_Dr.Kretov Kirill on interpersonal communication
Dr. Kretov Kirill - summary of interpersonal Communication.
Present article is a component of Master Thesis written and effectively defended by Dr. Kretov Kirill (Master of Arts in Hr Management and Doctor of economic Administration) in May 2007, Geneva, Switzerland.
Effective communication
The primary objective of the present article would be to discuss communication: define the idea of communication, explain the communication process in its entirety and enumerate factors which might improve its efficiency.
Effective communication_
Communication
"Communication" is scheduled by Wikipedia the following:
Communication is really a method that allows organisms to change information by a number of methods .
The clarity and scope of this definition are self-evident - as well as explaining the word, it means that communication is characteristic to any or all living beings. Actually, alternative definitions from the term have a tendency to incorporate the idea further, suggesting that animals and even bacteria communicate on a purely biological level. Therefore, an even more accurate definition is needed to emphasize the importance of meaningful communication when the subject of purely human interaction is usually to be considered:
Communication can be defined as the process of meaningful interaction among people. It is the act of passing information as well as the process through which meanings are exchanged in order to produce understanding.
This definition helps explain the fundamental concept that lies at the heart of communication in addition to narrows the scope of communication under consideration to humans alone. Therefore, oahu is the preferred definition and will therefore supply for your remaining area of the paper.
Importance
Communication is essential. As previously referred to, it is an essential characteristic of all living beings, whether bacteria, reptiles or, indeed, homo-sapiens. The underlying dependence on communication is undeniable. It stems from a combination of both physical needs and animal instincts and it is crucial to survival. However, among the fundamental differences between human beings and animals will be the formers’ vastly more complicated behaviour mechanisms, which in turn necessitate more accurate, advanced and complicated ways of communication. Spiritually, misunderstanding of merely a few words can mean the main difference between life and death.
From the purely sociological perspective, it really is safe to say how the formation and continued functioning of the grouping or organization doesn't seem possible without communication between its members. Furthermore, communication remains an essential precondition from the effectiveness of any such entity. Society and, indeed, all its accomplishments and advancements - whether manufacturing an automobile, understanding how to milk a cow or constructive a nuclear warhead - would have been impossible to perform without associated communication. Studies have shown that inadequate communication is probably the most frequently cited causes of interpersonal conflict.
EyeComTec
Communication is vital for those human beings. Nevertheless it may occur that an individual is entirely limited in communication, not being able to express himself neither by speech, nor by sign language. It's because the loss of motor activity - partial (hypokinesia) or complete (akinesia). Inside the first case, the mobility sheds due to various diseases from the central nervous system, and post-traumatic states of the brain and spinal-cord, in addition to strokes. Inside the second case, loosing activity can be a consequence of complex mental disorders and paralysis.
All of us are really utilized to the continual movement and communication through speech that all these diseases and problems can seem totally distant and insignificant. But, after losing in one terrible moment, something that was considered so routine and natural the patient will literally be cut removed from the world. Gone will be the possibility for him to maneuver, to question the physician to assist, or tell his loved ones about his condition. It becomes an irreparable loss for both the patient and the family.
The only real salvation for the patient in this instance is his eyes. Even in the situation of complex hemiplegia (paralysis of muscles of 1 side from the body), lots of people retain a total or partial ability to control their eyes and blink, as cranial nerves driving the eyeballs remain intact. Thus the sufferer has a last, lackluster compared with the lost abilities only possible hyperlink to communicate with the outside. With eye movements and blinks he is able to reply to unambiguous questions with the doctor, for example: one blink - yes, two blinks - no. Simultaneously, the individual needs to resign himself that the he’ll be unable to communicate voluntarily, outside simple a word answers. Or does he?
At EyeComTec (a subdivision of LAZgroup SA) -- several developers creating software to help individuals that suffer from paralysis or significantly impaired mobility. Their mission is always to develop effective and affordable technology permitting them to communicate exclusively through eye movements. These have created working algorithms and prototypes of the programs; in the future (Spring 2013), they shall be documented and published about the official web-site www.eyecomtec.com
Interpersonal Communication
Communication continues to be defined earlier as the transfer and understanding of a specific meaning - but how exactly carry out the members of a group transfer such meaning among themselves? Existing research distinguishes between three methods of communication - oral, written and non-verbal.
A. Oral
Oral communication will be the single most typical way of transferring a particular meaning, simply because it may be the first kind of communication that humans face. Whenever a baby is born, its cries are not just a way to obtain delight for the parents - additionally it is a person's being’s first work for balance oral communication.
Oral communication is therefore ingrained in humans from birth. It encompasses meaningful words and sounds produced by people so as to create understanding online websites with the change in meaning.
Like another method, oral communication has its own benefits and drawbacks. Firstly, it's fast - the delay between sending a verbal message and getting a verbal response is usually minimal. This permits people to exchange enormous volumes of information in comparatively negligible intervals. Secondly, in situations where the receives is uncertain as to the precise concept of the message, feedback and clarification can be requested in real time, enabling corrections by the sender to take place instantaneously.
The one biggest drawback to oral communication will be the chance of distortion whenever a message needs to go through multiple people. The prospect of such distortion increases in direct proportion towards the amount of people it is communicated through. The “broken telephone” game played in primary school remains a likewise valid example of distorted meaning in operation communication. As a result, oral communication becomes clearly insufficient when sensitive information needs to be communicated using a number of intermediary recipients. Possible distortion is avoided in such cases through the use of Written communication.
