Communication Skills Analysis

Discuss About The Learning Preferences Organizational Setting?

Communication skills are the most important thing in human life, whether it is related to business or something else. Analysing my communication skills, I have constructed this report with the information that have developed using the five diagnostic tools for communication. Two communication issues that have been generated in my case are Personal Report of Speaking Concern in Public and Self Recognised Communication Capability. I have identified these two issues among the five communication tools by experimental measurements. A part of this report contains the literature review majorly focused on the theories and concepts of issues related to business and personal communication. I have analysed the five communication tools; that is Personal Report of Intercultural Communication Apprehension, Questionnaire containing Self Recognised Communication Capability, Personal Report of Speaking Concern in Public, Willingness to Listen Diagnostic and Tolerance for Disagreement. I found that the last tool that is Tolerance for Disagreement is not applicable in this scenario. I identified the major issues of myself, I have come to know about the activities, which I can imply on myself in order to resolve my communication problems. From the assumption, I have been able to develop an action plan for myself following the literature review.

I have chosen five different diagnostic tools for my communication skill analysis. These techniques focus on various situations regarding communication. The descriptions of the tools are given as per understanding various literatures as well as implementing those understandings in specific cases. The first communication tool that I have used is Personal Report of Intercultural Communication Apprehension. This tool provides a quantification of the feeling of an individual based on his or her communication. The methodology of this tool is to analyse the communication of the individual in financial, different situations and the behaviour of that individual there (DeKay, 2012). The second tool is a Questionnaire containing Self Recognised Communication Capability. This tool provides an index of how people examine their own capability of communication when subjected to a vast field of communication where the number of receivers is high (Byrne, Flood & Shanahan, 2012).The third tool is Personal Report of Speaking Concern in Public. This tool measures a person’s discomfort and worries in speaking publicly. Finally, the fourth tool is Willingness to Listen Diagnostic. This tool provides a clear description of one’s concentration by examining his or her determination in listening to the diagnostics (Fall et al., 2013).

Findings from Communication Skills Analysis

Fulfilling all the five questionnaires, I have achieved certain scores, from which I can determine my comfort and discomfort zones in the communication. Among all the scores in respective tools, the score in the Personal Report of Speaking Concern in Public and Self Recognised Communication Capability are comparatively lower than other sections. My scores in these two cases are 42 and 45, which set the measurement parameters at a moderate level. The overall result shows my discomfort of speaking in public and my comfort zone of speaking one to one, my moderate level of anxiety while speaking in public, a good level of tolerance of disagreement and a moderate level of patience and willingness to listen to diagnostics.

From the above diagnosis, the two areas that I have found to improve for myself are Personal Report of Speaking Concern in Public and Self Recognised Communication Capability. Although, all of my scores are in moderate range, but these two are low in comparison to the others. My primary target is to improve my skills in business communication by resolving the issues of developed from the application of these two tools. The first business communication tool is Personal Report of Speaking Concern in Public. This tool measures a person’s discomfort and worries in speaking publicly. This fear develops while communicating in public, which invites anxiety and fear. The other tool is a Questionnaire containing Self Recognised Communication Capability. This tool provides an index of how people examine their own capability of communication when subjected to a vast field of communication where the number of receivers is high. I always try to understand any process quickly from my viewpoint, but my patience is low in case of hearing lectures, either boring or not. I believe that big lectures must be limited to its objectives, as the listeners must not get bored from it.

I can explain my Personal Report of Speaking Concern in Public by giving the example of an incident. In an international education event, I became the speaker of a group consisted of students from different countries and our objective was to prepare a discussion in a specific topic. To develop the discussion all the members of the group were required to deliver their viewpoints and discuss it with the others. However, I was the most uncommunicative member but I was made the speaker, in order to represent my team. Knowing that the performance of my group will depend on my public speaking and communicating abilities, I could not communicate well due to my fear and drawbacks in communication. I fear speaking in public as I think a lot. Due to this, I cannot even engage my audience. Lack of confidence, is the major reason for this, which hampers my ability to speak fluently and clearly.

Personal Report of Speaking Concern in Public

To give an example of the second tool, Questionnaire containing Self Recognised Communication Capability, I can mention certain events. I am most comfortable while talking with my friends or relatives or known ones with whom I can connect myself emotionally. I prefer interpersonal or face-to-face communication the most and small group conversations is fine with me, but to some extent. I feel somewhat uncomfortable while talking in public, as I have mentioned before. Public speaking is not my cup of tea. I feel nervous while talking in public or large groups or meetings. During a university power point presentation, the whole class was given the task of preparing individually. I prepared my slides well and memorized the lines, which I was going to say in front of the whole class. However, on the presentation day, I got so nervous that I forgot everything and could not utter a word.

