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Listening and Communicating
COM 321
A person can be termed effective in communication when he or she displays successful
communication in terms of interpersonal, group and organizational levels. It needs
consistent effort and perception to learn to listen effectively and patiently so that a person
can speak with respect and concern for others.
Interpersonal communication usually involves two people and this may happen as in
person interaction. I enjoy this type of communication than other types of communications.
In fact, I find it simpler to see how I act or behave and to see the other person I
communicate with while I talk with that person face to face. According to Hybels 2007, it
may seem difficult for many to communicate conflict or disagreement over texting,
messages, email or telephone communication, as you do not see the other person’s facial
reaction and other body languages. I enjoy interpersonal communication, as I like to be mix
at a personal level. I think I enjoy dyadic communication. I can find many traces or
examples of dyadic communication running inside me.
However, dyadic communication comes with many types of characteristics, my personality
suits with some like directness, personal perspective and immediacy. We know of these
characteristics from Trenholm, 2011. I have the ability to adapt to a new person quite
quickly. I have the interest and willingness to do so. I can engage myself easily. I can speak
up easily as I am afraid of doing so. According to Trenholm (2011), this type of
communication is more direct than other types as the feedback quality is very high for its
intimate nature.
The advantage of dyadic communication is that one party can easily understand if the other
party is getting disinterested or if the person is going too fast or slow. This is a very good
characteristic. It may happen that I am giving too much information that is boring the other
person. I may also provide less than necessary information that may make the other party
confused. So getting to know these things instantly is a great advantage. I should use my
experience and knowledge to fine tune the communication. Though I try to give
information from my life experience, I let the other person understand that I have thought
in the same thought pattern they are thinking. This is assuring for both parties. Having
something in common builds trust. This is how I try to get the listener out of his/her
thought pattern and to let him/her think of something that can help both the parties.
According to Trenholm (2011), the extent one gets back in communication means the
quality of fellowship and community he/she has with others. I value learned
communication though I also put emphasis on genetic traits. My aim is to develop myself as
a good communicator in all areas of communication so that my audience finds me
convincing as well s pleasing.
I believe that personality traits have a lot to do with communication. It is true I have started
to like my personality but I have also identified areas that need improvements. According
to Hergenhahn & Olson, 2007, most of us are not aware that about 50% of communication
in the form of interpersonal one gets influenced by genetics nad personality traits. I am
aware of this effect.
I can look at my family and culture to see what type of traits the in-group behavior
demonstrates. Of course, I have had some learning of communication from these groups. I
can think of my father who always checked up on me after he has been absent for some
time. Sometimes his absence let me think as if I was not valuable to him but his presence
communicated that he really cared for me. He went to my school to talk to the teachers to
know how I was doing. Sometimes he simply queried what I was doing or from where I
came home. Sometimes he asked what I wanted to be. He also asked me how I plan to reach
my goal. Therefore, he was there to encourage me to grow in every aspect.
Now that I can look back, I can understand that he wanted to make them understand that I
had to think first and then listen to others before I started to gush out my emotions and
feelings or thoughts for others. I now understand that his communication explains that
when life can give you nothing positive, you need to communicate with yourself. You have
to strive and encourage yourself.
I have found that there could be many more people like my dad but two people suggested
me in the same way. I can mention their names: Evelyn and Pastor Terry. One of them has
been a mentor for a long time. Both these people made me challenge myself to strive to
move forward. I started to value people coming from all different cultures. I can find
similarity of their perspective with Dr. Martin Luther Kings’ as he was saying that American
people are not with the wrong but their belief about the future communication is at wrong.
According to Nursing (1993), good listeners are made by practice. They are not born good
listeners. If a person is willing to observe with patience as well as nonjudgemental attitude
what others have to say, the person can shake off ego and prejudice or judgments. Then the
person can let others speak their thoughts. Such a person can also engage both the parties
into communication process. Such a person does not presume of knowing everything the
other person wants to communicate.
As a result, when I am communicating in-group or outside group situations, I attempted to
set up five characteristics to express my goal of communication. I try to be genuine. I try to
be open and honest. I carry along consistency, compassionate attitude and willingness to
learn. All these come from who I was in the past, what I am now and what I want to grow to
be in the future.