B. Written
Written communication encompasses the transmission of meaning through words and/or symbols, for example e-mails, instruction manuals, notes, faxes and everyday literature. Written communication is often the preferred method since it is both tangible and verifiable. For instance, the photocopy of an instruction manual or perhaps the digital copy of an electronic message may be stored for later reference. On the other hand, while such storage is possible with oral communication with the use of a tape recorder, it really is relatively time-consuming, complicated, prone to technical errors and hard to consult (look at a situation where one should reference a small part of data from your 2-hour presentation).
The next major benefit of written communication is due to its very nature. While confronting the need to place their thoughts upon paper, human beings are often a lot more careful using the way they present the knowledge. Unlike oral communication, written transfers of meaning do not require the roll-out of the original message being nearly instantaneous, which enables the sender to carefully construct what it's all about, eliminating ambiguities and possible reasons for misunderstanding or offense. Because of this, written communication can be a lot more logical, clear and thought-out than its oral counterpart.
The key problem with written communication is time. Unlike oral communication, the written way is far more time-consuming. Additionally, it frequently involves completing a selection of prerequisite activities before an itemized message may be dispatched, including spell checking or clear handwriting. While now available software helps automate some of these tasks and makes others downright redundant, written communication still remains an indisputably more time-consuming kind of interaction.
The final major downside of written communication is feedback - or insufficient it. Unlike oral communication where feedback is generally instantaneous, no such rapid feedback mechanism exists for the written form. As a result, the certainty that the message is going to be received is reduced, as they are the chance that it will be interpreted as intended. While the choice of contacting the receiver for more clarification and/or verification exists, it's not always available and it is relatively time-consuming. Due to these reasons, written communication ought to be treated as a complementary type of communication in the given entity rather than the exclusive one.
C. Nonverbal
The past communication strategy to be discussed within this section is nonverbal communication. Nonverbal communication often takes place if we are sending a verbal message to anyone ; however, sometimes, additionally, it occurs even when no verbal message is being sent. Actually, some researchers even argue that everything human beings do - from smiles and intonations to body movements and hairstyle - may be classified as nonverbal communication, albeit one using a which means that is tough to extract and accurately interpret. High emotional intelligence is usually an edge - people possessing it can frequently extract more details from the sender by taking a look at how a verbal message is said rather than focusing merely on which is said. For instance, while a verbal message may say “Yes”, its nonverbal counterpart (for example, the eyes with the sender) could possibly convey the contrary meaning. Understanding such subtleties is important not only for ethical reasons, but also as it helps increase the quality and effectiveness of transferring a message.
Based on J. Fast , many people movement has a meaning; no movement is accidental. People often unintentionally send messages, often to their personal detriment - consider cases when a speaker addressing a sizable audience may send signals of uncertainty through a shaky voice or intonation.
Body gestures is definitely a interesting field of study, however its root lie primarily in psychology. For HR managers, however, there's two essential messages that the body can convey. The foremost is the extent to which someone is interested in and appreciates the view of others. The second is the perceived status of people involved in such an interaction (5). For instance, human beings often position themselves closer to people that like.
While body language adds a deeper intending to a sender’s message, additionally, it may complicate verbal communication. This stems from the essential problem that there's no universally accepted standard of interpreting nonverbal communication. Furthermore, such interpretation are frequently suffering from the personality, cultural background and experience with the receiver, to mention just a few such variables. The single most important drawback to nonverbal communication is always that messages submitted this fashion are both hard to control from the sender and hard to interpret by the receiver.
The Communication Process
In defining the thought of communication, it was mentioned that it's a technique of transferring meaning. This section will analyze this technique in greater detail by breaking it down into a number of steps that make transfer and understanding of the meaning. Various kinds of this method exist, because of multiple researchers identifying different - and sometimes conflicting - sets of steps involved. A few of these models are purely technical, such as Bell’s original sketches with the telephone and bear little practical use for an HR practitioner, while others are severely out of date, often by as much as Sixty years. It will concentrate on discussing selected models which are considered of relevance to the topic. They'll be presented in chronological order reflecting the development of communications being a field of study since 1960s.
Shannon’s model of communication (depicted below) was one of the first general models of the communication process . For upwards of 60 years, it's got remained the initial such model learned by students as part of their initial academic foray to the field of communications.
Shannon’s model divides the whole process of communication into eight distinct components:
1. Information Source: the person who creates the message and so initiates the communication session.
2. Message: sent from the Information Source and received through the Destination
3. Transmitter: this term features a wide array of intermediary transmitters, both organic and non-organic. For example, Shannon’s original definition envisaged the transmitter like a telephone that captured audio waves and converted them into electronic signals. However, an indication can also be created and modulated by just communicating the content verbally and throughout associated nonverbal communication.
4. Signal: flows via a channel.
5. Channel or carrier: can be anything, including electricity, radio waves, paper, etc.
6. Noise: as Shannon originally conceived of transmitters as telephones, the notion of noise was therefore comparatively restrictive and referred purely to secondary signals that confuse or obscure the signal carried through the channel. Contemporary analysis of the communication process generally regards noise as a metaphor for the number of communication barriers that will distort the clarity of the message.
7. Receiver: a wide variety of receivers can be done - for example, in one on one communication it could the set of ears (sound) and eyes (gesture).
