The Definition of Personality, Communication, Decision-Making and Negotiation Skills - Term Paper Example

Topic: ‘Communication, decision-making and negotiation skills are so closely linked to the personality of the individuals that they cannot be learned.’ Critically evaluate this statement. Introduction: This paper seeks to critically evaluate the statement that ‘communication, decision-making and negotiation skills are so closely linked to the personality of the individuals that they cannot be learned.’ The paper starts with the definition of personality, communication, decision-making and negotiation skills attempts to present the validity or invalidity of the statement in the light of existing theory on personality and any relevant empirical evidence that may be gather about the subject matter. Personality, defined. Personality (Brand,1954) assumes the characteristics of distinctiveness or uniqueness, hence to say that communication, decision-making and negotiation skill are closely related to personality, one argues as a consequence that the way one communicates, decides and negotiates is something that has also the characteristic of being inherent or genetic. To say therefore that they cannot be learned would also mean that they could not be improved and modified. Communication skills and the effects of having and not having the same Communication takes many ways. It could be done orally, verbally, in writing and even bodily. It could also be accomplished via the internet, the media and by mere silence. Communication, in this sense, means having meaning or relevance to people and organizations as at a certain point in time for decision making. In the world of business, communication is a tool to bring plans and strategies to the different units and personnel for the purposes of accomplishing goals and objectives of the organization. If one would like to see how a typical chief executive officer (CEO) appeals to his subordinates, one is advised to observe his or her manner and style of communication. If the CEO for example communicates confidence of his targets, coupled with management’s willingness to involve the employees in decision making activities, giving said subordinate employees the meaningful roles they have to play, the CEO has the right to expect support and success in his targets and plans. On the other hand, an organization may have the best plans in the world, if the same are not clearly and intelligently communicated, the members of the organization and the chances of attaining a level of accomplishment may not be as good as in the former case. Hence the uniqueness of the personality an individual may have a connection as to how communication skill are used by the CEO However, to say that that communication skills are I inherent and that they cannot be learned is a contradiction since skill may mean a dexterity that is acquired by constant practice. To agree with such statement that it cannot be learned, would seem to imply that good speakers are borne and they cannot be made. Craig, R. (2000), in discussing social psychology as communication theory, said that communication always involves individuals with their distinctive personality traits, attitudes, beliefs, and emotions. He said that communication theory involves distinctive personality traits, traits, attitudes, beliefs, and emotions. Further, he said that social behavior both displays the influence of these psychological factors and modifies them as participants influence each other, often with little awareness of what is happening. The possibility of modification as a result of the other psychological factors as participants influence each other is a proof that the skill to communicate could be learned. The statement that communication skill may not be learned simply could not find a justification in this theory where the predominance of personality may be a major part of the assumption. The statement is overly simplistic. Social psychology as a theory presupposes that communication takes into consideration what is socially desirable, which simply means that adjusting to a group required social skills which could be negotiation and decision-making skills. To say that that all those skills are the result of genetic factors would be discouraging role of further research in communication the role of new learning to influence learning behavior. Craig (2000) further said: “Intrapersonal communication, which has never developed as a major research area within communication studies (perhaps because it seems well enough covered by the discipline of psychology), in principle includes such topics as attention, perception, information seeking, cognitive processing, personality, and self-reflection. Interpersonal communication is a very broad research field that ranges from studies of the development, conduct, and dissolution of personal relationships (friendships, romantic relationships, family relationships, etc.), to studies of communicator traits such as communication apprehension and argumentativeness, to studies of the communication strategies and behaviors associated with social influence, deception, conflict, social support, impression management, and a myriad of other communication functions.” (Emphasis supplied). Craig’s statement contradicts the very claim of communication not being leaned. In nowhere one finds support to the statement that communication is never