The fear of communication in different situations with different people or a group of people can be identified as communication apprehension. accounting to the experts, the terror in communication-related to people belonging to different cultures can be called intercultural communication apprehension (Neuliep, 2017). This can be divided into four categories is the basis of the matters related to anxiety, which are audience, context, trait and situation. Audience anxiety is related to the kind of audience associated with the communication as the speaker becomes nervous while talking in front of that kind or that number of audiences (Arquero et al., 2017). Context anxiety is generated due to the uncertainty or unfamiliarity of any situation. Trait anxiety is an example of a person’s fear of communication due to lack of knowledge and situation anxiety is caused by social, cultural and psychological factors. Communication apprehension is totally different from active participation in communication despite a negative association, which is strong enough to observe (Fall et al., 2013). The capability of an individual to overcome all the anxieties provided by unfavourable circumstances along with the negative associations is the measure of that person’s communication skills.

Agreeing or disagreeing with some context totally depends on an individual when subjected to a group communication. The concepts of tolerance for disagreement hence come from conduction of group communication within any kind of organisational settlement (Quintanilla & Wahl, 2015). The background behind any disagreement and the effects varies from person to person depending on their nature and mentality and especially on the circumstances. Depending on the opposition in any disagreement, the topic of disagreement and the positional weight of the individual who is disagreeing, the depth of any disagreement tend to change (Russ, 2012).The procedure of any disagreement can be changed based on the mode of that disagreement as these modes can be online or face to face. Styles of communication are another important factor in disagreement as it influences the weight of the subject of disagreement. Tolerance in disagreement plays a vital part in communication as it explains the different communication style of a person under total disagreement in a topic (Waldeck et al., 2012).

Self Recognised Communication Capability

There are certain factors in communication those control the unfolding of any disagreement, especially in a workplace. Emotions in communication, verbal and non-verbal communication and workplace disputes are the different factors that affect this tool (Ver?i?, Ver?i? & Sriramesh, 2012). Verbal communication is further affected by several factors like support, assurance, precision, arguments, verbal aggression and expression (Guffey & Loewy, 2012). Communication style of an employee and manager constructs business environment and communication (Men, 2014). The verbal factors, in this case, are the most crucial communication factors. An improved verbal communication between the managers, team leaders and team members increases the efficiency of any work team as decrease its productivity. However, disagreement is a negative factor for a team and tolerance is a limiting barrier to that negative effects. It is also noted that different situation has different impacts on the communication style of an individual and it makes the individual adjust his or her communication style accordingly.

Non-verbal communication can be identified as a positive expression like smiling or listening while being in a situation of disagreement. This communication is an example of interpersonal communication where the personal emotions are suppressed (Bodie, 2012). The communication develops according to the tolerance level of any individual. However, this communication is not a very effective for enhancing team performance as the communication integrity is very low. Conflicts in workplace communication, which can be stated as a result of either disagreement in any matter or unwillingness to be involved in a matter is another factor that reduces the efficiency of a team.

Willingness to listen to diagnostics increases the work understanding level of a team (Burnside-Lawry, 2012). However, sometimes the diagnostics become too lengthy a repetitive which is not appreciated by any worker. Lengths of diagnostics have a good impact on the communication in a workplace. Depending on the diagnostic communication frequency either increases or decreases.

Ultimately the objectives of all these tools are same, and it is to check the capability of an individual for public communication (Thomas & Stephens, 2015). For any business, communication is the fundamental tool for progression and success. Communication apprehension and active participation in communication both affect the inter-relationship of employees in the workplace (Mai & Hoffmann, 2014). An effective level of communication apprehension within the managers of any organisation results in less employee involvement in decision making (Dasgupta, Suar & Singh, 2012). This along with with the absence of co-operative communication generates dispute among the employees of the organisation and affects employee relation in a negative manner (Neuliep, 2012). On the other hand, communication apprehension among the employees creates a loss of balance among the workplace environment and the productivity of the organisation automatically starts to reduce (Ghosh, 2012). In this case the authority approaches with two kinds of solution one is to identify the employee problems with intervention planning and the other is to fire the incompetent employees.

Literature Review

Improvement in communication is a preferable pathway for any business organisation. In order to improve personal communication skills, one must imply all the five tools on himself or herself (Gallagher, 2012). The results of those implementations surely find out the areas those are needed to be improved for any individual. The overall approach definitely finds out the anxiety of any individual, his or her tolerance level, communication apprehension and the will of an individual for listening as well as communicating (Macnamara, 2014). From the results, one can take effective measures in order to solve those issues and improve his or her communication skills.

The main objective of implying these five communication tools on me was to identify the areas where I lack communication skills and the measures I can take in order to solve them. From the results, I have identified two issue regarding communication which are Personal Report of Speaking Concern in Public and Questionnaire containing Self Recognised Communication Capability. Following those, I have made an action plan from which I can be benefitted. The first thing that I need to do will be maintaining a personal diary to track my activities and effectiveness of those activities. Time to time review of that diary will ensure me about my progression or degradation. After a certain period of time, I will receive a certain amount of benefits as I will have a daily track-record of activities and effects. It will also help me to plan activities for future. In order to resolve the communication apprehension, I need to control my sensitivity issues. I will primarily focus on the specific factors which develop fear during communication and will note them down. To maintain that I need to build an anxiety hierarchy which will enlist all the situations that develops anxiety in me. Following that hierarchy, I need to imagine some situations and to find the ways to resolve them. To familiarise myself with different relaxation technique in different situations I need to see some experts. This is also included in my action plan. I need to improve my listening and talking efficiency following the expert advices provided by the mentor. Anxiety issues can only be resolved by any professional who is very well in the department of communication and understands the issues behind the anxieties of any people.

