This blog post is an extract from an article written by MSc Social and Public Communication alumni Mahua Roy. She writes that even after years in the media and communications industry, she didn’t know what communication really meant. That is, until she took a sabbatical, came to LSE and discovered that the best way to communicate is to drop your ego.
What is communication, really?
My core course at LSE was designed to motivate us to come up with our own definition of what communication actually signified – starting with learning one new perspective each week for the coming 10 weeks.
Is communication limited to expressing ideas in a way the listener understands? This theory was quashed right in week one. Or is communication more about convincing listeners to change their minds? This was brutally discarded the next week. Which among these is the best way to communicate: using logic, incorporating ethics or appealing to emotions? Or by using power, authority and propaganda?
Who controls the meaning during communication? (This was an actual essay topic for us, and I am in awe of my classmates who landed an A). 10 weeks, 2 essays and I-lost-count-of-how-many-discussions later, I concluded that the best way to communicate is by dropping your ego. Social media fuels ego boosts, but essentially we are merely data points in each other’s lives. To become better communicators, we need to remember this as brand, political and company strategists and at the same time as consumers, voters and employees.
Continue reading the entire blog post To Be a Good Communicator, Drop the Ego by Mahua Roy here on LinkedIn.
