Importance of understanding communication

 

For many of us, communication is an important part of our daily lives. Communication is simply the exchange of information between individuals (PSU, 2021 para 4). When individuals are communicating, they must send, receive, and process information which is known as the human communication process (Shockley-Zalabak, 2015). There are many different variations of the communication process but, a general model is “an idea is generated by one person, shaped into a message, and sent by the person to another person, who then receives the message, interprets it, and generates his or her own idea” (PSU, 2021 para 5). Even though the general communication model seems simple there are still many errors that occur within the communication process.

For example, when individuals are sending and receiving messages, they have a natural tendency to make biased judgements about the information they are processing (Bazerman & Moore, 2013). There is also the issue of language barriers, misinterpretation and so on. Another communication error is known as egocentrism which is an “inability to take on other people’s perspectives” (PSU, 2021 para 5). The issue with egocentrism is if individuals are not able to see another person’s perspective it is difficult to see what that person needs or wants (PSU, 2021 para 5). For instance, when sending an e-mail to a co-worker it is difficult to determine the sender’s tone of voice because an e-mail lacks the senders’ nonverbal cues such as gestures. Therefore, the receiver may perspective the message differently than what the sender was trying to convey in his or her message. As a result, this is can led to miscommunication because the sender uses his or her perspective in how they believe the receive will perspective the message.

I personal experience of mine is when I was communicating with a new client via e-mail. A colleague of mine had referred this client to me so I expecting either a phone call or e-mail. After a few days this client reached out me via e-mail requesting some documentation. However, the e-mail was in all capital letters. I initially thought to myself why is this client yelling at me. After I responded and gave the client their documentation, I just brushed it off and thought well maybe this person was having a bad day. However, over the next few weeks every time this client would contact me, they always used capital letters and I began to think this person did not like me. I should note the only communication I have had with this client was only e-mails. I finally decided to give my client a call just to check in with them and during our conversation the client mentioned they are not very tech savvy and they have hard time seeing when they type so they use capital letters. I immediately said to my client “that makes so much sense now because I thought you were always yelling me”. While we did get a good laugh out of the mis- understanding it goes to show how easy people perspective messages differently.

Unfortunately, there is not one solution that will fix all the communication errors in which we face daily. However, as leaders one of the first steps we can do during the communication process is to understand and recognizing any bias that we have of our own. This can be accomplished by working in teams because there will be multiple perspectives which can help reduce any biases (PSU, 2021).

References

Bazerman, M. H., & Moore, D. A. (2013). Judgment in managerial decision making (8th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Pennsylvania State University. (2021). Global communication. [Lecture notes]. Canvas @ PSU. https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2146712/modules/items/32847665

Shockley-Zalabak, P. (2015). Fundamentals of organizational communication: Knowledge, sensitivity, skills, values (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson