Communicating with Difficult People - Essay Example

Running Head: COMMUNICATING DIFFICULT PEOPLE Communicating with Difficult People Communicating with Difficult People While communicating with others is a daily accepted part of life, often these communications can lead to misunderstandings and misperceptions that can create tension and anxiety for all parties involved. I faced a situation such as this about three years ago when working for the Ministry of Education. My colleague and I both worked in the training unit but had never had the opportunity to work with each other before. We were both assigned to work on a three-day training program together. It was not complex program, we needed to choose material and training times within consideration of the trainees needs an availability. This is where the trouble began. He began to decide on these issues without consulting with me and this caused me to have to confront him on several occasions about it. He was also late for many meetings and this became an issue of responsibility and seriousness. When he was late for the third time I called him on his mobile to find out where he was and he began to yell at me telling me that his daughter was in hospital. After that point things just became personal and it was a constant strain between us. Our productivity was low and we barely communicated at all. I decided to voice my concerns in an e-mail but he did not respond nor did he seem to care. After that I just let things go and we completed the project as best we could without equal co-operation. Obviously our interpersonal communication had broken down on many levels. According to De Vito, … interpersonal communication is inevitably and essentially relational in nature; interpersonal communication takes place within a relationship, it impacts the relationship, it defines the relationship. The communication that takes place in a relationship is in part a function of that relationship. (2009, p.4) This was very obvious in the breakdown when out relationship was no longer professional. It became personal and antagonistic and the communication that resulted certainly reflected that. The Transitional Model reflects that interpersonal communication is essentially circular in nature and not linear by any means. (DeVito, 2009, p. 9) This can also cause confusion when one party thinks the other party has received or understood a message when in actuality they have not. In this case there was certainly a great amount to noise, both from my needs to have the other person perform as I wanted and from his emotional and angry responses to my criticisms. This created the kind of noise in interpersonal communication that “distorts a message” (Devito, 2009, p. 11). More specifically the emotional nature involved here created what De Vito refers to as “Psychological noise [which] is a mental interference in speaker or listener and includes preconceived ideas, wandering thoughts, biases, and prejudices, closed-mindedness and extreme emotionalism” (Devito, 2009, p. 12-13). The latter was certainly at play here. This interference is readily seen in the Shannon-Weaver model shown in figure 1. Figure 1: The Shannon-Weaver Model (Hargie & Dickson, 2003, p. 121). One would think that the more difficult communications would be between those we have closer relationships with. But it is obvious that interpersonal relationships between those we hardly know can even be more difficult, “…focus on close relationships and their development serves to marginalise the communication problems individuals encounter in the many more numerous, non-close relationships in which they participate as part of their everyday lives.” (Berger, 2002, p. 34) Which makes sense in this instance, had I known that my colleague was having problems with his daughter and that she was in the hospital, my communication with him would have take on an entirely different perspective. On the other hand, while I understand that he was having difficulties he had been late before without calling or letting me know when he was to arrive. So, as De Vito says, there is always at least tow side to any communication issue. There are numerous other areas where different features of one’s personality come into play as well as the culture one is from. Different cultures have different propensities towards communication and this may have also added to the miscommunications here. Areas such as: power distance, the amount of respect and deference displayed; individualism-collectivism, the extent to which ones identity is shaped by individual choices and achievements or by the collective group to which one belongs; uncertainty avoidance, the degree to which lifes uncertainties can be controlled through planning and foresight; masculinity-femininity, the relative focus on competitive, task-centered achievement versus co-operation and harmonious relationships. (Hargie & Dickson, 2003) European and North American cultures score high on individualism and low on power distance, while those from Latin American and Asian countries are low on individualism but high on power distance. Gudykunst and Matsumoto (1996) discussed the myriad ways in which these cultural dimensions influence communication. (Hargie & Dickson, 2003, p. 32) Looking back now I wonder if I have taken any culture indicators into account when attempting to deal with this individual, or did I just assume too much thinking he would understand what I was trying to convey? The bottom line at the time was that both of us were being rather ineffectual at communicating and consequently causing so much stress that neither of us performed the function of creating a good training experience for the trainees. Prior research indicates that interpersonal interactions involving the exchange of information and affect between coworkers and between employees … can have significant effects on the employees psychological job outcomes, including job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and burnout. Generally, as employees experience more positive communication