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CHAPTER 1

FUNDAMENTALS OF COMMUNICATION

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Definition

Communication essentially means the transfer of ideas, feelings, plans, messages, or information from one person to another. It is effective only when it gets the desired action or response.

Communication is a network of interaction where the sender and receiver keep changing their roles.

Communication is a dynamic process, the main components of which are sender, message, channel, receiver, and response.

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Process of Communication

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Noise

Sometimes there occurs a hindrance in the communication process; this hindrance is called noise.

Noise can be defined as an unplanned interference in the communication environment, the one that causes hindrance to the transmission of the message.

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Differences Between General and Professional Communication

General Communication

Content: Contains general message
Nature: Informal in style and approach
Structure: No set pattern of communication
Method: Mostly oral
Audience: Not always for a specific audience
Language: Does not normally involve the use of technical vocabulary or graphics, etc.

Professional Communication

Content: Contains a formal and professional message
Nature: Mostly formal and objective
Structure: Follows a set pattern such as sequence of elements in a report
Method: Both oral and written
Audience: Always for a specific audience, e.g., customers, banks, etc.
Language: Frequently involves jargon, graphics, etc. for achieving professional purposes

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Importance of Communication

Growth
Complexity
Competitiveness
Harmony
Understanding and cooperation

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Purpose of Professional Communication

Advising
Counseling
Giving Orders
Providing Instructions
Marketing
Persuasion
Giving Warnings
Raising Morale
Staffing
Projecting Image
Preparing Advertisements
Making Decisions
Getting Feedback

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Creative and Critical Thinking in Effective Communication

Critical thinking is the active, persistent, and careful consideration of beliefs or knowledge keeping in view the available evidence.

Skills required in order to be a critical thinker are as follows:

making careful observations
being inquisitive and asking the relevant questions
challenging the beliefs, examining assumptions and probing opinions which may even be against already established facts
recognizing the problems and issues that may appear in future
assessing the validity of statements and understanding the logic and strength of arguments given
making workable decisions and finding valid solutions

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Creative and Critical Thinking in Effective Communication (Contd.)

Creative thinking is the generation of new ideas within or across domains of knowledge.

Few basic principles for inculcating creative thinking are:

Be open to new thoughts, ideas and facts
Keep your reading and listening faculty actively engaged in observation
Regard the difficulty or a problem as an opportunity
Enjoy the process of trying, learning, and evolving
Avoid jumping to conclusions; follow deferred judgments
Believe in cross-fertilization of ideas
Be your worst critic

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Role of Emotions in Communication

Emotions decides the very essence of human interaction, characterizing the tone, colour, purpose and intent of a message.
They radiate our thoughts, express our feelings, reflect our perspectives and reveal our prejudices more often than not.
Underplaying our emotions may expose as a bland communicator, while overplaying them may suggest lack of equanimity in you. This may characterize the response of your co-communicator and hence affect the quality of your interactions.

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Role of Inter-cultural Communication

Cultural differences may determine:
how loud or low we talk
the directness with which we speak
the amount of emotions we express in various situations
the use or avoidance of silence
the prevalence or absence of a particular non-verbal or verbal peculiarity
series of defining signal which we may emit through our manners, facial expressions, posture, eye contact, tone, and pitch of our speech

All this may be misconstrued in an altogether different manner, depending upon the respondent’s own bringing up and cultural variety, hence creating significant challenges to effective communication.
In a culturally-diverse workplace, it becomes important for a professional to be aware of all the culturally triggered behavioural differences and communicate accordingly.

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Communication at a Glance

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Types of Communication

Verbal communication: It stands both for the spoken and the written word used in the communication.
Non-verbal communication: The process in which a message is communicated without using a word and requires non-verbal cues to be transmitted.
Intrapersonal communication: The communication that takes place within one’s own self and implies individual reflection, contemplation, and meditation.
Interpersonal communication: This is a direct, written, or oral communication that occurs between two or more persons.
Extrapersonal communication: The communication that takes place between non-human entities such as animals, birds etc.
Mass communication: The communication that conveys messages to an entire populace.
Media communication: The communication that takes place only with the help of electronic media, such as computer, cell phones, LCD, video, television, etc.

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Types of Communication Flow

Horizontal
Vertical
Upward
Downward

Crosswise
Spiral

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Barriers to Communication

When you convey your message to someone or a group of people and the message is not received clearly and unambiguously, it is known as barrier to communication. Thus, the message received is not as the message sent.

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Types of Barriers to Communication

Verbal Barriers

Lack of proper planning
Selection of a wrong variety of language
Badly encoded or wrongly decoded messages
Semantic gap
Differences in perceptions
Variation in language
Wrong inferences
Categorical thinking

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Types of Barriers to Communication (Contd.)

Non-verbal Barriers

Raising eyebrows
Bulging eyes
Keeping your hands or thumbs constantly in the pockets of your trousers
Awkward gestures
Flashing eyes
Rolling eyes
Quick movements
Very slow movement
Avoiding eye contact

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Types of Barriers to Communication (Contd.)

Listening Barriers

Making the speaker feel as though he/she is wasting the listener’s time
Being distracted by something that is not part of the ongoing communication
Getting ahead of the speaker and completing his/her thoughts
Topping the speaker’s story with one’s own set of examples
Forgetting what is being discussed
Asking too many questions for the sake of probing

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Types of Barriers to Communication (Contd.)

Physical and Mechanical Barriers

Closed office doors
Physical distance between the communicators
Disturbance in transmission channels
Poor printing, badly indented text, lack of space or margins, very small font sizes, and crowded paragraphs
Erratically functioning machines
Faulty devices and systems

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Types of Barriers to Communication (Contd.)

Psychological Barriers

These may arise due to the presence of fear, distrust, absent mindedness,

emotional apathy, intensity of feelings, lack of interest, obsessive temperament, multiple distractions, etc. between the communicating parties.

Miscellaneous Barriers

Premature evaluation of message
Information overload
Distrust, threat, and fear
Less time for orientation and for adjustment to change
Emotional reaction
Rigidity in attitudes

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Remedies for Barriers to Communication

Send the data only to the people who require them
Emphasize the major ideas
Delete unwanted ideas
Maintain transparency in policy matters
Ensure clarity in message and look for a genuine feedback
Understand others’ emotions
Understand other cultures and language variations, and use the appropriate variety in the given context
Make sure that information overload does not affect the communication environment adversely
Maintain openness and acknowledge that people have different perceptions and views regarding one thing
Encourage innovative ideas and views so that people should not unnecessarily live in fears
Listen attentively to others
Speak with clarity and conviction