EMP 2 Assignment Communication
By Matthew Sheppard
General Communication
Cultural Differences:
When communicating with other individuals or groups of individuals, you need to be aware of their culture and the way they communicate in order to meet their needs. Not just verbal but written and visually. It is easy to offend people from different cultures as different cultures see things differently, an example of this would be when people greet each other. In japan people would bow and keep eye contact, a person from western society may not understand the importance of the eye contact and may just bow, this may cause offence.
Adaptation:
According to the situation you are in you may require to adapt to your surrounding's. An example of this would be public speaking, if you have a large audience you will need to make sure to project your voice and maybe speak a bit more clearly in order for people at the back of the audience to understand what you are saying, where as if you are speaking in front of a smaller audience there would be no need to project your voice as much. In Addition, you would have to adapt to the age of the audience, so speaking to older adults you would speak more direct and maybe a bit more simplistic visually where as with children you may want to focus more on visual things as this will help them engage.
Interpersonal Skills
Methods (Face to Face Communication):
There are many things to consider when talking to someone face to face, these consist of Body language, Hand gestures and lip reading. Body language is one of the most important, its one of the first things you notice, if you are talking to someone who is in an informal posture i.e slouching and with your hands in your pockets, then you can tell straight away that they are not interested and sort of tells you where the conversation is going where as if you stand up straight and with your hands by your side you can tell that they are interested and that the conversation is going to go somewhere.
Questions:
There are three types of questions, open, closed and probing. Open questions in most cases require a more detailed response and will aid the communication process, an example of this would be, "Why have you not got your homework?". Closed questions require yes or no and short answers such as "How old are you?". Probing is the type of question asked where more than one response is required allowing more questions to develop, an example of this would be, "What thermal paste did you apply to your CPU and why?". You need to consider what questions to use in order for the conversation to go well.
Written Communication Skills
Structure:
The layout of a written message depends on the type of message, formal or informal. This includes the correct use of punctuation. For example, if you are writing a letter to a company you would make sure to use punctuation (!"?:;',.) and capital letters etc.. where as if you are texting a friend you may not use punctuation or correct use of grammar and may even use emoticons. The structure is important so that the person receiving the letter/document can easily understand and get back to you with a quick response. Also the structure makes a lot of difference in first impressions, so for example, if you were applying for a job online you would make sure to use the correct grammar and you would check your spelling as you would want to make a good first impression.
Note Taking:
Note taking is really important in situations such as presentations and public speaking as there will be a lot of information to remember, so by making notes you are able to go back and view them at any time. Another situation would be in a classroom, if the teacher is talking about a specific subject, you may want to take notes for possible future presentations. Another reason why taking notes is important is because it shows you are engaged and interested in what is being said. in addition, note taking is important as it shows you properly understand whats being said
Barriers To Communication
General Barriers and How to Overcome - Culture
When trying to communicate with another individual, the other individual who is been communicated to is not always going to be from the same culture as yourself. If you do not have much understanding of other cultures, it may be difficult for information to be transferred between the individuals as things may be said that seems of to you but in their culture it may be seen as offensive and this may lead to a disagreement or even an argument. There are often clashes between different cultures as they do not understand other cultures therefore not knowing what to says and what not to say.
One of the best ways you can overcome barriers to communicating with other cultures is my identifying which cultures you can see yourself communicating with and educate yourself on that culture so that you can then communicate with that culture respectfully and without disagreements. One of the problems is that people may not realise that they are causing offence, and if that individual is not being told about this, then they will
continue to do so as they see nothing wrong with it. This can only be dealt with by that person being confronted and being told about what exactly they are saying that is wrong.
Interpersonal Barriers and How to Overcome - Bad Communication
There are many things that can cause a barrier between communication, weather it is one to one, in smaller groups of people or a presentation. They consist of, use of bad language, nervousness, informal body postures, facial expressions and obscene hand gestures. Some of these may not cause a problem in some cases but in others it may cause great offence.
If you are someone that becomes nervous quite easily then it may not be a simple task to communicate and have an engaging conversation. One way to overcome this is by making use of open questions, you may find it easier to start by answering questions and responding to others opinions rather than speaking to an audience, and by doing this, you will gradually gain the confidence to eventually talk in front of a small group and your confidence will slowly increase from there onwards.
one of the solutions that can be put in place is to have an agreed method of communication that everyone is comfortable with. This should be aimed to be kept consistent so that the method of communication remains the same for everyone throughout an organisation. This ensures that everyone understands what is expected from each other verbally.
Written Communication Barriers and how to Overcome - Languages
When communicating with others you will notice that not everyone you speak to is from the same nationality. The common problem is not the languages being spoken themselves but the phrases and certain words that are used.
You must understand that a lot of the phrases and slang words that use use in your language are mostly not used in other nationality. This is one of the things that cause confusion in conversations between other nationality. To ensure this does not happen you must speak in a simplistic manner in order for all people from different parties to understand. Another possible thing to do is that if it is written, try translating it to ensure it makes sense in the other language. this will overcome any possible misunderstandings. In addition One significant barrier to effective written communication is failing to notice the smaller things such as Spelling errors and incorrect grammar. These may be considered small details, but they reflect poorly on you and, in a business context, on your company. They imply either that you are not educated enough to know you've made mistakes or that you are too careless to bother correcting them. Making errors is nothing out the ordinary, but making a habit of producing written documents filled with errors will make negative consequences far more likely to occur.