COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Hearing
Smell
Seeing
Taste
Touch
What is Communication?
• It is the transfer and understanding
of meaning
• To be successful, the meaning of
what a person wants to convey must
be understood
Why Communication?
• To express emotions
• Achieve joint understanding
• To get things done
• Pass on and obtain information
• Reach decisions
• Develop relationships
Home Truths about
Communication
• Good communication cannot exist
without honest listening
• We do not try HARD to get our
message across
• We do not take advantage of
various media available to us
• We all could improve our
communication skills
• It cannot be perfected
The Communication Process
Message Medium Receiver
Encoding Decoding
Noise
Sender Message
Feedback
Written Versus Verbal
Communications
Written: Verbal:
▪ tangible ▪ less secure
▪ verifiable ▪ known receipt
▪ more permanent ▪ quicker response
▪ more precise ▪ consumes less
▪ more care taken time
with the written ▪ quicker feedback
word
The Grapevine
The grapevine motto:
“Good information passes among
people fairly rapidly ---- bad
information even faster!”
Grapevine:
An unofficial channel of communication that
is neither authorized nor supported by the
organization
Nonverbal
Communications
o Body Language
• Nonverbal communication cues such as facial
expressions, gestures, and other body
movements
o Verbal Intonation
• An emphasis given to words or phrases
that conveys meaning
Approximately 65 - 90% of message
transmitted face-to-face is interpreted
through body language
Barriers to Effective
Communication
Filtering:
The deliberate manipulation of information to
make it appear more favorable to the receiver
Selective Perception:
What people see and hear influenced by their
attitudes, background, and experience
Information Overload:
Information available exceeds processing
capacity
Barriers to Effective
Communication
Emotions:
Interpretation of a message affected by the
way the receiver feels
Language:
Meaning of words differs among people with
diverse backgrounds
National Culture:
Cultural values affect the way people
communicate
Overcoming
Communication Barriers
Use Feedback:
Ask a set of questions about a message to
determine whether it was understood as
intended
Simplify Language:
Tailor the language to the audience for whom
the message is intended
Overcoming
Communication Barriers
Listen Actively:
Listen for full meaning
Constrain Emotions:
Stop communicating until composure has
been restored
Emphasize Nonverbal Cues:
Ensure that actions align with words
Communications and
Information Technology
o Information technology has changed
communication and ways in which people
can communicate
o Communications among members of an
organization are no longer constrained by
geography or time
Information Technology
o Information technology has changed
communication and ways in which people
can communicate
o Communications among members of an
organization are no longer constrained by
geography or time
Information Technology
o Email
• Is the instantaneous transmission of messages on
computers that are linked together
o Instant Messaging (IM)
• Is interactive, real-time communication among users
logged on the computer network at the same time
o Voice Mail
• A system that digitizes a spoken message, transmits it
over the network, and stores the message for the
receiver to retrieve later
Information Technology
o Fax
• Allows for the transmission of documents containing
both text and graphics over telephone lines
o Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
• An exchange of documents with vendors, suppliers,
and customers using direct, computer-to-computer
networks
o Teleconferencing
• Allows groups to confer simultaneously using
telephone or email group communications software
Information Technology
o Videoconferencing
• Is a simultaneous conference during which meeting
participants in different locations can see each other
over video screens
o Intranets
• An organizational communication network that uses
internet technology but is accessible only to
organizational employees
o Extranets
• An organizational communication network that uses
internet technology and allows authorized users inside
the organization to communicate with certain outsiders
such as customers or vendors
Information Technology
o Wireless Communications
• Allow users to send and receive information from
anywhere as signal sent without a direct physical
connection to a hard-wired network system
o Knowledge Management
• includes cultivating a learning culture in which people
systematically gather knowledge and share it through
computer-based networks and community of interest
teams
Effective Communication
o Is scarcer than quality water
o Is measured by results or actions
o Does not need to be very complex
o Is aimed at informing others
o Is complete and clear
Information Overload
• There is an exponential growth of information and
knowledge.
• To target 50 billion people it took:
➢ the radio 38 years
➢ the television 30 years
➢ the Internet 4 years
➢ the Ipod 3 years
➢ the Facebook 2 years
➢ The number of internet connections has gone up from
one thousand in 1984 to one million in 1992 to on trillion
in 2008.
Information Overload
• Facebook today has over 500 billion active users.
• Over one billion checked messages are being generated
every day.
• There are 31 billion searches on Google every month.
• 4 Hex bytes of new information will be generated this
year alone. A hex byte has 18 Zeros.
1,000,000,000,000,000,000
• This is information contained in 60 Libraries of Congress.
The largest library in the world with 33 million books in
745 miles of shelves.
How does one absorb all this information and knowledge?
Does one need to?
References
Communication and Interpersonal Skills
Robbins et al.
Communication and Interpersonal Skills
Robbins and DeCenzo
Communication Skills
Vinay
