George Has Refused to Continue to Teach Interpersonal Communication Because He Sometimes
Your interpersonal communication skills form the basis both for personal and professional relationships. Not only that, but employers have been saying for years that they want employees with stellar communication skills.
By Murray Johannsen.Last Update: August 20, 2021. Feel free to connect with the author via Linkedin or by email. Also, check out his Live Presentations if you are interested.
Why Learn Better Interpersonal Communication Skills?
"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has occurred."— George Bernard Shaw
Still, according to Linkedin's CEO, Jeff Weiner," Communication is the No. 1 skills gap across the United States." One probable cause — is the heavy use of text.
The written word primarily appeals to reason and logic; speaking appeals to logic and reason AND arouses emotions, motivates, and persuades. And yet, universities continue to stress the written word when the big payoff is in the verbal ones.
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Find Out How To Learn Interpersonal Communication Skills
Despite its importance, few people spend time upgrading interpersonal skills. So you might way the competition is weak.
What Is Interpersonal Communication?
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." — Plato
You might ask, what is interpersonal communication? It simply involves sending a message between two people. It looks pretty straightforward on the diagram below, but the art is in practice.
Information flows between sender and receiver. This flow represents both the core problem and the core opportunity. First, most senders fail to monitor their word choice carefully. Secondly, the sender fails to receive nonverbal feedback coming from the receiver. This leads to all sorts of problems and misunderstandings.
- The Sender
Communication begins with a source, a person, group, or organization with meaning to share. Then, the encoding occurs on the sender side. It's an invisible process during which a message transitions from thought to language.
2. The Receiver
We all play this communication role — some better than others. But, if we do it well, we are skilled in the fine art of listening. To make that happen, there's an invisible process known as decoding — the conversion of language into thought and meaning.
3. Encoding and Decoding
Here's where the magic occurs. To transmit meaning, the sender must place meaning into a series of symbols (schemata) representing concepts known to the receiver. While in the decoding process, symbols convert into concepts and ideas, meaning something to the receiver.
4. The Medium
A sender chooses some type of communication medium. The three traditional communication transmission channels are: written, verbal and electronic.
5. Receiver
A receiver is an individual, group, or organization decoding the message.
6. Interference (or Noise)
Sometimes referred to as static or interference, it affects both listening and hearing. A shortlist includes encoding problems on both the sender side, lousy timing, failure to get feedback, etc. But there is a longer list of 17 communication barriers.
7. Feedback
Great communicators use the nonverbal channels the average person is unaware of. Feedback should flow back to the sender, but this is rarely the case.
Six Interpersonal Communication Skills
1. One-Way and Two-Way Communication
Interpersonal communication can be either two-way or one-way. If it's one-way, it is sender-dominated and closely associated with passive listening. The receiver stays rarely speaks or asks a question. A receiver doesn't have to say anything; they can simply nod from time to time.
They are typically faking it with an occasional acknowledgment statement. Manufacturing it comes in handy since few want to allocate precious attention to a boring subject—the bottom line. One-way communication creates misunderstanding.
To make matters worse, many people tend to engage in self-talk. It's not that hard to identify the self-talker; all you have to do is look at their eyes — they are never focused on you. For example, that classic self-talker doesn't care whether their words are understood.
But periodically, they will come out of their mental self-absorption to see that you haven't left and focus their eyes on you. You then nod politely. They in-term will think that you agree with everything they have just said.
Full-Duplex Mode
Full-Duplex is a term borrowed from telecommunication technology. It means that as a sender, you send verbal information and receive nonverbal cues simultaneously. So as a speaker, your goal is to pay attention to both the receiver's words (if any) and their nonverbal signals.
We do this to get more meaning from the other's nonverbals. For example, doing so allows you to determine whether the other person understands you or not.
Would you know what I mean by saying, "Meet me at the Hollis"? Of course, most of us would say no. However, if I were a sender with excellent interpersonal communication skills, I would see that you were confused over the word "Hollis" and then take steps to clarify.
If you can read face, you have a significant advantage over those that can't. I used to routinely do this every morning with my bosses since I wanted to know what mood they were in. I happened to have terrific bosses, but every once in a while, they could bite the neck off an alligator. Should such a rare event occur, it was best to say hello, beat a hasty retreat, and hide.
