Effective Communication Diagnosis Tools For Identifying Weaknesses In Communication Style

Five Effective Communication Diagnosis Tools for Identifying Weaknesses

Discuss about the Communication Issues in Business Organization.

In this global business proves, where the organisations are constantly changing themselves to match with the markets, the great communicators have a special place. This is because the entire business has been processing according to the ideology of the effective leaders who motivate the employees to enhance their production in one hand and convincing the consumers my handling their demands on the other. All these depend on the efficient style of speaking with all the stakeholder through this the companies can manipulate as well as pacify their associates. In the process of becoming a successful communicator, diagnosing the issues in my communication in essential and in doing so, I have used some effective tools which have helped me a lot in identifying my weaknesses. In this process I have used five very important yet simple tools based on which I have diagnosed two of my very weak sides of communication.  This particular essay focusses on the effectiveness of the communication diagnosis tools which judge my own communication style across various areas such as verbal communication, active listening, non- verbal, and assertiveness perception. This reflective essay discusses the communication competencies through my knowledge and ability to perform contextually appropriate communicative behaviours. It contains a literature review which discusses the two issues I have identified in the diagnosis process and concludes within action plan.

In order to find out the problems with my communication style, I have been helped with five effective diagnosis tools which are closely related to the analysis of the prominent communication. The first tool I have used is Self-Perceived Communication Competence Scale or SPCC (McCroskey, McCroskey & Richmond, 2006). Through this particular tools I was able to identify the communication competency in the highly communication situation where there is a wide range of listener present to listen to me. The second tool I have used is Non-Verbal Immediacy Scale Self-Report or NIS through which I was able to identify the level to which I use body gestures while communicating with others and how they feel in this activities of mine (Richmond, McCroskey & Johnson 2003). The third tool to diagnose my communication style is Personal Report of Intercultural Communication Apprehension or PRICA (Teven, Richmond & McCroskey, 1998). This tool has helped me to diagnose what are the reaction or how I react when I communicate or bout to communicate with the people of different culture. The communication diagnose tool that I have used is Talkaholic Scale which mainly focus on how much I talk to other and what is the level of irrelevancy can be found in my communication process (McCroskey & McCroskey, 1988). As the final tool to assess my communication style, I have use the tool of Tolerance for Disagreement or TDF (Neuliep, Hintz & McCroskey, 2005). This particular tool is made to find out the references of the individuals when they face any type of conflict.

Diagnosis of Communication Style

After I reflected my views in the questioners and answered the easy and simple questions about my views, thoughts values, behaviour and ideologies, I understood the importance of making real progress in the communication system especially in the profession I am now perusing. In the Self-Perceived Communication Competence Scale, I scored very low having average of 78 in various elements like public, meeting, Dyad, friends and acquaintances. In the Non-Verbal Immediacy Scale, I score 103 which is quite high. This has revealed the fact that I use high non-verbal gestures in order to support what I believe and want to make others believe. In the Self-Report Personal Report of Intercultural Communication Apprehension, I have scored 32 which is a marginal score which disclose that I have moderate level of intercultural communication apprehension. Talkaholic Scale reveals that unlike most of the people I have scored exactly as desired. With the score of 27, I have proved I do not interfere others while they are talking among themselves nor I prefer to talk irrelevant just to enter any discussion. In the Tolerance for Disagreement scale I have scored 47 which means that I have a high tolerance for disagreement who wants peace in the organisation hence do not prefer to contribute in the conflicts.

Based upon these score I have clearly identified two quite serious issues which I need to immediately check and take initiatives to eradicate from my communication style. Despite the fact that I have scored good in some of the techniques, but in most of the cases I have grave weaknesses which are creating problem in many aspects of life. first of all, I have pointed out that the communication told like Self-Report Personal Report of Intercultural Communication Apprehension, I have scored so low that there will be surely some issues in the organisation if I try to communicate with the employees from difference race or any type of diversity. I feel uncomfortable in talking to these people from various background as I do not feel confident about the relevancy of the subjects and I feel nervous thinking about the perspectives of those which make me forget the actual theme based on which I was talking about. This issue can be harmful for me because this tendency of not communicating with strangers or people from different race or culture may lead me to a conflict for which I am not at all ready. Moreover, my passivity can be a great issue from the people of different culture as my silence can bear the feeling of arrogance for many of the cultures. Secondly, I have found out that have score high in the Tolerance for Disagreement. This disclose the fact I am very submissive and do not prefer to communicate with the authorities or even the companions just to avoid conflicts. The interpersonal relation to me is more important than any kind of individual success therefore, I fail to convey my own views to the opponent but agree with the others. These two are the most important factors which have really affected my values greatly and now have become the potential barriers in the process of being effective managers in the organisations.

