Communicating at Work

Chapter 1 Interpersonal Communication The most immutable barrier in nature is between oneman's thoughts and another's.William James Almost every problem, every conflict, every mistake, and every misunderstanding has at its most basic level a communication problem. William James saw the communication barrier as "immutable." We believe that while communication problems may never be completely eliminated, they can be reduced and often avoided.We live in a world filled with other people. We live together, work together, and play together. In our personal lives, we need each other for security, comfort, friendship, and love. In our working environment, we need each other in order to achieve our goals and objectives. None of these goals can be achieved without communication. Communication is the basic thread that ties us together. Through communication we make known our needs, our wants, our ideas, and our feelings. The better we are at communicating, the more effective we are at achieving our hopes and dreams.This section will lead you through an interpersonal communication model that will help you understand your own style of communication and the styles that others use. Once you understand how people prefer to communicate, you can adapt your own communications in ways that will enhance understanding and build rapport.1 Future Perfect Communication It is a luxury to be understood.Ralph Waldo Emerson WhenStar Trek'sMr. Spock wants a perfect transfer of information between himself and another Vulcan, he does a mind-meld. By touching skulls, information flows from one mind to another in a faultless process-free of errors, emotional content, and personal perspectives. Unfortunately mind-melding is not available to us. We have to use a much more flawed technique involving the three "Vs" of communication: verbal, vocal, and visual elements.This chapter discusses the general communication process, including the most common places it breaks down and how you can avoid problems as you work to communicate. For simplicity and practicality, we show the communication process only from your perspective. That is the only part of the process you can, and need to, control. Of course, in successful relationships, both parties participate meaningfully in the entire two-way process. Figure 1-A presents a model of the communication process. The communication process has five basic elements: two people -- the speaker and the listener; two processes -- sending and receiving; and one message.The problem faced in any communication is how to get ideas from one person's head to another. Since we haven't figured out how to use Mr. Spock's mind-meld method of direct transfer, we are stuck with the problem of using an imperfect system that contains considerable opportunity for misunderstandings.The speaker starts with what he wants to say -- the message. To send the message, he translates it into words and actions. Literally, he selects words that he thinks will convey his meaning and he throws in a variety of gestures, facial expressions, etc., that he believes will help transmit the message.The message to be communicated is carried by the three "V elements" -- verbal, vocal, and visual. The words we use make up the verbal element. The vocal element includes the tone and intensity of our voice and other vocal qualities that are often referred to as the "music we play with our voice." The visual element incorporates everything that the listener can see.It might surprise you to learn that the most powerful element of communication is the visual. Dynamic visual, nonverbal communication grabs and holds onto the listener's attention.Old story:An old codger and a young whippersnapper are on a mule trip. The youngster is having trouble getting his mule across a creek and asks the oldster for helAlessandra, Tony is the author of 'Communicating at Work', published 1993 under ISBN 9780671788551 and ISBN 0671788558.