2. LISTENING: What Excellent Communicators Do Well
"The mind is like a TV set; when it stops working, it is a good idea to shut off the sound." — Unknown.
"Every ass loves to hear himself bray." — Thomas Fuller
"General Eisenhower and I didn't discuss politics or the campaign. Mostly we talked about painting and fishing. But what I remember most about the hour and a half I spent with him was how he gave me all his attention. He was listening to me and talking to me just as if he hadn't a care in the world, hadn't been through the trials of a political convention, wasn't on the brink of a presidential campaign." — Norman Rockwell, Saturday Evening Post, April 2, 196
Most people are terrible listeners, but they do know how to fake it pretty well. Technically, faking it involves using certain types of acknowledgment signals to give the sender the impression that we are paying attention when we are not.
We do this with acknowledgment techniques such as: nodding at the right moment, period acknowledgments such as "Ah" and "Ah, ha," and the classic method used in marriages everywhere, the "Yes, dear." We are so good at fake listening that the average person can't even tell.
Leaders cannot afford to develop a reputation for unskilled listening — it's ruinous. Yet, despite this, one of the more common complaints in many organizations is, "My boss doesn't listen to me."
This interpersonal skill can be improved but requires both knowledge and effort. Unfortunately, for many years, I did this wrong. I had thought the fundamental problem was a series of barriers. It turns out that the most critical problem limitations placed on attention.
Attention Limits Our Ability to Listen
"Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens, we have to keep going back and begin again. — Andre Gide
You can look at articles such as this one which proposes 11 Exercises That Will Strengthen Your Attention.
3. What is Nonverbal Communication ?
"A newcomer to a certain summer resort was surprised to find a group of men gathered on the lawn one evening shouting numbers at each other. "Sixteen," one would yell, and all would laugh. "One hundred and thirty-five," another would say, and all would laugh. "Twenty-seven," a third would say, nearly choking with glee, and all would laugh. "Two hundred and three," shouted someone, and this time everyone fell off his chair howling.
The laughter continued till some turned blue in the face and had to be pounded to keep them from suffocating. Numbers continued to be called after that , and laughter, now more subdued, also continued. Then, finally, the newcomer spoke to one of the men on the fringes and said, "Pardon me, but tell me what's going on." 'Well," said the other, "this group meets every year at this resort, and night after night, we swap stories.
Naturally, we all know the stories, so we gave them numbers and save time by calling the numbers." The newcomer nodded. "I see. But tell me this. When someone shouted, 'Two hundred and three,' everyone laughed particularly loudly. Why was that?" His informant chuckled. "Kohl Well, that one we had never heard before.
" The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said." — Peter F. Drucker.
Essentially, it means that meaning is not embedded in the words. Instead, you can understand people's thoughts by paying attention to facial expressions or body language.
Yet, most individuals don't pay much attention to nonverbals, so the average person is relatively clueless about what it all means. Part of this confusion stems from cultural differences. For example, while a smile is universal, the meaning attached to other facial expressions is determined by culture.
Besides cultural differences, there are many different types of nonverbal communication. These include:
- Artifacts,
- Haptics.
- Kinesics
- Facial expressions,
- Paralanguage,
- Gestures,
- Osculesics,
- Chronemics,
- Interpersonal distance, and
- Body movements (Tubbs and Moss, 2006).
As you know, emotions mostly get communicated by voice tones and facial expressions. If you don't pay attention to these, it is like having the right eye shut and the left one looking left when it should be looking right. You miss me so much.
Like all communication skills, nonverbal communication can be improved.
4. Asking Questions: What Great Minds Can Do those Average Ones Can't
"He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever." — Chinese Proverbs.
"Any idiot can state an opinion as fact, but it takes a creative mind to ask the right questions." — Unknown.
For some reason, many executives assume that they have to dominate everyone. This is typically done by communicating in a loud, angry voice with a fast tempo for an extended period to prevent someone from being able to speak or ask questions. Then, if a question does get asked, the executive has a fallback position — the two-minute tirade of irrelevancy.
TV shows or movies with trial scenes graphically illustrate the power questions have when used correctly. You typically see the defense attorney or a prosecutor enhance or destroy a witness's credibility simply by using questions. Unfortunately, many fail to recognize that questions are as powerful as persuasive statements.