8. Destination: the one who consumes and processes what it's all about.
Several books on communication have since modified Shannon’s model, replacing transmitters and receivers with encoding and decoding respectively; the fundamental principle, however, has remained unaltered. The model can be often called the experience model of communication). Its single biggest drawback to this model is that it fails to are the cause of the truth that communication is usually bidirectional. As there is no guarantee that the initial message was received (or was interpreted within the intended manner), there is certainly usually a strong dependence on feedback. This element won't be underestimated - it fulfils a vital objective of the communication process by verifying that understanding continues to be achieved. In reality, it may be safely asserted that effective communication is impossible without feedback, since the technique latter logically encompasses not only the change in meaning, but in addition its understanding.
The Interactive Model depicted below expands upon Shannon’s model by incorporating a cybernetic idea of feedback. It's in line with the notion that destinations provide feedback on messages received, which often enables the information source to evolve their messages instantly.
As the discussion on the significance of feedback demonstrates, its incorporation into the model is definitely a important elaboration. Unfortunately, it is also a radically oversimplified one. Much like the original message, feedback, too, has to be encoded, transmitted, decoded and received. Additionally it is affected by noise - but none of such elements are indicated around the interactive model. Quite simply, even though the model is the reason the reasons with the original message, it doesn't do the same for feedback and drastically oversimplifies it as being a result.
The Transactional Model (depicted below) correctly treats feedback as the second message. Moreover, it doesn't separate what it's all about sender and the receiver, instead perceiving both as communicators involved with a circular flow of creating and consuming messages.
Davis Foulger argues how the Transactional Model is, in several ways, a great style of face-to-face communication. It extends readily to an interactive medium that delivers users with symmetrical interfaces for creation and consumption of messages (notes, emails, letters, etc.) However, the disadvantage to this model is its failure to account for the noise factor. For that reason, a combination of Transactional and Interactive models is better used to comprehend the communication process; inside the Transaction model above, the path from Communicator A to Communicator B (and, equally, from Communicator B back to Communicator A) is also the road from your sender for the received as depicted inside the Interactive Model.
By now, it ought to be evident there multiple models of the communication process, understanding that do not require fully take into account all steps active in the process. Therefore, the concluding point about this section will talk about the communication process when it comes to the way it actually occur in reality as opposed to how it is presented by models.
Communication is definitely a purposeful process, whether it's just a greeting or even a complicated speech to an audience of corporate investors. Quite simply, communication requires there to become a and therefore must be transferred and, in a way or another, expressed in the message. The sender results in a message by encoding a concept - for example, a Swiss entrepreneur encountering his American counterpart should encode their greeting into English. Similarly, the Swiss entrepreneur may encode the message in a language unknown for the receiver; however, communication in such instances will usually not take place since it is unlikely to create the knowledge of the intended meaning from the receiver.
As soon as the message is created and also the receiver is identified, the sender needs to select the channel - the medium through which the message will go to its intended recipient. For example, the Swiss entrepreneur above may choose to write instructions, make a call or speak with his American counterpart face-to-face. Many of these are examples of different channels of communication, which is down to the sender to choose the most appropriate one. As an example, the Swiss entrepreneur may want to hold a two-hour long video conference from his cellular phone - while expensive, it is clearly cheaper than discussing the matter in person if the American counterpart is 1000s of miles away.
After the channel may be chosen and the message continues to be sent, the receiver must decode it - quite simply, the symbols when the message is encoded need to be translated right into a format understood through the receiver. Usually, there isn't any be certain that madness as understood from the receiver is going to be comparable to the meaning originally invested into the message by the sender. The primary reason for this discrepancy will be the aforementioned problem of noise - barriers to communication that distort the clarity with the message.
To date, the communication process has followed Shannon’s action type of communication because it focused exclusively on uni-directional communication from your sender for the receiver. However, as discussed previously, communication is usually bidirectional - the receiver might wish to respond, giving communication a new purpose, restarting the procedure at its inception point and effectively creating a communication loop as depicted within the Transactional Model.
Barriers to Communication
The final point about this section discusses possible barriers to effective communication. Previously listed models of the communication process generally incorporate the component of noise (using the obvious exception from the Transactional Model). Noise continues to be understood to be barriers that will distort the clarity from the message and alter its meaning - and in cases when the noise levels are particularly high, the content may not be delivered whatsoever.
Filtering
Filtering happens when the sender intentionally manipulates the content with the message and its particular presentation to ensure it's viewed more favourably by the receiver. As an example, telling people what they need to hear or emphasizing all attention on good news and barely mentioning the not so good mention the bad are frequent cases of filtering.
Selective perception
Selective perception happens when the receiver selectively sees and hears. It can be in line with the receiver’s needs, motivations, experience, background, culture as well as other personal characteristics.
”We don't see reality; we interpret what we see and think of it as reality”
Very real problem
Human beings have a limited capacity for processing data. When information being processed exceeds the processing capacity, information overload occurs. Which means that a person might ignore, pass over, select out, or forget information. Information overload results in loss of information reducing efficiency of communication. On the side-note, mass confusion is relevant not just to human brain, but additionally to most modern communication channels, including e-mail or mobile network that occasionally become overloaded and therefore stops being completely functional (as an example, delayed delivery of e-mails because of network overload).