relationships, they also experience more positive job outcomes such as job satisfaction. (Madlock, 2008, p.71) Burnout was certainly an excellent way of describing my experience at the time. So instead of having a circular dialogue that we both were engaged in and learning from, we both simply reverted to monologue where feedback simply went one way and never returned as illustrated in the following model in figure 2. There was plenty of information and criticism being sent one way, but never returned or if it was it was simply not communication only anger and indifference. This was especially true when I had e-mailed my colleague with my concerns and he never really responed and informed me later that he did not really care what I thogght or felt about it. Figure 2: Monologue One way communication (Hargie & Dickson, 2003, p. 142). Communicating through e-mail and other computer assisted technology is at once a blessing and a cures. It certainly allows us to be more productive and instantly communicate with one another sending information at the speed of light between two terminals. But is also sets up a distance, like a third party arbitrator that does not really care if we are truly communicating or not. With regard to utility, the fact that e-mail facilitates communication independent of time and place may, in many situations, be a more important characteristic than its richness. E-mail is used to obviate the barriers posed by time zones and work schedules even though it may not be the optimal medium for conveying or expressing feelings. (Van Den Hooff, Groot & De Jonge, 2005, p. 7) This turned out to be very true. I was not trying to communicate information through my e-mail but my feelings and concerns about his job attitude and performance. It probably came off cold and authoritarian when that was not my intention. Instead of opening up dialog it really effectively closed it at that point. As opposed to monologue as in the previous figure the true way to communicate, noise and all is as De Vito illustrate it in the following figure (3). Here we see that even though noise Figure 3: universals of Interpersonal Communication (De Vito, 2009, p. 9) is present there is continuing and ongoing communication which eventually brings clarity to the situation. By not only transmitting information but listening and receiving not only data but emotional and psychological cues one can more readily discern if communication is really happening or if it is just lip service. Campbell, White and Durant (2007) describe the ideal use of interpersonal communication skills as “Rapport Management.” This is an ongoing constant effort by both parties to keep the lines of communication open by using listening techniques and other “softer” skills to try an manage the effective communication flow. Rapport is defined here as an enjoyable interaction in which participants connect on some level. Rapport management refers to the use of language to manage social relations by paying more attention to our collegue desires and rights. They point out that there are two universal desires, “quality face wants and social identity face wants” and two universal rights, “autonomy rights and association rights.” (Campbell, White & Durant, 2007, p. 161) The ineffectiveness of hard interpersonal influence tactics such as a highhanded manner, demands/orders, warnings, and threats appears to be explained by their concomitant violation of rapport management norms. Such tactics violate autonomy rights. On the other hand, the relative effectiveness of soft interpersonal influence tactics, such as a friendly manner, praise, flattery, and sympathy, appears to be explained by their positive effect on the management of rapport. (Campbell, White & Durant, 2007, p. 169) Listening is also often a much overlooked part of the communication feedback loop. (Johnson, Pearce, Tuten and Sinclair (2003) surveyed a large group of co-workers that were asked to participate in a program where they remained silent for twelve hours and then were given listening seminars for two hours. These responses when asked about the experience are worth noting here: People dont know how important listening is. People want to talk more than they want to listen. Others interpret the same communication in many different ways. People do not really listen to what you say. People talk for no reason. The quieter I am, the more people around me open up. Listening is more important than talking. People tell you more and give more information when they know you are really listening and wont be cutting in. Listening requires more effort than speaking. Listening requires patience. (Johnson, Pearce, Tuten & Sinclair, 2003. P. 24) I do not believe that either of were really listening at all to what the other was trying to communicate, either by words directly or by the tone of voice, body language indirectly. Patience would certainly have been a virtue in this instance and is certainly good practical advice that I will take into the future. There is also another alternative I had not considered at the time. In these cases a third party who is independent of the situation often can help to facilitate communication between hostile parties. In this particular case utilizing the Human Resource department may have been the way to go to help ameliorate the situation. In every case dialogue was described as highly important: dialogue with stakeholders to negotiate and appease; dialogue to integrate stakeholder needs and to search for win-win value creation; or dialogue to broaden the companys strategic frame of reference, and to enroll stakeholders in a new organizational direction. (Colbert, and Kurucz, 2007, p. 27) Communication is the key tool for Human Resource to use in not only distributing information, but acting as a liaison between two parties where communication has broken down, possibly turning the situation around to a more positive outcome. Human Resource (HR) is often called on to mediate disputes as well as bring the regulatory labor laws to bear on supervisors and employees