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Communication and Interpersonal Skills - Coggle Diagram
Communication and Interpersonal Skills
What barriers keep communication from being effective?
Emotions
Definition:
Emotions as a communications barrier refers to how the receiver is feeling when a message is received.
A person often will interpret the same message differently, depending on whether they are happy or distressed.
It is best to avoid reacting to a message when one is upset, because you are not likely to be thinking clearly.
Language
Language, even with people who are speaking the same language, can be a barrier to communication.
Words have different meanings to different people. Age, education, cultural background, and other factors influences the language a person uses and the definitions that they apply. Receivers will use their definition of words being communicated.
Communications senders tend to assume that the words and phrases that they use will mean the same to the receiver as the words and phrases do to them.
This assumption is not always correct and creates communications barriers.
Gender
Definition:
Gender as a communications barrier refers to how males and females react to communication may be different and they each have a different communication style.
National culture
Definition:
National culture as a communications barrier refers to communication differences arising from the different languages that individuals use to communicate and the national culture which they are a part of.
Given that communications barriers exist and may diminish the effectiveness of communications, how can a manager overcome them?
Methods include:
Use feedback
Simplify language
Listen actively
Constrain emotions
Watch non-verbal clues
Use feedback
Why
use feedback to overcome barriers?
Many communication problems are directly attributed to misunderstanding and inaccuracies. These problems are less likely to occur if the manager gets feedback, both verbal and non-verbal.
How?
A manager can ask questions about a message to determine whether it was received and understood as intended. The manager also can ask the receiver to restate the message in his or her own words.
If the manager hears what was intended, understanding and accuracy should improve.
Feedback also can be more subtle as general comments can give a manager a sense of the receiver’s reaction to a message.
Feedback does not have to be verbal. Manager also should look for nonverbal clues, such as body language, to tell whether someone’s getting the message.
More will be said about “feedback” and its importance later in the lesson.
Simplify language
Why
use simplified language to overcome barriers?
Managers should consider the audience to whom the message is directed and tailor the language to them, using words and phrases the audience easily should understand.
Effective communication occurs when a message is both received and understood.
Listen actively
Why
use Active Listening to overcome barriers?
Active listening is listening for the full meaning of a message without making premature judgments or interpretations.
It demands total concentration, because in general people can hear faster than people speak. Hearing, in contrast, is a passive activity.
Active listening is enhanced by developing empathy with the message sender.
An empathic listener reserves judgment on the message’s content and carefully listens to what is being said.
Remember: the goal is to improve one’s ability to get the full meaning of a message without distorting it by premature judgments or interpretations.
Constrain emotions
Why
constrain emotions to overcome barriers?
We all know that emotions can cloud and distort communications, especially when that emotion is anger. A manager who is angry about an issue is more likely to misconstrue incoming messages and fail to communicate his or her outgoing messages clearly and accurately.
What to do? A manager simply should calm down and get their emotions under control before communicating.
Watch non-verbal clues
Why
should nonverbal clues be watched to overcome barriers?
Actions speak louder than words. Therefore, a manager should make sure that his or her body language communicates the same message as the verbal one.
If the words and body language conflict, then the receivers might be confused.
Knowledge management and how does it affect communications?
Part of a manager’s responsibility in fostering an environment conducive to learning and effective communications is to create learning capabilities throughout the organization. These opportunities should extend from the lowest to highest levels in all areas of an organization.
How can managers create such an environment?
An important step is recognizing the value of knowledge as a major resource, just like cash, raw materials, or office equipment.
However, in an organization, just recognizing the value of accumulated knowledge or wisdom is not enough.
Managers must deliberately manage their organization’s base of knowledge.
Knowledge management involves cultivating a learning culture in which organizational members systematically gather knowledge and share it with others in the organization so as to achieve better performance. Today’s technologies help improve knowledge management and facilitating organizational communications and decision making.