Contemporary managers are in a much and the higher chances of struggling with very real problem because of the proliferation of communication channels available (the proliferation of e-mails and associated spam, telephone calls as well as their quality, SMS, faxes, meetings and also the have to remain up-to-date on professional developments in one’s own field).
Emotions
The interpretation from the message from the receiver could be greatly relying on how a receiver feels during receipt. The same message may be perceived differently depending on if the receiver is angry, tired or happy. As an example, common sense would lead someone to avoid asking their direct superior at the office to get a salary increase when the latter is proven to be inside a bad move; similarly, an exhausted and stressed-out recipient is not likely to effective process information. Extreme emotions, such as depression, could even replace the rational capabilities of a human mind with purely emotional judgements, increasing the likelihood of misinterpreting the content.
Language
Language can be a highly prominent barrier to effective communication. As discussed previously, a Swiss entrepreneur and the American counterpart would be struggling to effectively resolve a challenge if they could not speak exactly the same language. Communication would basically be impossible - although gestures can convey several meanings, it really is clearly insufficient for business purposes. Cultural differences could have a similar impact - jokes or gestures could be perceived differently depending on the culture from the recipient. Finally, even words can have entirely different meanings to several people, leading to entire messages being misinterpreted because of a person’s age, culture, experience, education, professional background, etc.
Communication Apprehension
One of the most popular barriers to effective communication is communication apprehension or anxiety. This is a major problem since it could affect most of communication. Research indicates that ranging from 5% and 20% of people is suffering from communication apprehension . They often choose communication channels based this is not on their effectiveness for a given message, but instead on their own determination in order to avoid a specific channel altogether. For example, people apprehensive of oral communication will often aim to avoid channels which involve verbal communication, rendering them not able to give effective presentations or communicate effectively by phone.
There are many barriers to successful communication; however, the people enumerated above as usually the most prominent. A particular level of noise is definitely present. Hypothetically, even if human beings were to 1 day master the strategies of telepathy, the original visual message thus obtained would still possibly mean different things to several people. Successful communication is essential - but it is demanding when it comes to skills and a focus, and never even telepathy is a silver bullet for that problem of noise.
References
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication
2. K.W. Thomas and W.H. Schmidt, “A Survey of Managerial Interests regarding Conflict,” Academy of Management Journal, June 1976, p.317.
3. L.S. Rashotte, “What Does That Smile Mean? Madness of Nonverbal Behaviors in Social Interaction,” Social Psychology Quarterly, March 2002, pp.92-102.
4. J. Fast, Body Language (Philadelphia: M. Evan, 1970), p.7.
5. A. Mehrabian, Nonverbal Communication (Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1972).
6. Bell. A.G. (unknown date). Sketch of the workings from the telephone, from his original sketches. Bell Family Papers; Library of Congress. (original image at http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mcc/004/0001.jpg)
7. Foulder, D. An Ecological Model of the Communication Process. February 25, 2004. Retrieved from http://foulger.info/davis/research/unifiedModelOfCommunication.htm
8. Shannon, C.E.A (1948). Mathematical Theory of communication. Bell System Technical Journal, vol. 27, pp.379-423 and 623-656, July and October, 1948.
9. Stephen P. Robbins, Timothy A. Judge. Organizational Behavior (Pearson, Prentice Hall, 12th edition 2007), p.369.
10. Weiner, N. (1948). Cybernetics: or Control and Communication inside the animal as well as the Machine. Wiley.
11. Weiner, N. (1986). Human Utilization of human Beings: Cybernetics and Society. Avon.
12. J.C McCroskey, J.A. Daly, and G. Sorenson, “Personality Correlates of Communication Apprehension, “Human Communication Research, Spring 1976, pp.376-81.
13. Personal page of the author - Dr. Kirill Kretov: http://www.kretov.ch
14. EyeComTec can be a subdivision of LAZgroup SA - a small grouping of developers creating software to help people that suffer from paralysis or significantly impaired mobility. The main mission of EyeComTec is to develop effective and affordable technology letting them communicate exclusively through eye movements
About the author and EyeComTec:
Present article is a part of Master Thesis written and properly defended by Dr. Kirill Kretov (Doctor of economic Administration, Master of Arts in Hr Management, and Bachelor laptop or computer Science) in May 2007, Geneva, Switzerland.
Kretov Kirill is a founding father of EyeComTec (subdivision of LAZgroup SA), several developers creating software to help those who are suffering from paralysis or significantly impaired mobility. The mission of EyeComTec would be to develop effective and affordable technology allowing visitors to communicate exclusively through eye movements.
Having analyzed the specialized market pc devices for paralyzed people, they found an upsetting conclusion: most of the devices and software are extremely harmful for the physically impaired people in addition to their families to get. Obviously, the important companies spend great amounts of money annually on improving the quality of these production but, regardless, the values are extremely inflated.
These factors were regarded as a big challenge to a team from LAZgroup. They strongly believe that devices for paralyzed people really should not be so expensive, and EyeComTec is intending to create working types of the system optimized for laptops having a built-in camcorder (whose price does not exceed $500). The program to be removed in 2013 is going to be totally free for private non-commercial use. LAZgroup is focusing on an appropriate and affordable product for those who absolutely need it. Besides, if this creates competition in neuro-scientific computer technologies, if other programs who create similar products will be motivated to produce a more effective and cheaper solutions, LAZgroup will consider that an unambiguous success. The most important thing is not to forget that quality isn't necessarily measured by price. Check back for updates on www.eyecomtec.com!