An individual’s performance can be enhanced by improving his or her communication skills. Implementation of various mental strategies and skills has proved to be more authentic in this case.  I felt that implementing several of these practices would provide help in my case. I can solve my communication apprehension or capability issue by applying several practices that help in releasing the stress created due to anxiety. This stress releasing practices can be associated with several body exercises as well as some mental exercises. Along with these, taking part in, group communication can help me work with my introvert nature. I need to deal with my incapability alone. Another activity that is embedded in my action plan is reading literature associated with these mental and meditative practices as it will give clear insights about the relevance and expectation of these practices.

Communication Apprehension

To increase my public communication abilities, I will participate in different group discussion or communication courses, hosted as an international event. The objective for this activity is simply to improve my public speaking and workplace communication skills. Moreover, I will attend more seminars related to my specialisation. I will try to gain some leadership qualities, in order to lead my team. Even practicing it in front of my relatives and friends will help me a lot. Public speaking is a very useful exercise as it helps in gaining leadership skills. Being a good orator can help any person achieve a lot in his/her life.

I believe this action plan will help me in solving the disputes regarding communication at the workplace and make me comfortable in intercultural work conversation. It will also develop my public speaking abilities and taking part in, group discussions. Concluding the discussion I can tell that with proper utilisation of the five communication tools mentioned in the discussion will help any person to identify and solve his or her issues in communication in a large or a small field of work.

References:

Arquero, J. L., Fernández-Polvillo, C., Hassall, T., & Joyce, J. (2017). Relationships between communication apprehension, ambiguity tolerance and learning styles in accounting students. Revista de Contabilidad, 20(1), 13-24.

Bodie, G. D. (2012). Listening as positive communication. The positive side of interpersonal communication, 109-125.

Burnside-Lawry, J. (2012). Listening and participatory communication: A model to assess operating listening competency. International Journal of Listening, 26(2), 102-121.

Byrne, M., Flood, B., & Shanahan, D. (2012). A qualitative exploration of oral communication apprehension. Accounting Education, 21(6), 565-581.

Dasgupta, S. A., Suar, D., & Singh, S. (2012). Impact of managerial communication styles on employees’ attitudes and behaviours. Employee Relations, 35(2), 173-199.

DeKay, S. H. (2012). Interpersonal communication in the workplace: A largely unexplored region. Business Communication Quarterly, 75(4), 449-452.

Fall, L. T., Kelly, S., MacDonald, P., Primm, C., & Holmes, W. (2013). Intercultural communication apprehension and emotional intelligence in higher education: Preparing business students for career success. Business Communication Quarterly, 76(4), 412-426.

Gallagher, H. C. (2012). Willingness to communicate and cross-cultural adaptation: L2 communication and acculturative stress as transaction. Applied Linguistics, 34(1), 53-73.

Ghosh, M. (2012). Business Communication Skills. Pearson Education India.

Guffey, M. E., & Loewy, D. (2012). Essentials of business communication. Cengage Learning.

Macnamara, J. (2014). Organisational listening: A vital missing element in public communication and the public sphere. Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, 15(1), 89-108.

Mai, R., & Hoffmann, S. (2014). Accents in business communication: An integrative model and propositions for future research. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 24(1), 137-158.

Men, L. R. (2014). Strategic internal communication: Transformational leadership, communication channels, and employee satisfaction. Management Communication Quarterly, 28(2), 264-284.

Neuliep, J. W. (2012). The relationship among intercultural communication apprehension, ethnocentrism, uncertainty reduction, and communication satisfaction during initial intercultural interaction: An extension of anxiety and uncertainty management (AUM) theory. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 41(1), 1-16.

Neuliep, J. W. (2017). Intercultural communication: A contextual approach. Sage Publications.

Quintanilla, K. M., & Wahl, S. T. (2015). Business and professional communication: Keys for workplace excellence. Sage Publications.

Russ, T. L. (2012). The relationship between communication apprehension and learning preferences in an organizational setting. The Journal of Business Communication (1973), 49(4), 312-331.

Thomas, G. F., & Stephens, K. J. (2015). An introduction to strategic communication.

Ver?i?, A. T., Ver?i?, D., & Sriramesh, K. (2012). Internal communication: Definition, parameters, and the future. Public relations review, 38(2), 223-230.

Waldeck, J., Durante, C., Helmuth, B., & Marcia, B. (2012). Communication in a changing world: Contemporary perspectives on business communication competence. Journal of Education for Business, 87(4), 230-240.