Commnuincation skills - Essay Example

Communication Skills Today’s workplace calls for employees to work together and consists of a variety of communication activities like listening, questioning, and speaking within work groups. The listening skill is a very significant element of the communication process. Listening helps in understanding as well as reading other people’s messages. Furthermore, effective listening creates positivity as well as success in workplace environments and relationships. In order to become a good listener, they are two types of listening processes that need to be understood, passive and active listening.

Passive listening is one directional communication whereby the receiver does not give feedback or make inquiries and probably may or may not comprehend the message of the sender. Passive listening is known to lead to mistakes that are costly, employees being unhappy and customer dissatisfaction. Some passive listening examples include listening to radio and television. Passive listening is one of the most common forms of listening in today’s world. While active listening is a two directional communication where both sides are contributing, as well as engaging in conversation.

Furthermore, in order to become a better active listener, studying and training are necessary (Shwom and Snyder 36). Therefore, it is safe to utter that the listening skill that would enhance better communication would be active listening. In order to develop better active listening skills as well as bring success within a workplace of which every employer seeks, they are three main categories that need emphasis, namely; accurate hearing, comprehension and interpretation, and lastly response.

For example, distractions from the environment like noise from vehicles or ongoing construction sites can be considered a hindrance to accurate hearing while for comprehension and interpretation, which would include the language factor. An example to this would be if someone speaks in a different language, like say Spanish it is impossible to comprehend and interpret what has been said if the person does not know Spanish. In order to combat this, one needs to be multi-lingual, and this is where employers’ of multinational companies invest in, as well.

In addition to being a more effective listener in comprehension and interpretation, the in cooperation of non-verbal communication and verification of personal understanding through queries and paraphrasing is necessary. Some examples of non-verbal communication would include voice of tone, facial expression, body language, as well as behavioral observation. In terms of questioning, paraphrasing helps in understanding questions better. Although paraphrasing is a bit complicated, in that questions have to be re-asked to ensure complete understanding (Shwom and Snyder 37-39).

Lastly, response can either be verbal as well as nonverbal. In certain circumstances, nonverbal communication is more powerful than verbal communication. For example if someone requests for a product advice and the response to that is either total silence, eye contact or even a smile, this can be considered a powerful nonverbal communication response.The communication process involves collaboration of both listeners and speakers. While listeners focus on the need to comprehend meaning, speakers focus on engaging listeners as well as making meaning clear.

They are various speaking strategies that enable effective communication namely; focusing on the audience, conversation sharing, usage of clear language, message support with good nonverbal communication, avoidance of negative language and be mindful of gender based styles of communication (Shwom and Snyder 41).One of the major problems within a workplace is managing conflicts. Failure to manage conflicts leads to time wasted, productivity loss and substandard work output. Yet conflict within a workplace is not a bad thing, in fact, at times it is productive.

Conflicts are divided into two categories, cognitive and affective conflicts. Cognitive conflict is resultant from differences in comprehending tasks or even content while affective conflict is resultant from personality and relationship differences. Various companies have cognitive conflicts of which have shown to have positive outcomes in the end. For example, when a marketing team is placing a product price, it is inevitable that not all team members will agree on the price tag.Cultural variations will continue to exist as long there is humanity and people will be shaped by the cultures they have.

Because workplaces have become multicultural and have become global, understanding culture is no long an option. Cultural comprehension helps in preventing misinterpretation of verbal, as well as nonverbal communication with customers, as well as colleagues. When dealing with cultural differences they will be situations where stereotyping and ethnocentrism come into play, and this is not very productive for a workplace. Therefore, when a company is faced with such a dilemma, a strategy for dealing with diverse groups is needed.

Some of the strategy examples include, showing respect, paying attention to nonverbal communication of the other person, talking slowly, smiling, and listening carefully (Shwom and Snyder 51-53).In summary, communicating within a workplace can at times be challenging, however, with the right communication skill set, the impact can be felt across the workplace. Furthermore, the way in which one communicates and the way in which one perceives the communication can have an affirmative or pessimistic outcome on the success of a workplace.

Therefore, it is worth noting that communication skills are like any other skills that can be learnt as well as improved upon, in order to create success, and it is for this reason that employers have invested in training in communication skills within the workplace, which has also helped in reduction of conflicts within the companies. The ultimate goal of communication is to cultivate a common comprehension of what is said, heard, and understood within the message.Work CitedShwom, Barbara L, and Lisa G. Snyder. Business Communication: Polishing Your Professional Presence. , 2014. Print.