Present article is a component of Master Thesis written and effectively defended by Dr. Kretov Kirill (Master of Arts in Hr Management and Doctor of economic Administration) in May 2007, Geneva, Switzerland.
Effective communication
The primary objective of the present article would be to discuss communication: define the idea of communication, explain the communication process in its entirety and enumerate factors which might improve its efficiency.
Effective communication_
Communication
"Communication" is scheduled by Wikipedia the following:
Communication is really a method that allows organisms to change information by a number of methods .
The clarity and scope of this definition are self-evident - as well as explaining the word, it means that communication is characteristic to any or all living beings. Actually, alternative definitions from the term have a tendency to incorporate the idea further, suggesting that animals and even bacteria communicate on a purely biological level. Therefore, an even more accurate definition is needed to emphasize the importance of meaningful communication when the subject of purely human interaction is usually to be considered:
Communication can be defined as the process of meaningful interaction among people. It is the act of passing information as well as the process through which meanings are exchanged in order to produce understanding.
This definition helps explain the fundamental concept that lies at the heart of communication in addition to narrows the scope of communication under consideration to humans alone. Therefore, oahu is the preferred definition and will therefore supply for your remaining area of the paper.
Importance
Communication is essential. As previously referred to, it is an essential characteristic of all living beings, whether bacteria, reptiles or, indeed, homo-sapiens. The underlying dependence on communication is undeniable. It stems from a combination of both physical needs and animal instincts and it is crucial to survival. However, among the fundamental differences between human beings and animals will be the formers’ vastly more complicated behaviour mechanisms, which in turn necessitate more accurate, advanced and complicated ways of communication. Spiritually, misunderstanding of merely a few words can mean the main difference between life and death.
From the purely sociological perspective, it really is safe to say how the formation and continued functioning of the grouping or organization doesn't seem possible without communication between its members. Furthermore, communication remains an essential precondition from the effectiveness of any such entity. Society and, indeed, all its accomplishments and advancements - whether manufacturing an automobile, understanding how to milk a cow or constructive a nuclear warhead - would have been impossible to perform without associated communication. Studies have shown that inadequate communication is probably the most frequently cited causes of interpersonal conflict.
EyeComTec
Communication is vital for those human beings. Nevertheless it may occur that an individual is entirely limited in communication, not being able to express himself neither by speech, nor by sign language. It's because the loss of motor activity - partial (hypokinesia) or complete (akinesia). Inside the first case, the mobility sheds due to various diseases from the central nervous system, and post-traumatic states of the brain and spinal-cord, in addition to strokes. Inside the second case, loosing activity can be a consequence of complex mental disorders and paralysis.
All of us are really utilized to the continual movement and communication through speech that all these diseases and problems can seem totally distant and insignificant. But, after losing in one terrible moment, something that was considered so routine and natural the patient will literally be cut removed from the world. Gone will be the possibility for him to maneuver, to question the physician to assist, or tell his loved ones about his condition. It becomes an irreparable loss for both the patient and the family.
The only real salvation for the patient in this instance is his eyes. Even in the situation of complex hemiplegia (paralysis of muscles of 1 side from the body), lots of people retain a total or partial ability to control their eyes and blink, as cranial nerves driving the eyeballs remain intact. Thus the sufferer has a last, lackluster compared with the lost abilities only possible hyperlink to communicate with the outside. With eye movements and blinks he is able to reply to unambiguous questions with the doctor, for example: one blink - yes, two blinks - no. Simultaneously, the individual needs to resign himself that the he’ll be unable to communicate voluntarily, outside simple a word answers. Or does he?
At EyeComTec (a subdivision of LAZgroup SA) -- several developers creating software to help individuals that suffer from paralysis or significantly impaired mobility. Their mission is always to develop effective and affordable technology permitting them to communicate exclusively through eye movements. These have created working algorithms and prototypes of the programs; in the future (Spring 2013), they shall be documented and published about the official web-site www.eyecomtec.com
Interpersonal Communication
Communication continues to be defined earlier as the transfer and understanding of a specific meaning - but how exactly carry out the members of a group transfer such meaning among themselves? Existing research distinguishes between three methods of communication - oral, written and non-verbal.
A. Oral
Oral communication will be the single most typical way of transferring a particular meaning, simply because it may be the first kind of communication that humans face. Whenever a baby is born, its cries are not just a way to obtain delight for the parents - additionally it is a person's being’s first work for balance oral communication.
Oral communication is therefore ingrained in humans from birth. It encompasses meaningful words and sounds produced by people so as to create understanding online websites with the change in meaning.
Like another method, oral communication has its own benefits and drawbacks. Firstly, it's fast - the delay between sending a verbal message and getting a verbal response is usually minimal. This permits people to exchange enormous volumes of information in comparatively negligible intervals. Secondly, in situations where the receives is uncertain as to the precise concept of the message, feedback and clarification can be requested in real time, enabling corrections by the sender to take place instantaneously.
The one biggest drawback to oral communication will be the chance of distortion whenever a message needs to go through multiple people. The prospect of such distortion increases in direct proportion towards the amount of people it is communicated through. The “broken telephone” game played in primary school remains a likewise valid example of distorted meaning in operation communication. As a result, oral communication becomes clearly insufficient when sensitive information needs to be communicated using a number of intermediary recipients. Possible distortion is avoided in such cases through the use of Written communication.
