Importance of Communication Essay

First, in order to communicate effectively, a person needs to know what barriers there are, and there are many. I will do my best to explain the barriers of effective communication and how to overcome them. These barriers include Language, defensiveness, misreading of body language, noisy transmission, receiver distortion, power struggles, self-fulfilling assumptions, supervisors hesitation to be candid, assumptions, distrusted source, perceptual biases, interpersonal relationships, and cultural differences1. So now, let us break these barriers down, starting with language barriers. Language barriers include using words that could imply another message than the one that the sender wants to send. Moreover, the reason for this is that each person will interpret some words differently. So, in order to transmit the message that you want to send make sure that the words you use to send the message cannot imply anything that you do not want sent. The next barrier is defensiveness. Most of the time when trying to conduct a face-to-face meeting with someone to communicate some flaws in a persons work performance or just to ask them a question on what they have done make sure the message is concise and clear. Most people will get defensive when the person being Importance of Communication SPC Eric J. Seiberling – 3 counseled has a distorted perception on what is being covered, or a feeling of implied guilt of wrongdoing without having a chance to explain ones actions. A person will also get very defensive when any anger or a feeling of negativity is being transferred to them from an issue the sender has at home or with another co-worker. In addition, a person will get extremely defensive when there has been a trend of negative distortions of counseling in the past; a person would feel as if the sender is still beating an issue that was resolved prior to this session. Noisy transmission is another barrier to effective communication. Noisy transmission happens when the messages being convoluted with erroneous information or a common inconsistency in relaying the message from bouncing around the subject or hitting numerous subjects when wanting to convey a message about one, certain subject. Another sticking point is receiver distortion. This happens when the receiver subconsciously has selective hearing and hears what they want to hear and completely miss the intended message. This also happens when the receiver and sender ignore the non-verbal cues each other is not noticing or taking into account the way each other is acting or feeling, by not noticing a subtle thing like body language. Power struggles is something that a superior needs to watch out for, this will kill any attempt to communicate a plan to a group. For instance if a subordinate has the superior’s job in their crosshairs that person will have a distorted view of the message that is trying to be conveyed. People who have not had a vast majority of the same experiences will not understand or even be able to decode what the manager is trying to say. Assumptions are a major killer of effective communication. Most people will assume that everyone understands the problem the same way that they do. When in most cases, that is not the case. Some people will see a problem in a different perspective. When that happens the receiver will wonder what the sender is complaining about because they do not see the same problem and will refuse to see the problem in the same light. When a supervisor is basing his counseling on a certain source that some subordinates do not trust the supervisor is accomplishing nothing in the counseling. The supervisor might want to make sure there is more than one source of information. When there is more than one source of information then it will not become a value judgment against the supervisor or the subordinate. When conveying a message a person must make sure, they are not portraying any perceptual biases in the message. In saying that do not go into a meeting with any stereotypes of the people that attend. Basic communication requires that the receiver can decode the senders meaning and if the sender is convoluting the meaning in their own experiences, background, values, aspirations, or assumptions, the receiver might not understand because they did not have the same experiences, background, values, aspirations, or assumptions. This is a major issue in communicating with people from different geographical areas, and different generations. So, after explaining all the major barriers of communication, now will be the time to defeat these barriers and start communicating effectively. Moreover, if someone is not communicating effectively, the messenger is not communicating at all. In addition, if they are not communicating at all, the receiver will have no clue on what is going on and what needs to happen. The army says since leadership is about getting other people to do what you want them to do, it follows that communicating—transmitting information so that it’s clearly understood—is an important skill. 2 In order to communicate effectively a person must understand the different forms of communication.