learned. Communication theory, a broad concept, simply could have contained that claim that that communication skill are closely linked to personality and that they could not be learned. To see evidence of the truthfulness of the claim would put on guard the theorist to have modified their theories by just saying that a necessary constraint in communication be put forward that communications skill is unique and therefore could not be learned. Communication studies did include the study of personality as on one of the factors, acknowledging accordingly big role that personality may have played in the communication process but the claim that it could not be learned is simply not supported by corroborative evidence from authorities in Communication theory. Craig (2000) went further mentioning, small group communication, organizational communication and mass communication saying and including there in decision making as the small and organizational communication. The next section would pertain to discussing more about this decision making skill. Importance of decision-making skills Decision-making skill marks the difference of leader from a non-leader. A leader brings people to where the desire objectives of organization may be realized. He tries to prepare the strategies in the attainment of objective. As recognized in discussing communication skill in relation to communication theory, decision making is actually part of small group and organizational communication according to Craig. Perhaps logic now justifies at this to say that decision-making could be part of any kind of communication. This is on the premise that communications has one of its purposes, the conveyance of information for decision making. Hence the two are actually inseparable. Decision-making skills necessary are necessary part of leadership. It is said that to fail to decide, is to fail at the most elementary rules of living. Life offers choices every minute and the person, while alive has really to make a choice. When one wakes up in the morning, a choice confronts him or her whether he or she eats breakfast in the workplace or not. In the bigger contexts, rights are adjudicated on the basis of courts decisions. Decisions are mandatory in life and the only way to see their wisdom or lack of it is tested by the consequence of having and not having decided. From the decisions made responsibility for consequences assume their most significant roles. In the field of management (Warner, 2001), a CEO or any manager must be a person with the power and courage to make the difficult choices in the organization’s life. Guided by the business goals and objectives (Oden, 1997), the quality of business decisions (Agmon, and Hekman, 1989) are necessarily evaluated on the accomplishment or non-accomplishment of said goals or objective. As to how the skill will be exercised is also a function of the personality of the CEO and the managers. Peters and Västfjäll (n.d.) said: “… How individuals make decisions (what decision strategies they select to use) and what they choose is highly contingent on the properties of the decision problem and on characteristics of the individual decision maker at the moment of the decision (cognitive and affective abilities, stable personality traits, more ephemeral moods).” Based on the authors’ statement, they did not say the only the genetic personality would determine the outcome of the decision but they did recognise the presence of cognitive and affective abilities as well as moods which may not necessarily be inherent and therefore subject to behavioral modification. Moreover, Peters and Västfjäll (n.d.), in discussing Socioemotional Selectivity Theory said: “Carstensen (1993) posits in her socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) that emotional goals become increasingly important as the end of life nears due to motivational shifts that direct attention to these emotional goals and thus to a greater monitoring of affective information. Because older adults are by virtue of age, closer to the end of life, then age should be associated with an increased importance of emotional goals, increased attention to emotional content, and an increased focus on positive information that can be used to optimize emotional experience. These latter two predictions potentially have great relevance to the impact of affect and emotions in judgment and decision making.” The authors added: “Recent empirical work has shown that aging is associated with an increase in attention to emotional content. For example, Carstensen and Turk-Charles (1994) had adults in four different age groups (20-29, 35-45, 53-67, and 70-83) read and recall stories containing both neutral and emotion-laden content. … Thus, older adults recalled relatively more emotional content than neutral content, supporting their contention that there was a shift in the nature of the memory representation toward disproportionate retention of emotional information. Fung and Carstensen (2003) examined memory for advertisements and found that older adults exhibited greater preference for the emotional advertisements than did younger adults.” It may be argued that the reality of more emotional goals for older people than younger may affect the decision making their decision making skills, the study did not make a claim that emotional growth of humans may be the same for all people as they grow old or