B. Written
Written communication encompasses the transmission of meaning through words and/or symbols, for example e-mails, instruction manuals, notes, faxes and everyday literature. Written communication is often the preferred method since it is both tangible and verifiable. For instance, the photocopy of an instruction manual or perhaps the digital copy of an electronic message may be stored for later reference. On the other hand, while such storage is possible with oral communication with the use of a tape recorder, it really is relatively time-consuming, complicated, prone to technical errors and hard to consult (look at a situation where one should reference a small part of data from your 2-hour presentation).
The next major benefit of written communication is due to its very nature. While confronting the need to place their thoughts upon paper, human beings are often a lot more careful using the way they present the knowledge. Unlike oral communication, written transfers of meaning do not require the roll-out of the original message being nearly instantaneous, which enables the sender to carefully construct what it's all about, eliminating ambiguities and possible reasons for misunderstanding or offense. Because of this, written communication can be a lot more logical, clear and thought-out than its oral counterpart.
The key problem with written communication is time. Unlike oral communication, the written way is far more time-consuming. Additionally, it frequently involves completing a selection of prerequisite activities before an itemized message may be dispatched, including spell checking or clear handwriting. While now available software helps automate some of these tasks and makes others downright redundant, written communication still remains an indisputably more time-consuming kind of interaction.
The final major downside of written communication is feedback - or insufficient it. Unlike oral communication where feedback is generally instantaneous, no such rapid feedback mechanism exists for the written form. As a result, the certainty that the message is going to be received is reduced, as they are the chance that it will be interpreted as intended. While the choice of contacting the receiver for more clarification and/or verification exists, it's not always available and it is relatively time-consuming. Due to these reasons, written communication ought to be treated as a complementary type of communication in the given entity rather than the exclusive one.
C. Nonverbal
The past communication strategy to be discussed within this section is nonverbal communication. Nonverbal communication often takes place if we are sending a verbal message to anyone ; however, sometimes, additionally, it occurs even when no verbal message is being sent. Actually, some researchers even argue that everything human beings do - from smiles and intonations to body movements and hairstyle - may be classified as nonverbal communication, albeit one using a which means that is tough to extract and accurately interpret. High emotional intelligence is usually an edge - people possessing it can frequently extract more details from the sender by taking a look at how a verbal message is said rather than focusing merely on which is said. For instance, while a verbal message may say “Yes”, its nonverbal counterpart (for example, the eyes with the sender) could possibly convey the contrary meaning. Understanding such subtleties is important not only for ethical reasons, but also as it helps increase the quality and effectiveness of transferring a message.
Based on J. Fast , many people movement has a meaning; no movement is accidental. People often unintentionally send messages, often to their personal detriment - consider cases when a speaker addressing a sizable audience may send signals of uncertainty through a shaky voice or intonation.
Body gestures is definitely a interesting field of study, however its root lie primarily in psychology. For HR managers, however, there's two essential messages that the body can convey. The foremost is the extent to which someone is interested in and appreciates the view of others. The second is the perceived status of people involved in such an interaction (5). For instance, human beings often position themselves closer to people that like.
While body language adds a deeper intending to a sender’s message, additionally, it may complicate verbal communication. This stems from the essential problem that there's no universally accepted standard of interpreting nonverbal communication. Furthermore, such interpretation are frequently suffering from the personality, cultural background and experience with the receiver, to mention just a few such variables. The single most important drawback to nonverbal communication is always that messages submitted this fashion are both hard to control from the sender and hard to interpret by the receiver.
The Communication Process
In defining the thought of communication, it was mentioned that it's a technique of transferring meaning. This section will analyze this technique in greater detail by breaking it down into a number of steps that make transfer and understanding of the meaning. Various kinds of this method exist, because of multiple researchers identifying different - and sometimes conflicting - sets of steps involved. A few of these models are purely technical, such as Bell’s original sketches with the telephone and bear little practical use for an HR practitioner, while others are severely out of date, often by as much as Sixty years. It will concentrate on discussing selected models which are considered of relevance to the topic. They'll be presented in chronological order reflecting the development of communications being a field of study since 1960s.
Shannon’s model of communication (depicted below) was one of the first general models of the communication process . For upwards of 60 years, it's got remained the initial such model learned by students as part of their initial academic foray to the field of communications.
Shannon’s model divides the whole process of communication into eight distinct components:
1. Information Source: the person who creates the message and so initiates the communication session.
2. Message: sent from the Information Source and received through the Destination
3. Transmitter: this term features a wide array of intermediary transmitters, both organic and non-organic. For example, Shannon’s original definition envisaged the transmitter like a telephone that captured audio waves and converted them into electronic signals. However, an indication can also be created and modulated by just communicating the content verbally and throughout associated nonverbal communication.
4. Signal: flows via a channel.
5. Channel or carrier: can be anything, including electricity, radio waves, paper, etc.
6. Noise: as Shannon originally conceived of transmitters as telephones, the notion of noise was therefore comparatively restrictive and referred purely to secondary signals that confuse or obscure the signal carried through the channel. Contemporary analysis of the communication process generally regards noise as a metaphor for the number of communication barriers that will distort the clarity of the message.
7. Receiver: a wide variety of receivers can be done - for example, in one on one communication it could the set of ears (sound) and eyes (gesture).
