User:IndiaHarper

 Effective Communication 

There are many different many different of communication each allowing you to gain attention from your audience.

General communication skills includes many types of skills which overcaome many barriers; adapting to your audince or even the acustics of the room speaking louder or quieter, adapting allows effective communication because it make less likely to offend or upset your audience this could be becuase you need to change your tone of voice.

Another general communication skill is accuracy; if you are accurate in what you are saying and backup your points from a reliable source so you cannot be disputed you are more likely going to leave a longer impression on your audiences minds. There is also question and answer, whether rhetorical or open; questions can be a very useful tool for communication it can make your presentation interactive and make the audience more involved; answering you audiences various questions about the subject you are speaking of you show that you really know your subject and can settle your audiences qualms if they have any.

You also have engaging the audience this can be done by questions, adapting your tone, the way you speak to enage your audience; in essence speaking is a performance and the way you hold your self, the way you speak all engage the audience or if done wrong could send them into a stupor.

You could also include cultural differences; this could be a general communication skill as you have to overcome ceratin difference be it accents, beliefs or even the way they may dress. You have to be attentive, courteous even if that means going through information slower to make sure they understand you and listening attetively to make you understand what they are saying and understand their point of view as it may be very differnt from yours but you could benefit from the difference of opinion.

Interpersonal skills are various ways and methods of making you communicate better with others face to face, this can be to affectively communicating feelings, opinions etc. There are many methods of interpersonel skills such as non-verbal communication, this is your body language; standing straight, looking the person in the eye, all this makes for better communication. Verbal communication, might at fist seem a bit silly as you'll be talking, but verbal communication means how you say something, the tone of your voice how loud you say it.

Listening skills, this means listening to both verbal and non-verbal communication from others, understanding how and why they are saying something. Negotitation, there will always be times when you have to negotiate with other to find a mutually acceptable outcome, understanding how to negotiate will be a very important skill to not matter your chosen industry.

There will also be times when you have to work with others to solve problems, so being able to work alongside others is so important. Decision making, though at the beginning of your career you may not have important decisions to make, being able to make decisions is a very good skill to have but also with this skill you have to be able to stick with this decision and be ble to explain why you made it. One last interpersonel skill I will talk about is assertiveness, this purely means communicating your ideas, beliefs and values. Assertiveness can help you communicate about the aforementioned topics without undermining of undervaluing yourself or others.

Positive and Negative language is another important factor as the way you say something can either a positive or negative impression on someone e.g. Get out of the way or Excuse me, please.

Another thing to consider is the amount of time that hould be given before a response is made; too long and it might seem that you're being rude, too fast and it also seems as if your being rude. Depending on the subject only a couple of seconds really needs to given.

Using IT to aid communication can be a very useful thing to do; using smiley faces or faces that display other emotions though you wouldn't use them in the workplace can be affective in showing how what someone says to you can make you feel or just show someone how you are feeling anyway. A useful thing about computers is that many software programs tell you if you have used poor grammar or what you written doesn't make sense. Some programs can also help you with structure, how you got about getting your point across for example. The same programs can point out to you when you have spelt a word incorrectly.

Using the internet can also help you find alternate viewpoints on your subject this can either back up your own point or make you re-think yours. Using capitalisation or putting words in bold or italic can make ceratin points seem more important than other, something the reader has to consider. There are also many programs that allow you to take notes and stick them to your home screen.

There are many potential barriers to communication, these barriers can be created by the speaker, the audience or even completly non-interested people who may not be part of the conversation or even in the same room.

When doing face-to-face communcation the barriers can seem almost endless, here are some;

1. Language barriers can be a barrier because if you don't know what another person is saying you can't commincate. There ways to overcome this such as  you learning the language, hiring an interpreter, or using a computer program that translates what you and the other person are saying into each others language.

2. Outside distractions can interfere; when I say outside distractions I mean someone outside making noise or someone repeatedly calling one person in the room. To overccome this barrier is simple; Turn off the phone, for people making noise outside you can either sound proof the room or tell them to be quiet.

3. Another barrier can be difference of opinion  this can be a barrier because if a person feels very strongly about their point as you do yours an argument can kick off and then it will become out off control and nothing will contributed; to overcome this barrier both parties should be consientious to others opinions and be aware that though there going softly will achieve more than screaming and getting angry. This is also another barrier in itself attitude having a bad attitude, to this you should just try keeping calm and being kind and consientious.

Barriers for non-verbal communication are also many;

1. Being unable to see the other person, this can be a barrier as if you cannot see their body language you night not understand how something was meant, to overcome this barrier you could use skype or try and understand others ways something could be meant.

2. Distractions, if you are doing a phone conference distractions can be more insistent than face-to-face as  a phone can be quieter than a person  standing infront of you. Getting over this barrier can be very simple if possible turn up the volume on your phone, tell others to be quiet or perhaps ask the other person to speak up.

3. Cultural differences can be important as many different countries have different ways of expressing emotions or feelings even a thumbs up, though the most universal, is not used in every country. The only way I can consider overcoming this barrier is researching the other cultures different expressions beforehand.

There are also several barriers to communicating via the internet, using a computer.

1. Internet connection, if you have terrible internet connection it can be down to several reasons; the weather outside is terrible, there's a blackout, there has been some malfunction or you have a terrible provider. To overcome these you could fix the problem, change servers, for the first two there is not much you can do except rearrange.

2. Not being able to affectively change tone to show how you feel about the subject; this barrier can stop effctive communication because if you say something in a certain way converying how you feel about it, it does in no way mean that it will come across that way when you type it. To overcome this barrier you could use bold or italic to try and convey more meaning or you could use skype allowing it to be almost face-to-face.

3. Spelling, grammar can be a barrier online as some programs do not have the ability to chech if something is mispelt or written the wrong way so it doesn't make sense. To overcome this barrier you could first type it in a program such as Microsoft Word so that it can be checked first and then copy and paste, you could get someone to proof read what you have typed first or you could try English lessons to make your writing foolproof.