My parents taught me some principles of communication. They told me that with whom a
person communicates and what he/she talk about can tell a lot about the person. That is
why when I am speaking to my friends, colleagues and members of church group, I try to
stay consistent. I try to connect with the person I talk to and match myself with the
situation.
According to Trenholm 2011, when someone becomes such a communicator, the person
cannot be territorial or hold personal space as that would not let you connect much
personally. Keeping space or territory separates you from other people.
It is going to be five years when I first thought of looking at my communication skills. I fond
that though I was developing, I still needed to be professionally equipped. At that time I
used to listen to the other person but interrupt and start to tell my thoughts without letting
the other person finish. I did not pay attention to what the other person was saying. So I
had to understand that I was just doing hearing not listening. When I began conscious, I
understood that I was letting others finish what they wanted to say but then I would start
my own story. I was more aware of what I wanted to say to them, and not of what they
wanted to communicate to me. So one day I thought of watching my family and found out
my habits. According to Nursing (1993), sign of a good communicator is to admit that
his/her communications habits block real communication.
I can recal my past perspectives when I had transferred this message that I was not valuing
other people’s ideas or perspectives while I was communicating with them. According to
Hybels (2007), this can be understood form the body language of the people though they
may not directly sayt his. That is why I thought of finding ways to make my communication
skills better. I tried to become a better listener as well as communicator. We need three
things in this respect: listening to speaker actively, listening critically and listening with
empathy.
When someone listens actively, the difference between speed and speech can be
recognized. We always think faster than we can speak. According to Weaver 2007, the
speaker needs to show the key idea and then the reinforcing ideas have to developed.
Then it is time to become a critical listener. unless I become a critical listener, I cannot
know the what the other person is talking about and what his/her main points are. I have
to find out the motives of the speaker so that I can respond to that person with correct
information and logic. Weaver 2007 comments that this also proves that you are showing
interest in the speaker and what the person is communicating.
The key aspect is to turn into an empathic listener. This has to be done by projecting your
self into the other speaker’s thoughts to get his/her message and get yourself across
him/her. While you are in empathy, you can get to understand the other person even
though he/she is in contradiction with you. Your ego gets suspended and you get immersed
into the other person.
I could change my old habits to have better communication by disciplining myself. I started
to apply new techniques. As a result my confidence built when I communicate with others.
This is how I started to work as mentor for a bible group of women. I am able to effectively
communicate in a group. This has helped me in my job. We need to develop on a continuing
basis but we can value self-esteem most. We also need to be enthusiastic about our work
and like people skills to become effective group communicator. If I think of family, work,
church and my personal area, I can say that I can confidently communicate in all areas.
With new development in skills I fee lat ease with new assignment occurring at workplace.
I am confident I can do better than many others when it comes to communication.
It is interesting to note that there are different types of groups like family groups,
friendship groups, work groups and other groups. Different groups have different
characteristics that affect communication. Hartley (1999) exemplifies laboratory groups
with students for a short period when they have interaction. This type of communication
seem to be interesting to me since I have found that online courses offer one laboratory
group interaction once in every five weeks time. Though in our class we do not have too
many participants, the online posts allow us to get acquainted with so many ideas and
interactions.
Our life gets affected in many different ways with communication development. We are
always interacting through group communication, interpersonal communication and
organizational communication. Each component of communication help us develope and
thus enhance our everyday communication skills. If we think of a successful person in
terms of communication, we can say that the person has to be a good listener and good
executor of what has been communicated.
References
Hartley, P. (1999). Going beyond interpersonal communication. Communication and groups,
2004. Retrieved from
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ashford/Doc?id=5003132&ppg=213
Hergenhahn, B. R., & Olson, M. (2007). Theories of Personality. Upper Saddle River, New
Jersey: Pearson; Prentice,Hall.
Hybels, S. W. (2007). Communicating Effectively. McGraw-Hill.
Nursing. (1993, February). Becomng A Better Lstener. Chldren's Memoral Medical Center,
112.
Trenholm, S. (2011). Thinking through Communication. Boston: Pearson Education.
Weaver, R. L. (2007). Communicating Effectively. United States: McGraw-Hill Companies.