Identification of Issues

In this context two of the eminent incidents need to be shared. First was related with the failure to manage the cross-cultural employees in the organisation and another was related with the Tolerance for Disagreement in communication where I faced difficulty with the fulfilling of the customers’ demands. The first incident took place when I was the in charge of the employees in a resort located in the island of Australia 9 months ago. In that particular resort, the issue was mainly the absenteeism as well as unprofessionalism of the local people most of whom were the aboriginals of the country. These people did not follow the instructions of the managers and remain unattached with the organisational goals of the resort. These people had no tendency to mix with the non-aboriginals and work accordable for the progress of the organisation hence I was employed as the general managers of that resort but in this aspect I could not do much as there were problems within me to communicate with the people of other race. In this aspect I found out that I was not at all comfortable to communicate with these local employees. I used to feel nervous even if I tried to talk with them as well as ask the reason of such behaviour. in the meetings where all the employees of the organisation along with the local staffs gathered, I could not express exactly what I wanted to convey in such meetings. Despite the fact that original I am not a very nervous person who cannot to talk with the employees in order to convey my messages but in the case of communicating with the local staffs I feel myself to be jumbled up with thought and ideas for which I lose the matter I want to share to solve the problems in the resort associated with the employees. I addition to this my understanding was limited about their perspectives hence I had to try a lot what they are expecting from me based on which I shall be communicating with them. This is the reason why I could not manage the local staffs as well as expatriates there thus proved my incompetence to manage through effective communication.

The second situation took place in different place but it is a fresh incident only of 5 months old. I was posted in a small farm as a team leaders of a production team and under me there were only 30 to 45 employees. I was not at all communicative with my employees as well as to my higher authority. My team was therefore a very passive one however met their targets within time. After my joining as the leads there I found the rate of employee turnover was fast increasing and the quality also gradually deteriorated. One day I was summoned to the room of the production managers who imposed a task upon my team which was never be possible and out of the expertise area of the team. However, I did not utter a single word to share my views regarding the task nor I say anything that we cannot do this task. This was tough for me to disagree with the manager because I knew that in case I disagree with the managers a huge conflict will emerge where the employees also would not support me as I am not that much attached to them. Therefore, I ended up doing that particular task with a very low quality. This inevitably incurred the negative reviews from the customers and the company took a punitive measure against me. In that situation I had ample amount of evidences which I would have placed but I did not as to me interpersonal relation is much important. This is the aspect of my behaviour that I always try to avoid conflicts be it associated with the friends, or the employees or with the higher authorities of my workplaces. This submissive nature in me has often led to my exploitation as I have agreed with many impossible situations very compliantly. This is the reason why many of the people who are accustomed with this part of my nature try to get my support in the absurd cases as they know I will agree with what they want.

Case Studies

The literature review of this part mainly discusses the two issues which have been found out through the diagnosis. First of these issues is associated with the communication problem in the intercultural setting and the related nervousness and lack of confidence. Kartikawangi (2017) have pointed out that the companies have started to expand their businesses and operations throughout various countries hence their success as well as failure in the abroad markets largely depends on how efficiently the business negotiators apply the cross-cultural communication skill in some new cultural environments. Hoo (2016) has stated that in this current environment of an economic globalization, the business negotiation has become more frequent. The international business negotiations have a substantial role in the international business trades. Therefore, with all other factors affecting the negotiation for example culture and negotiation strategies, and language, the method of communication is also important. Effective communication can be used as kind of politeness strategy. To Lim, Sung and Lee (2018), appropriate use of language as well as effective style of communication will make negotiation process quite smooth and helps to avoid the conflicts in the business negotiation so also help the communicators ultimately to achieve their purpose of cooperation. Luck and Swartz (2016), there are various factors which affect the cross cultural communication first of which is the un awareness of the cultural values and demands of different cultures, the social organization of culture, the way of thinking, different social roles and norms as well as behaviour, the perception of space and attitude towards time. These are the main differences which often create issues in proper understanding of the intercultural communication (Teunissen et al. 2017). All of these mentioned factors create a feeling of uncomforted while communicating with people from different race and ethnicity. To Kamber (2017), uncomforted in the communication between the intercultural people has a far reaching influence on the relations among the employees of a firm.