8. Destination: the one who consumes and processes what it's all about.
Several books on communication have since modified Shannon’s model, replacing transmitters and receivers with encoding and decoding respectively; the fundamental principle, however, has remained unaltered. The model can be often called the experience model of communication). Its single biggest drawback to this model is that it fails to are the cause of the truth that communication is usually bidirectional. As there is no guarantee that the initial message was received (or was interpreted within the intended manner), there is certainly usually a strong dependence on feedback. This element won't be underestimated - it fulfils a vital objective of the communication process by verifying that understanding continues to be achieved. In reality, it may be safely asserted that effective communication is impossible without feedback, since the technique latter logically encompasses not only the change in meaning, but in addition its understanding.
The Interactive Model depicted below expands upon Shannon’s model by incorporating a cybernetic idea of feedback. It's in line with the notion that destinations provide feedback on messages received, which often enables the information source to evolve their messages instantly.
As the discussion on the significance of feedback demonstrates, its incorporation into the model is definitely a important elaboration. Unfortunately, it is also a radically oversimplified one. Much like the original message, feedback, too, has to be encoded, transmitted, decoded and received. Additionally it is affected by noise - but none of such elements are indicated around the interactive model. Quite simply, even though the model is the reason the reasons with the original message, it doesn't do the same for feedback and drastically oversimplifies it as being a result.
The Transactional Model (depicted below) correctly treats feedback as the second message. Moreover, it doesn't separate what it's all about sender and the receiver, instead perceiving both as communicators involved with a circular flow of creating and consuming messages.
Davis Foulger argues how the Transactional Model is, in several ways, a great style of face-to-face communication. It extends readily to an interactive medium that delivers users with symmetrical interfaces for creation and consumption of messages (notes, emails, letters, etc.) However, the disadvantage to this model is its failure to account for the noise factor. For that reason, a combination of Transactional and Interactive models is better used to comprehend the communication process; inside the Transaction model above, the path from Communicator A to Communicator B (and, equally, from Communicator B back to Communicator A) is also the road from your sender for the received as depicted inside the Interactive Model.
By now, it ought to be evident there multiple models of the communication process, understanding that do not require fully take into account all steps active in the process. Therefore, the concluding point about this section will talk about the communication process when it comes to the way it actually occur in reality as opposed to how it is presented by models.
Communication is definitely a purposeful process, whether it's just a greeting or even a complicated speech to an audience of corporate investors. Quite simply, communication requires there to become a and therefore must be transferred and, in a way or another, expressed in the message. The sender results in a message by encoding a concept - for example, a Swiss entrepreneur encountering his American counterpart should encode their greeting into English. Similarly, the Swiss entrepreneur may encode the message in a language unknown for the receiver; however, communication in such instances will usually not take place since it is unlikely to create the knowledge of the intended meaning from the receiver.
As soon as the message is created and also the receiver is identified, the sender needs to select the channel - the medium through which the message will go to its intended recipient. For example, the Swiss entrepreneur above may choose to write instructions, make a call or speak with his American counterpart face-to-face. Many of these are examples of different channels of communication, which is down to the sender to choose the most appropriate one. As an example, the Swiss entrepreneur may want to hold a two-hour long video conference from his cellular phone - while expensive, it is clearly cheaper than discussing the matter in person if the American counterpart is 1000s of miles away.
After the channel may be chosen and the message continues to be sent, the receiver must decode it - quite simply, the symbols when the message is encoded need to be translated right into a format understood through the receiver. Usually, there isn't any be certain that madness as understood from the receiver is going to be comparable to the meaning originally invested into the message by the sender. The primary reason for this discrepancy will be the aforementioned problem of noise - barriers to communication that distort the clarity with the message.
To date, the communication process has followed Shannon’s action type of communication because it focused exclusively on uni-directional communication from your sender for the receiver. However, as discussed previously, communication is usually bidirectional - the receiver might wish to respond, giving communication a new purpose, restarting the procedure at its inception point and effectively creating a communication loop as depicted within the Transactional Model.
Barriers to Communication
The final point about this section discusses possible barriers to effective communication. Previously listed models of the communication process generally incorporate the component of noise (using the obvious exception from the Transactional Model). Noise continues to be understood to be barriers that will distort the clarity from the message and alter its meaning - and in cases when the noise levels are particularly high, the content may not be delivered whatsoever.
Filtering
Filtering happens when the sender intentionally manipulates the content with the message and its particular presentation to ensure it's viewed more favourably by the receiver. As an example, telling people what they need to hear or emphasizing all attention on good news and barely mentioning the not so good mention the bad are frequent cases of filtering.
Selective perception
Selective perception happens when the receiver selectively sees and hears. It can be in line with the receiver’s needs, motivations, experience, background, culture as well as other personal characteristics.
”We don't see reality; we interpret what we see and think of it as reality”
Very real problem
Human beings have a limited capacity for processing data. When information being processed exceeds the processing capacity, information overload occurs. Which means that a person might ignore, pass over, select out, or forget information. Information overload results in loss of information reducing efficiency of communication. On the side-note, mass confusion is relevant not just to human brain, but additionally to most modern communication channels, including e-mail or mobile network that occasionally become overloaded and therefore stops being completely functional (as an example, delayed delivery of e-mails because of network overload).
Contemporary managers are in a much and the higher chances of struggling with very real problem because of the proliferation of communication channels available (the proliferation of e-mails and associated spam, telephone calls as well as their quality, SMS, faxes, meetings and also the have to remain up-to-date on professional developments in one’s own field).