implied to the effect of inevitability of genetic factors influencing decision skill. Scott Peck (1978) said: “We cannot solve life’s problems except by solving them.” The author, a practicing psychiatrist, noted that many have that tendency to avoid the pain of their problems by not really facing their problems. Not to say that everybody will not avoid problems and that every is courageous enough to face individuals problem is an overstatement and that would be denying the existence of various patients of psychiatrists, who have failed to emotionally grow in time because of their lack of courage to choose facing their problems. To practice discipline is a way facing problems and it is also a way o growing and, which by all means, is an exercise of decision-making skill. To say that the decision to discipline cannot be learned would discourage any right thinking person to study them so that they can help themselves. The statement simply sounds going back in time before the birth of psychology as field of study. The concept of negotiation skills Cohen, (2002), in defining negotiation said: “When people want to do something together—buy or sell an item, make a business deal, decide where to go for dinner—they need to use some sort of mechanism for reaching an agreement. Unless they agree instantly on every element of the choices to be made, they need to use a mutually acceptable process for decision making. Negotiation is one name for a variety of joint decision-making processes, although people also use such terms as making a deal, trading, bargaining, dickering, or (in the case of price negotiation) haggling. A successful negotiation has taken place when the parties end up mutually committed to fulfilling the agreement they have reached. Fairness is a crucial element to make a negotiation process to succeed. Some people negotiate as if their most significant objective is to take advantage of other parties; this is self-defeating. If any party feels unfairly treated, he or she may walk away from the negotiation with a negative feeling and disinclination to live up to the agreement.” To negotiate means to talk or discuss the terms of an agreement. Every negotiation must be presumed to desire to reach an agreement under certain terms and conditions. Negotiations skills may therefore refer to range of attitudes and styles that may be employed in having an agreement that is presumed to be mutually understandable to two or more parties. In the field of management, negotiation skills are needed in dealing with people. No organization is without a sufficient number persons doing negotiation as a part of communication. Although persons could be as varied in their personalities, it does not mean that they could not agree to learn to adjust to each other. In psychology, each has this individual difference. To be able to find a common ground despite the diversity of interests and opinions is a negotiations skill. Finding commonality of interest promotes support and support finds its self accomplishing more business objective since business organizations consists to people of divergent interests. Conclusion Evidence does not completely show that ‘communication, decision-making and negotiation skills are so closely linked to the personality of the individuals that they cannot be learned.’ There is a big allowance of modifying the same through deliberate effort. The statement actually contradicts itself since when one says it is a skill, it implies that it is an accomplishment, acquisition, attainment and ability that may be acquired by training or practice. By calling them communication, decision–making and negotiations skills, then they must be capable also o being learned. Bibliography: 1. Agmon, T. and Hekman, C. (1989) , Trade Policy and Corporate Business Decisions , Oxford US 2. Brand, H. (1954), The Study of Personality: A Book of Readings, John Wiley & Sons 3. Carstensen and Turk-Charles (1994), Carstensen, L. L., & Turk-Charles, S. (1994). The salience of emotion across the adult life span. Psychology & Aging, 9(2), 259-264. 4. Carstensen, L. L. (1993). Motivation for social contact across the life span. In J. E. Jacobs (Ed.) Nebraska symposium on motivation: 1992, Developmental perspectives on motivation (Vol. 40, pp. 209-254). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. 5. Cohen (2002) Negotiating Skills or Managers, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., USA 6. Craig, R. (2000), Communication, Prepared for: Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (Oxford University Press), {www document} URL http://spot.colorado.edu/~craigr/Communication.htm, accessed May 6, 2006 7. Fung and Carstensen (2003), Fung, H. H., & Carstensen, L. L. (2003). Sending memorable messages to the old: Age differences in preferences and memory for emotionally meaningful advertisements. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 163-178. 8. Oden, H.(1997), Managing Corporate Culture, Innovation, and Intrapreneurship, Quorum Books 9. Peck, S. (1978), The Road Less Traveled, and , Simon and Schuster< New York, USA, 10. Peters, E. and Västfjäll, D. (n.d.) Affective Processes in Decision Making by Older Adults {www document} URL http://www7.nationalacademies.org/csbd/peters_paper.pdf, accessed May 7, 2006 11. Warner, M. (2001), Comparative Management: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management - Vol. 2 Read More