alike. In instances of sexual harassment or other forms of intimidation and unfair treatment, HR is responsible for following company procedures and guidelines when resolving these issues. In fact, HR needs to assure that the correct polices and procedures are in place so that the staff can adequately assess their position and know where to bring their grievances when in trouble. Legal pro-activism is a primary responsibility of HR and must be thoroughly addressed in both the policies of the company and the training of the HR manger. If the correct protocols are not in place, the company is left open to litigation and lawsuits from staff members, severely impacting the bottom line (Ivancevich, 2006). In this sense HR certainly plays quite a strategic role in the safeguarding of the company and its ethical and moral stature, as well as its finances. As previously described I believe I may have spent much of my time attempting to influence my colleague, but this appeared to be wasted effort. However, many believe that persuasion and influences is often the primary goal of the lion share of interpersonal communications. Very likely, you influence the attitudes and behaviours of others in your interpersonal encounters. You may wish others to a vote a particular way try a new diet,… take a specific course, think in a particular way, believe that something is true or false or value some idea—the list is endless. A good deal of your time is probably spent in interpersonal persuasion. Some researchers, in fact, would argue that all communication is persuasive and that all our communications seeks some persuasive goal. (De Vito, 2009, p. 18) Does one not want to have thing in order, or at least the way they believe they should be done, or minimally have a discussion about it? In my case my colleague was belligerent and aggressive, he spoke back loudly to attempt to intimidate me and shrank away from any real circular communication. He would often simply change the topic or walk out of the room. From my perspective I should perhaps have taken a different tact on the problem, instead of simply trying to discuss the project and the accomplishments of that aim, since he was so angry I should have taken the time out to ask him if something else was wrong early on in the going. I may have discovered that his daughter had been sick for a while and that may have helped me approach him in a different manner. Instead I used inappropriate channels of communication calling him on his mobile and using e-mail rather than attempting more personal approaches, but I was afraid of his hostility as well. Perhaps is I tried a different context, such as scheduling a more suitable timetable or approaching only at work instead of calling him when he was not. The noise involved in our communication was also an issue from my perspective as well. I began to shut down and become closed minded. I expected him to behave irresponsibly and belligerently so I approached him ready fro that and was never disappointed. I never gave him the chance to be different perhaps. My interpersonal competence was low at this point, I was trying to persuade but only using information and not emotional or psychological content. I did not observe the non-vrbal cues that arose and simply ploughed on with my point of view. This perpetuated the monologues that arose on both side leaving no chance for dialog. At this time I did not realize or understand the interpersonal communication is a process that undergoes transformation and change in any given situation. In fact, change not only occurs not matter what, it is also an essential part of the interpersonal communication process. It includes the sender and the receiver, if no change occurs than there is no real or relevant communication happening. This was especially true in this case between my colleague and myself. Neither of us changed and neither of us were able to communicate with each other in any effective way. After learning these lessons here, I will without doubt be better prepared in the future for conflicts in communication. If I had it to do over again I certainly would have tried to become a more effective listener as well as an active listener that could process both verbal and non-verbal clues and look for alternate lines of communication, whether through taking different approaches one-on-one or by utilizing an independent third party to help sort things out. Alternatively, I will also attempt to be an open-minded observer allowing more for the varieties and nuances that are a pert of interpersonal communication. References Allen, M., Preiss, R. W., Eayle, B. M., & Burrell, N. (Eds.). (2002). Interpersonal Communication Research: Advances through Meta-Analysis. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Berger, C. R. (2002). 2 Meta-Analysys in Context: a Proto-Theory of Interpersonal Communication. In Interpersonal Communication Research: Advances through Meta-Analysis, Allen, M., Preiss, R. W., Eayle, B. M., & Burrell, N. (Eds.) (pp. 13-37). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Campbell, K. S., White, C. D., & Durant, R. (2007). Necessary Evils, (In)justice and Rapport Management. The Journal of Business Communication, 44(2), 161-180. Colbert, B. A., & Kurucz, E. C. (2007). Three Conceptions of Triple Bottom Line Business Sustainability and the Role for HRM. Human Resource Planning, 30(1), 21-33. DeVito, J.A. (2009) The Interpersonal Communication Book (12th ed.) Boston: Pearson Education Inc. Hargie, O., & Dickson, D. (2003). Skilled Interpersonal Communication: Research, Theory, and Practice. London: Routledge. Ivancevich, J. (2006). Human Resource Management, 10th Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Johnson, I. W., Pearce, C. G., Tuten, T. L., & Sinclair, L. (2003). Self-Imposed Silence and Perceived Listening Effectiveness. Business Communication Quarterly, 66(2), 23-33. Madlock, P. E. (2008). The Link between Leadership Style, Communicator Competence and Employee Satisfaction. 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