gate to the other side no matter what do we dare the point is it is always easy to criticize as you correctly said several people do not behave properly but I think the the instance must start from oneself and I think I have no moral right to criticize others if I am not as perfect as is possible I may not be a perfect person I may make several mistake but this is possible do we do this the second instance I will tell you in social behavior which is also a way of communicating is that when you enter a hall and when there is only one entry we invariably go and occupy the immediately available seats we do it naturally do you know what it means we are actually showing the deepest disconcernt for people who are going to come after us deepest disconcernt we are being impolite we are being rude to others can we not I do that even now when I get into a hall and if I am amongst the first ones I will go and sit in the farthest corner which is most difficult to access because there would be people who will come in at the end and if you do not want their entry to disturb the ongoing proceeding then the best ways to ensure that they can come and sit quietly you take a row you go into the row you will not go to the middle of the row you will go to the end of the row and sit there we do that as a society that is bad that is bad communication you have never looked at it as a communication point of view right but imagine if there is a row like this and somebody first comes and sits here if I sit there I am actually communicating to others that I do not care about you you can come and go walk and do whatever jump over my head and sit I do not care that is what I am communicating please understand it from this point of I am communicating to rest of my own community rest of my own friends that I do not care about your comfort and I am emphasizing these two cases because these two cases happen ten times a day in our lives and if we are not careful about these instances on every occasion that we encounter them I do not think we have any right to talk about poor communication or anyone else we are poor in community okay yeah correct correct correct see how clever he is he is immediately ready with the excuse of why he must sit in the front and not in the back okay I was just joking you are very right when that happens invariably the speaker or the organizers will request people to come forward okay so but you will agree that that happens only sometimes and that does not therefore justify our going and sitting in the front I am not talking about front row front row there is no problem but in the front row don't sit in the corners as a rule as a discipline and if you are my friend I would expect the following from you if I come and you are behind me and I sit here and you come you should say a fata kizakandar you should say that because you are my friend I don't expect this correction in my behavior from my enemies only my friends can tell me but in India friendship is also very funny goodie-goody you know you my what will you feel are you are his friend yeah is your job to tell him he is doing something wrong and if he feels bad about it so be it if you are his true friend he will know that you are not saying it out of a Kunnas against him trying to correct absolutely nothing wrong so please treat the friendship communication also in this country I mentioned about leadership communication critical communication is another fundamental thing of a friendship situation if you as a friend do not criticize my behavior there is no other power on earth which will correct me no other power only my friends can do that you must have the courage of your conviction and you must have the confidence in your friendship with me that even if I shout at fata he will not take it I mean because he is my friend and I might feel bad temporarily but I will understand what a great job you are doing by telling me that where I have moved so these these are very very important aspects of communication social discipline I will call this discipline of friendship there are similar disciplines I will not dwell over them relationship discipline parents brothers sisters cousins relatives there are disciplines but that is not part and parcel of this discussion we are more or less talking about professional communication and therefore professional communication will limit our discussion to social discipline communication and discipline of friendship communication but these are important communications in life I will tell you if out of this course you do not pick up anything else except pick up these few things a never ever in your life you will cross a red light no matter what temptation believe me if you start doing it individually at least your friends will start doing it by looking at you changes do not occur by laws you know changes do not occur by fears changes occur because the people the citizens of a nation feel and work and act differently second the simple thing as I said when you enter a hall no matter what others behave you do this you you are you are sitting if you are an early entrance should be such that it leaves maximum leeway and ease and comfortable entry for anybody who comes after you because that will also instill in you a natural way of showing concern to others believe me all of us have concern for others but intuitively we act differently that intuition is to be controlled by this community and the first thing that I said please do learn to say thank you sorry and welder I will tell you if you adopt these well no matter how effective your overall communication is but two things will happen definitely one you will feel distinctly better about yourself you will feel that you have become a better citizen a better human and believe it or not but people around you will immediately start looking at you with a different respect it takes some time but they will respect good things are respected ok 9.25 see that is the problem of losing first 15 minutes I have promised them that I will stop at 9.25 because if I stop at 9.30 they cannot go in 0 time from this place to another place where is your next class here only or somewhere else nobody knows where the next lecture is that is very funny oh impressive so you will require 5 minutes ok by the way I just wanted to take 2 minutes I had requested for submission of certain stories in your lives and correction to the interview that was submitted the correction work has been done by most of you however you have sadly failed to point out all the errors most of you have found about 20 to 25 errors is good work but is not good enough because Prakash how many were there about 120 errors were there so if you really go back and take Chicago manual of style by your side and start doing it out of these 120 about 35 or so are disputed disputed between him and me because he thinks that comma should be there and I don't think that comma should be there but that is that is because of the differences how many of you have seen this book the Chicago manual of style nobody ok seen this this is a proof editing book and Rain and Martin English grammar how many people have seen it seen it some have read it but nobody has practiced it so these are important things I had asked I had requested you to write 3 incidences in your life and I will tell you I was I was very pleasantly surprised to read several instances that people have written some have written extremely well in fact some people have not written them well but the intensity of the feeling comes out very clear the I could picturize the incidence although the language may not have been correct or some and it buttressed my own conviction that there are too many decent people in the world around us we generally ignore them or even if we notice them we don't practice what did so thank you very much however I would have expected the entire class to have written something because I cannot conclude that 50 percent of my students in this class have had no incidence in their life in their entire life where somebody had behaved ethically differently I don't I don't believe in that for one minute unless I mean you have been living in such a cocoon in isolation that you don't interact with anybody in life because you interact with someone in one year you will find some incidents where that person shines see we are a multifaceted individual always it it does not if I behave ethically in one instance it does not mean that I will necessarily do so always there would be temptations where I will misbehave but even if I do it once it is important for me to remember it and for others to emulate because that is how the ethical behavior in the society grows mistakes will occur but it is not the mistakes that should become general sense it should be correct behavior that should become a role so my request is that even others who have not yet submitted that assignment I had called it an assignment I don't know perhaps Kavya I should have allocated some marks you know five mark assignment then I would have flooded with 50 incidences but I don't believe in that it's an assignment to bring out your own memories in you so those of you have not yet submitted might consider doing that and and submit those assignments but let me tell you each assignment has been read by at least three people Firuza and Prakash they personally read them they also read it from the point of view of correcting your English that those things are being done will ultimately scan them and put them up for your own benefit and everybody's benefit and if if I have submitted a paper and I find it all you know crisscrossed and all I should not feel bad about it because everything else is similarly crisscrossed so there are no no problems in that but I would humbly request others who have not yet written to write if you can't remember and recall three incidences write just to write just one but write something what is important is the incidence the lesson that you learn from it and your own expression ultimately don't forget the course on communication how you express that it's like story tell and one of the aspects of social communication is ability to tell stories well okay thank you so much