Good Communication Skills, Interpersonal Communication Theory - Coursework Example

Communication Student’s Name Institution Good Communication Skills Category 1: Your Communication Strength People need communication skills to enhance their success in school, the workplace and other places where they are required to talk and listen. People communicate in various ways, including the face to face mode, which requires good listening ability for the conversation to be effective (Barker, 2013). Apart from the face to face mode of communication, people can also communicate through reports, email, and letters, which require a good reading ability for them to be effective. Communication, as demonstrated in the above illustrations, refers to a process that involves both the sender and receiver of the message (Hasson, 2011). In this regard, I believe I have some of the most important communication strengths as I am a good listener as well as a good public speaker. There are two activities I engaged in that helped me ascertain that I am a good listener and an excellent public speaker. The two occasions include: the time when I chaired a students’ meeting to find ways of dealing with drug abuse among them, and the day I led a meeting at my workplace to reconcile the management and employees. In the first occasion, I realized that I am a very good listener as I gave each student who attended the meeting a chance to give his or her opinions concerning the ways of preventing or doing away with drug abuse among our fellow university apprentices. As a result of my good listening ability, the meeting came up with the most effective ways of handling drug abuse among the affected students at the university. Consequently, the outcome of the meeting saw the issue of drug abuse eliminated from the college. In the second occasion when I realized I had good public speaking skills, I was able to calm down my fellow employees who were demonstrating and bring them to a round table talk. According to communication experts, there are communication practices that one needs to put in place to become a good listener as well a high-quality public speaker. To become a good listener, one should be able to understand the body language of the person he or she is communicating with, eliminate any possible destructions that may affect the effectiveness of the communication, and take time to listen to the entire speech of the person communicating, before giving out a response (Hasson, 2011). The practices enabled me to obtain the best results from the meeting. Being a good public speaker also requires one to be able to engage with his audience throughout his speech. Nash, Lowe, and Palmer (2011) argue that when a public speaker engages effectively with his audience, he understands them well and can choose the best words to speak to them. In the case of the meeting I held at the workplace, it was my ability to engage with the employees as my audience, which enabled me to achieve the goal for which the meeting was intended. The aspect of communication strength and how to improve it can be understood well through communication theories. One of the communication theories that explain the communication strengths and how to improve one’s conversation skills is constructivism. This theory explains that for one to advance his communication skills, he needs to listen carefully, understand the message conveyed to him, and interpret it well, before he decides to respond to the sender (Nash, Lowe, & Palmer, 2011). These are the tactics that I am bound to apply in my next conversations to ensure that I communicate more effectively. Category 2: Interpersonal Communication Theory The social penetration theory, an assumption that was developed by psychologists Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor, explains the development and progress of relationships. The theory asserts that relationships develop through various stages to become mature. The first stage in this development cycle is orientation. In the orientation stage, personal information, based on an individual’s public image, is self-disclosed at a public level. Communication at this stage is not very deep as an individual is only expected to reveal biographical and personal information he wants the public to know. From the first stage, the process moves to the exploratory affective exchange stage, where a more comfortable self-disclosure of personal information is done between casual associates. The disclosure at the second stage may also include political and religious information or views (Caroll, 2013). The next stage, which is the affective stage, involves acquaintances comfortably revealing not only personal, but also intimate information about them. This stage is only common with relatives, intimate partners, and close friends. The last stage, the stable exchange stage, occurs when the acquaintances become comfortable with open expression of feelings, thoughts and behaviors in their relationship with each other. This stage mostly occurs in serious relationships, such as marriage, in which the partners have a deep understanding of each other (Bordens & Horowitz, 2012). The social penetration theory uses the four stages described above together with environmental, verbal and non-verbal communication techniques to explain how relationships develop and progress systematically. Verbal communication involves the use of words while non-verbal conversations involve the use of poster and facial expressions; conversely, environmental communication involves the use of personal space to convey a message (Chen & Nakazawa, 2009). It is these techniques that are used to develop and end a relationship. For that reason, the development and progress of a relationship depend on the spirit of self-disclosure and response to it that occurs through communication. There is a scenario in which I have been personally involved in an aspect relating to the social penetration theory. The aspects I experienced were the first and second stages of the theory: the orientation and exploratory affective exchange stages. The person that I had this experience with was my best friend. Before we became the best of friends, we were strangers and the introduction between us happened at a hotel, which is a public level. When we met for the first time, we only talked about our biographical and personal information, such as educational information and the places where we came from. In the subsequent meetings, which mainly occurred as the exploratory affective exchange stage, we told each other about deeper aspects of our personal and biographical information in a more comfortable way. In addition, we also shared political and religious views. The personal experience I had is directly linked to the social penetration theory. The relationship that I have with my best friend, developed through two stages: the orientation and exploratory affective stages. As expected in the first stage, we met in a hotel, which is a public place, and we never felt free to self-disclose our personal information comfortably to each other. In the second stage of our relationship development, the exploratory affective stage, we became more used to each other. We could talk more comfortably with each other and tell each other deeper details about our personal lives, religious and political views. It is after the second stage that our friendship developed and the bond became stronger. Category 3: Computer-Mediated Communication The field of communication continues to experience a lot of advanced changes. In the ancient days, communication used to be so remote due to lack of technological knowledge. As a result of the emergence of technology, communication is nowadays advanced and quite effective. There are a number of devices that are introduced into the field of communication to help facilitate the sending and receiving of messages. One of the facilitating devices is the computer, which gave rise to the term computer-mediated communication. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) refers to sending and receiving information by means of a computer (Amant & Kelsey, 2012). To prevent any misconduct that may occur within the CMC method, online communication is guided by a number of set rules called netiquette. Netiquette comes from the words network and etiquette, and it refers to a set of rules and standards that are used to define acceptable behavior within online communication. Netiquette in CMC helps in ensuring that people who engage in online communication observe social ethics and responsible conduct as they use this mode of communication. Good CMC netiquette ensures that internet users respect each other’s privacy. These set of rules also ensure that the internet users do not pose any information that would frustrate or annoy other users. The netiquette is applied mainly on three areas; online, e-mail, and newsgroups. For instance, netiquette prevents internet users from spamming fellow users with e-mails that are likely to irritate them (Furgang, 2011). Although CMC is an effective method of communication, it is at times a difficult way of communication. The main problem that faces of CMC is the lack of emotional cues, such as facial expressions and body language. In CMC, emotional cues can be expressed in the same way people articulate themselves while writing emails. There are netiquette rules that are applicable in writing emails. Some of these rules include being brief, courteous, and avoiding shouting. The first rule, which involves being brief, requires that emails be as short as possible and to the point. The email should only convey the information for which it was intended. The second rule, courtesy, requires that people be respectful to the recipients of their emails by avoiding words that are perceived as disrespectful. The last rule, avoidance of shouting words, requires that senders avoid using capitals or upper case characters within their emails, as this is normally understood as shouting at the receiver (Furgang, 2011). The three netiquette rules are not only important in writing emails, but also in professional life. The first rule, being brief when writing emails, can help professionals to write the best emails that reflect the standards of one’s company or place of work. In addition, it is also easier to convey an important message when an email is kept as short as possible. The rule of courtesy helps professionals to observe respect for the intended receivers as they write emails. The last netiquette rule, avoidance of the use of shouting words, helps professionals to maintain a sense of humbleness and maturity as they communicate with their clients or work-colleagues (Furgang, 2011). Category 4: Professional Profile One’s professional profile is directly linked to public relations, which refers to the way employees of a given company carry out themselves in the eyes of the outside world. For good public relations, people should get exposed to and understand different cultures so as to know how to respect individuals who do not come from their culture. There are a number of important elements that determine how people relate and communicate publicly. Intercultural communication is one of the main issues that determine how professionals relate publicly. Intercultural communication refers to passing of information across many cultures. For intercultural communication to be effective, the sender and the receiver should be well conversant with and respectful of each other’s cultural values (Bardhan & Weaver, 2010). Good public relations skills imply that I need to reduce uncertainties and any other elements that may make my communication at the workplace look unprofessional. There are a number of ways by which I can enhance intercultural communication around me and as a result, improve my professional profile. Firstly, I can encourage my work colleagues from different cultures to develop associations among them, as this would give them an opportunity to understand and appreciate each other’s cultural values. Secondly, I can also apply better communiqué tactics, gain a good understanding of their cultures and be flexible as I communicate with my colleagues at work. Lastly, there is a need for me to learn more foreign languages to increase my ability to communicate with people from different cultures and races. Currently, I only know three languages, and so I need to learn as many relevant ones as possible. By building my professional profile, I am bound to increase my chances and abilities of improving the image of the company I work for. I believe that I will become a very effective communicator if I understand cultures of my colleagues and the clients for the sake of the company and my career. An effective employee is one that can speak to everyone at his workplace in a language that they understand best. It is for this reason that I want to enhance my intercultural communication skills so that I would be in a better position to reduce any factors that would prevent effective communication at my place of work. The main roles that I may be required to do with my communication knowledge are advertising and client relationship management. Advertising refers to a piece of communication aimed at informing the company’s current and potential customers about the existence of its old and new products in the market. I may be required to join the advertising team at my current workplace to help them promote the company’s products. The advertising activity may also require our advertising team to deliver factual and persuasive messages to the customers to convince them to purchase more volumes of existing and new products. The other role, client relationship management, refers to the way customers of a particular company are treated by its employees. There is a high probability that I may be required to undertake client relationship management task at my workplace. The main tool that I would require to perfectly carry out this role is good communication skills, which I have learned and acquired from this course (Chaturvedi & Chaturvedi, 2008). References Amant, K., & Kelsey, S. (2012). Computer mediated communication: Issues and approaches in education. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Bardhan, N., & Weaver, C. K. (2010). Public relations in global cultural contexts: Multi- paradigmatic perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge. Barker, A. (2013). Improve your communication skills (3rd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Kogan Page. Bordens, K. S., & Horowitz, I. A. (2012). Social psychology (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Caroll, C. E. (2013). The handbook of communication and corporate reputation. Chichester, VA: Wiley. Chaturvedi, M., & Chaturvedi, A. (2008). Customer relationship management: An Indian perspective. New Delhi: Excel Books. Chen, Y., & Nakazawa, M. (2009). Influence of culture on self-disclosure as relationality situated in intercultural and interracial friendships from a social penetration perspective. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 38(2), 77-98. Furgang, K. (2011). Netiquette: A student’s guide to digital etiquette. New York, NY: Rosen Central. Hasson, G. (2011). Brilliant communication skills: What the best communicators know, do and say. London: Pearson UK. Nash, M., Lowe, J., & Palmer, T. (2011). Developing language and communication skills through effective small group work (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Read More