L33T Index
Effective Communication
General communication
To communicate effectively there are a number of different skills that you can use.
One would be the use of body language to accompany your verbal communication to help the person that you are speaking to understand for instance if you are talking to someone who is hard of hearing because you can point in certain directions or use gestures to help them to understand.
Another skill that you can use to enhance communication would be to empathise with the other person as they may have an issue that you need to help solve and speaking slowly and calmly can help them to understand what you are trying to explain to them. this can also make the relaying of information easier as you would be able to ask a person what the issue is and as they understood what you were asking they would be able to give you the relevant information without confusion.
Interpersonal communication
Another way to enhance interpersonal communication is to conduct yourself in the correct manner. if a person informs you of some delicate information then you should act professionally, so if a customer comes to you and says that they have lost sensitive information then you cannot talk to other people outside the organisation about it you should keep it between your company and the client.
Written communication
Also when writing to a person ensure that your handwriting is legible so that the other person can read the text with ease. If your writing is not easy to read then you may not be communicating the information effectively. this could lead to the other person not understanding what it is you are trying to explain to them and may make what they respond with inaccurate because they could not understand the things that you had been asking of them.
Barriers that affect communication
One thing that can make communication difficult is if a person is deaf as they obliviously cannot hear you and therefore you cannot say to them what you are trying to explain. One way of overcoming such an issue is to use body language to help explain what it is you are trying to communicate to them. If a deaf person has asked for assistance with directions then one way of overcoming the barrier would be to attempt to show them the directions that they will need to take to get to there required destination. another way to overcome this barrier is to draw a diagram so that the person knows which directions to take to get to the destination. Also if a person is dead they may be able to lip read so by forming the words with your mouth slowly and accurately you may be able to give them direction verbally as long as the word you use are clear and possibly over-exaggerate the lip movements. if you try to communicate using these methods then you will able to relay the information to the person effectively.
Barriers that affect written communication
If a person is a foreign national it can make written communication very difficult because they are not able to understand what you have written. one way to overcome this is to try using a free translation service such as Google translate however this can be difficult because much like in the UK depending on where in a country the person comes from can affect how accurate a translation service like Google translate is because they could have a slightly different way of writing in certain parts of the country or use different words like a colloquialism as this may be the way they communicate informally. for instance if in a piece of text you abbreviate the word straight to to Str8 then a translation service will not be able to translate this to the correct word in the other persons language and therefore the information that you are trying to communicate will not be accurate as there will be words missing which will affect the grammar, therefore when writing you must always use fully formed words without abbreviations so that it can be translated correctly.
Barriers to interpersonal communication
A barrier to interpersonal communication can be if a person is blind because this will make it almost impossible to use body language to assist communication which is used to form a large part of how we communicate so you have to find other solutions to enhance the way you pass information verbally to a blind person. One way is to use more description when helping them to reach their destination. As you would usually point to demonstrate a direction that someone should take you could instead lead them to their destination as this would ensure that they were able to understand what you were trying to get across. If you do give them the directions so they can go on their way then you should try to describe the route in detail such as the distances they should travel and what they should look out for on their way such as roads or stairs so that they receive all the information that they need in the correct manner.