Questions are one of the most valuable methods of extracting information from another. The key is to ask the right question since most people tend to answer them honestly.
Questions encourage the receiver to discover the answer themselves. Skillful communication with questions is subtle and more indirect. It possesses the additional advantage that the person typically doesn't become defensive.
And of course, without using this interpersonal communication skill, effective counseling, therapy, and group facilitation is essentially impossible.
5. RELATIONSHIP Communication Skills
"You never get a second chance to make a positive first impression" — American Saying.
"When someone's character seems impossible to fathom, observe his friends." — Japanese proverb.
You can focus on specific communication techniques to build relationships. For example, in business, Americans tend to de-emphasize the importance of interpersonal communication skills in building relationships, possibly due to the extensive use of business contracts in the industry.
For cultures in Asia, business doesn't begin until the relationship is sound. You won't succeed in business if you can't form strong relationships.
6. INTERVIEWING As an Interpersonal Communication Skill Set
Several studies have indicated that interviews have a relatively low correlation regarding predicting future job performance. Yet, despite their low validity, organizations everywhere make interviews a must-pass initiation ritual to access corporate riches.
They are super important to job seekers who must skillfully communicate to meet the interviewer's criteria for the ideal candidate.
It's tricky since we don't do it often enough to get good at it. And since a 30-minute interview is both high pressure and high stakes, it's easy not to say the right thing at the right time.
The following interpersonal communication skills come into play during a face-to-face interview.
Two-Way Communication
This is not the moment to be introverted; you must engage in the moment and practice two-way communication skills.
Listening Actively
You see it all the time; a person providing the wrong answer to a question because they didn't listen effectively to the question asked.
Developing Relationship
One has a short time to make a positive first impression. Therefore, if you can master this interpersonal communication skill, you have a good chance of the interview going well.
Asking Questions
Sure, you want to sell yourself, but also you want to find out information about the job in the company that would like to hire you. Most interviewers expect questions.
Watch for Nonverbal Communication
The importance here lies in being able to read the face of the person you're talking to.
Find Out How to Improve Your Communication Skills With Online Classes & Courses
References
Burley-Allen (1995).Listening: The Forgotten Skill. 2nd Edition. Wiley. Another textbook that we often use.
Baron-Cohen, Simon (2004).The Essential Difference: The Truth About the Male and Female Brain. New York: Basic Books.
Bate, Barbara & Taylor (Eds.) (1988). Women Communicating. Norwood, NJ: Ablex
Tannen, Deborah (1991). You Just Don't Understand : Women and Men in Conversation. This is a classic. It contains many patterns men and women have that lead to miscommunication.
Moss, Stewart, and Tubbs, Sylvia (2006). Human Communication, Principles and Contexts, 11th Edition. New York: Prentice-Hall.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116695/Tapscott, Don (1998). Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Tubbs, Stewart (2009). Human Communication, Principles and Contexts, 12th Edition. New York: Prentice-Hall. This is one of our teaching texts for our online communication classes.
Incredible Movies About Communication Skills
Jerry McGuire (1996)
Who said the life of a sports agent is easy? Especially one that has ethics that caused him to give up. The most famous line was, "Show me the money."
Thank You For Smoking(2005)
Great show if you want to study the fine art of persuasion or marketing of tobacco products. One gets the impression that working as a lobbyist requires much fast-talking and a meager standard of ethics.
Online Information
Think You Can Pitch: Creatives Break Down Their Art. One of the better descriptions of the art I have ever run across. One that's worth listening to.
Communication Skills Test. This site (called Queendom) has many different types of assessments, many offered for free.
This Fast Company article has many communication tips — over 55 of them. These form the basis for something called heuristics — the ability to make a good decision based on availability.
The Elevator Pitch. We all need a short elevator pitch to explain what we are doing. More art than science needs to be practiced.
Borchers, Tim (1999).Interpersonal Communication. Allyn and Bacon. This is an excellent overview of interpersonal communication. You will find scholarly views on relationship development, self-disclosure, patterns, and interpersonal conflict.
First Published on June 14, 2014.
Source: https://legacee.com/communication-skills/interpersonal
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