Emotions
The interpretation from the message from the receiver could be greatly relying on how a receiver feels during receipt. The same message may be perceived differently depending on if the receiver is angry, tired or happy. As an example, common sense would lead someone to avoid asking their direct superior at the office to get a salary increase when the latter is proven to be inside a bad move; similarly, an exhausted and stressed-out recipient is not likely to effective process information. Extreme emotions, such as depression, could even replace the rational capabilities of a human mind with purely emotional judgements, increasing the likelihood of misinterpreting the content.
Language
Language can be a highly prominent barrier to effective communication. As discussed previously, a Swiss entrepreneur and the American counterpart would be struggling to effectively resolve a challenge if they could not speak exactly the same language. Communication would basically be impossible - although gestures can convey several meanings, it really is clearly insufficient for business purposes. Cultural differences could have a similar impact - jokes or gestures could be perceived differently depending on the culture from the recipient. Finally, even words can have entirely different meanings to several people, leading to entire messages being misinterpreted because of a person’s age, culture, experience, education, professional background, etc.
Communication Apprehension
One of the most popular barriers to effective communication is communication apprehension or anxiety. This is a major problem since it could affect most of communication. Research indicates that ranging from 5% and 20% of people is suffering from communication apprehension . They often choose communication channels based this is not on their effectiveness for a given message, but instead on their own determination in order to avoid a specific channel altogether. For example, people apprehensive of oral communication will often aim to avoid channels which involve verbal communication, rendering them not able to give effective presentations or communicate effectively by phone.
There are many barriers to successful communication; however, the people enumerated above as usually the most prominent. A particular level of noise is definitely present. Hypothetically, even if human beings were to 1 day master the strategies of telepathy, the original visual message thus obtained would still possibly mean different things to several people. Successful communication is essential - but it is demanding when it comes to skills and a focus, and never even telepathy is a silver bullet for that problem of noise.
References
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication
2. K.W. Thomas and W.H. Schmidt, “A Survey of Managerial Interests regarding Conflict,” Academy of Management Journal, June 1976, p.317.
3. L.S. Rashotte, “What Does That Smile Mean? Madness of Nonverbal Behaviors in Social Interaction,” Social Psychology Quarterly, March 2002, pp.92-102.
4. J. Fast, Body Language (Philadelphia: M. Evan, 1970), p.7.
5. A. Mehrabian, Nonverbal Communication (Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1972).
6. Bell. A.G. (unknown date). Sketch of the workings from the telephone, from his original sketches. Bell Family Papers; Library of Congress. (original image at http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mcc/004/0001.jpg)
7. Foulder, D. An Ecological Model of the Communication Process. February 25, 2004. Retrieved from http://foulger.info/davis/research/unifiedModelOfCommunication.htm
8. Shannon, C.E.A (1948). Mathematical Theory of communication. Bell System Technical Journal, vol. 27, pp.379-423 and 623-656, July and October, 1948.
9. Stephen P. Robbins, Timothy A. Judge. Organizational Behavior (Pearson, Prentice Hall, 12th edition 2007), p.369.
10. Weiner, N. (1948). Cybernetics: or Control and Communication inside the animal as well as the Machine. Wiley.
11. Weiner, N. (1986). Human Utilization of human Beings: Cybernetics and Society. Avon.
12. J.C McCroskey, J.A. Daly, and G. Sorenson, “Personality Correlates of Communication Apprehension, “Human Communication Research, Spring 1976, pp.376-81.
13. Personal page of the author - Dr. Kirill Kretov: http://www.kretov.ch
14. EyeComTec can be a subdivision of LAZgroup SA - a small grouping of developers creating software to help people that suffer from paralysis or significantly impaired mobility. The main mission of EyeComTec is to develop effective and affordable technology letting them communicate exclusively through eye movements
About the author and EyeComTec:
Present article is a part of Master Thesis written and properly defended by Dr. Kirill Kretov (Doctor of economic Administration, Master of Arts in Hr Management, and Bachelor laptop or computer Science) in May 2007, Geneva, Switzerland.
Kretov Kirill is a founding father of EyeComTec (subdivision of LAZgroup SA), several developers creating software to help those who are suffering from paralysis or significantly impaired mobility. The mission of EyeComTec would be to develop effective and affordable technology allowing visitors to communicate exclusively through eye movements.
Having analyzed the specialized market pc devices for paralyzed people, they found an upsetting conclusion: most of the devices and software are extremely harmful for the physically impaired people in addition to their families to get. Obviously, the important companies spend great amounts of money annually on improving the quality of these production but, regardless, the values are extremely inflated.
These factors were regarded as a big challenge to a team from LAZgroup. They strongly believe that devices for paralyzed people really should not be so expensive, and EyeComTec is intending to create working types of the system optimized for laptops having a built-in camcorder (whose price does not exceed $500). The program to be removed in 2013 is going to be totally free for private non-commercial use. LAZgroup is focusing on an appropriate and affordable product for those who absolutely need it. Besides, if this creates competition in neuro-scientific computer technologies, if other programs who create similar products will be motivated to produce a more effective and cheaper solutions, LAZgroup will consider that an unambiguous success. The most important thing is not to forget that quality isn't necessarily measured by price. Check back for updates on www.eyecomtec.com!