Know About The 5Cs Of Verbal Communication!

“The best way to conquer stage fright is to know what you’re talking about.” – Michael H. Mescon 

Being a good orator is truly a life skill that everyone needs to inculcate from an early age. Even if you are not a public speaker, presenting in front of a huge audience, having decent verbal communication skills is crucial for our personal and professional growth and success. 

This is one skill that kids must learn, develop, and improve upon throughout their academic lives and beyond. Being a good speaker is not about using heavy vocabulary or speaking fluently. Rather, it is about how efficiently one can convey their thoughts and make them intelligible to the other person. 

Most of the time, we know what is our thought or idea, but we are not able to express them in the right way, either in writing or verbally. This is where the 5Cs of communication come into play in making our writing or speech more effective. 

Let us understand what are these 5Cs and their implications in verbal communication.  

Clarity: If their thoughts are not clear, what they speak will not be clear, and the listener will not understand your message. They will become uninterested and not try to listen anymore. Don’t try to say everything together, rather choose some important pointers. It is important not to add unnecessary things and adhere to the topic. Try to use facts and figures in your writing to have a greater impact. Be clear about your message and the information you wish to communicate. Clarity also helps in building trust with listeners. 

Cohesiveness: Help the listener understand the message by leading them through your information so that they can see how it logically fits together. It is important to keep the ideas focused on your message. Whenever one speaks the lines should be related to the topic and one more after the other in a proper manner, else the essence of the message will be lost, confusing the listener. 

Completeness: When presenting an idea, think of ways to complete the communication. An incomplete message holds no value for the listener. They will tend to forget the message if it doesn’t stick to their mind. That is why make every word count - delete redundant words, simplify wordy expressions, and remove filler words.

Correctness: This is the essence of communication because it loses its significance if the right thing is not conveyed at the right times. It is crucial to use the right information, precise words, and most importantly, the right grammar while speaking and articulating. 

Conciseness: If your message is too long and boring, the listener will become disinterested. Rather it should be precise, short, and crisp where the main idea is communicated effectively. 

When it comes to verbal communication two more Cs are very important and cannot be ignored. 

Courteous – While speaking, one must be polite and use the right body language, eye contact, etc. because nonverbal elements play a crucial role in the complete communication process. The tone and overall presentation style should be chosen based on the context. We will talk more about these in our next blog. 

Compelling- Listeners are attracted to your message and exhibit strong interest and attention. That is why the speech must be exciting and compelling. This can be done using various tools and resources like vocabulary, examples, rhetorical devices, etc. 

We recommend treating the 5Cs of communication as a checklist. Remembering to be clear, cohesive, complete, concise, and concrete when communicating will help improve both their speech and writing. Regularly practicing the 5Cs will sharpen their skills and help them communicate effectively.