STEPS TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION
A large portion of our lives
is spent communicating with others. Sharing your thoughts and understanding another person's feelings are essential skills for functioning in
any society in the world.
The following is a simple model of communication that can help
illustrate how communicating with others really works, all the places it can go
wrong, and what we can do to be better
The picture above is a really simple map of how any type of communication works.
The necessary pieces are a sender, a receiver,
and a message.
. The two basic ways
of coding messages are putting it in some kind of language (speech or writing)
and/or nonverbally communicating it (body language, tone, etc).
The receiver then interprets (decodes) the
words and nonverbals, hoping to arrive at an understanding of what the sender
really means.
Communication Problems
The way we encode and decode
messages is based on how we learned to communicate in earlier stages of life.
The ways we code and decode messages are determined by our culture, family
patterns, and other experiences.
Sender
Problems:
The most common problem that we can make as message senders is coding our
thought, feeling or need in a way that has a low chance of being understood by
the receiver.
Consider how you might code the message of
feeling hungry differently to a 3 year old, someone who doesn't speak the same
language as you, and your best friend. Those should look and sound completely
different.
Thus, choosing the
best way to code a message is important to make sure the receiver gets a good
understanding.
Receiver
Problems:
The biggest problem that happens when we receive messages is in decoding things
inaccurately, which can be caused by
1) Not really attending to the
sender, 2) not having the skills necessary to decode the message, or 3) adding
your our own meaning to the message that was not really intended by the sender.
2) For the first, if you don't
really pay attention completely to the message (including the nonverbal
aspects), you can miss critical elements of it, and then have a
misunderstanding. For the second, if you don't know certain words or the
message is too complex, then there is a low chance of really understanding it.
3) For the third, we can automatically add things to the message that
make us miss what was intended.
Communication problems are usually two-person problems. Anytime there is a misunderstanding, it is the fault of both the
sender and the receiver.
How to
Communicate Better
1. Be Aware of your own communication
errors. We are all susceptible to sending confusing messages when we are aware that all of us can make all
of the communication mistakes, we can adjust how we send and receive messages.
2) Choose
your words (and actions) wisely based on who the receiver is. As
much as we would love for our partners, parents, and employers to just automatically be able to know what our
needs and feelings are, or interpret all of our questions and comments with
complete accuracy, they can't. We can become better senders by thinking about
how the specific person at this specific time would be receiving a message, and
then deliver it in that form.
3. Check in with the sender when you
are decoding messages to make sure you have the right understanding. After
hearing something, especially if it strikes you strangely, ask the sender if
you are hearing it correctly instead of trusting your interpretation
completely. Think about how many arguments can be prevented with just that one!
Dr Sangeetha Madhu , a clinical psychologist and Leadership expert & Shivani RK presenting articles related to well being, leadership/personal development, cognitive mastery, positive emotions, building resilience, and relationships.
Source
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/notes-self/201307/basics-communicationSource
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