According to Palyga and Wardaszko (2018), there are some essential method that the communicators need to know while communicating in the intercultural communication situation. There are some changes as the communication perspectives become more diverse in such situations (Stachova, Stacho & Vicen, 2017). At the forefront of these changes are interdependent self-construal, which stand as the communication medium on the interaction goals that is the international business negotiation outcome in the collectivistic culture. Though international trade a lot in terms of cross-cultural communication as well as international business negotiation may be brought about, but implementing cooperative communication style in the international business negotiation is capable to generate more integrative agreement among the international business communicators. Many scholars like Adler and Graham (2017), believe in the fact that if both the parties have some similarities in their own communication styles, can effectively lead to a positive interaction that is cooperative communication. This contributes to the cooperation as well as influence the communication goals (Shi, Brinthaupt & McCree, 2015) 

Literature Review

Cleveland et al. (2016) has pointed out that the proper communication style is closely related with the ability to listen to the others while they are share their own ideologies. In the aspect of tolerance from disagreement the scholars have pointed out four chief factors among which the willingness to listen to others is one of the major thing (Stachova, Stacho & Vicen, 2017). To the scholars of this particular facet have pointed out that in an organisation, there can be three types of conflicts. First is among the employees themselves, next is the conflict between the employees with their high authorities when the managers are not ready to listen to their employees and the scope of conflict emerge when then employees are not ready pay heed to the functions of their employers. In this aspect, the situation of the workplace becomes problematic when there is miscommunication or misunderstanding among these element of the human resource of an organisation (Palyga & Wardaszko, 2018). Despite the fact that there are some external stimulus present as the contributing factors of the conflict, these ultimately leads to disagreement which the opponents tolerate.

To Thomas and Peterson (2017), there is an emotional relation in this high TFD scale. The employees often ascribe to the high power distance in the organ actions where they prone to listen to their higher authorities and want to submit themselves under them. This is one of the major emotional reasons of high TDF. Sometimes the employees use their submissive nature to get more facilities that their colleagues. The employees prone to feel disappointed either the attitudes of their managers manipulate their managers to change their decisions in support of themselves.

The most important of all the factors of tolerance for disagreement is the factor of verbal communication. This particular factor easily manipulates the decision of the managers as well as regulate the culture of the organisation through their attitudes, persuasiveness and supportiveness (Crane, Kawashima & Kawasaki, 2016). Through this factor the employees as well as the managers can either bring positivity in the operation of the firm or introduce a negative conflicting factor which create competition among the employees of the company. Moreover, this also affect the team building process of the firms where most of the operations are associated with successful production and delivery in time (Zhang, & Shi, 2017). The conflict in such cases ham the operation of the companies in one hand and affect the reputation of the company on the other.

Conclusion

The non-verbal communication is also a contributing factor of conflict in the organisations but this can be effective to mitigate the conflicts among the employees or the managers. The non-verbal communication can lead to unclear understanding if issue (Stahl & Tung, 2015). This may not be applicable in every situation of the organisational process but this factor can be applied easily in managing the conflicts instead of simply tolerating them. A positive nonverbal attitude can win the support of the opponents which prevent the conflicts to be emerge in the successful organisational setting.

After I have completed the diagnosis about my communication issues and found out the most important initiatives which I need to follow immediately. Keeping this in my mind, I have decided to take some very simple yet essential initiatives so that is can easily overcome the weakness in me preventing me to be a successful communicator. In order to transform these weaknesses as my strength by removing issues from my communication style, I have created a very effective communication plan which will help me to work on the communication method of mine and make it more acceptable to the business organisations. First of all, I want to change my views about the people from different cultures. As I feel nervous in the communication process with them, I will start to read various periodicals, business magazines and case studies associated with the cross-cultural communication method successfully applied in the global business. This will help me to gain ample knowledge about the current situation of the businesses as well as the importance of diversity in the organisations. This factor has been greatly exploited by the current companies and I have to set myself in this context of the business.

Secondly, in order to overcome the nervousness in the communication situation, I have decided to visit to a mentor who will guide me to have an effective behavioural change bout the public speaking. He or she will personally point out the parts on which I need to work immediately in order to gain confidence while speaking in the board meetings as well as with the higher authorities of the firm. Personal guidance of these mentors will also help me to explore myself through proper understanding of me and my ideologies. This guidance from the mentor will effectively teach me the proper way to see the situation and then share my views with others. I will come to know the tactics of convincing people with very limited words.

Action Plan

I addition to this, I want to enlist myself in a personal development course which will create scope for viewing myself in various situations. By communicating in these diverse situations, I will be able to grow my communication skills effectively and gain confidence to face any type of situation in the current business structures. These type of courses will also help me to increase my professionalism in one hand and know the formal style of communicating with different stakeholders of the companies differently. This particular course will have a very short span may be only of a week but this in the meantime will help me to effectively relate situations or the individuals through communication.

One of the most important factor which I want to use in my process of learning effective communication style, is keeping a personal journal. In this journal I sailed be documenting the processes what I have learnt from the periodicals, mentors or the course for building efficient communication style. As these processes will have different time spans and I will be using them with some time gaps, I want to keep a record of these in my personal journal. In these six months I will come across many people as well as many situation and from every aspect I shall be learning or acquiring knowledge about the effective communication style. By keeping these records in the journal I shall be able to revise them always and relate with every situation.

Mental practice is another mandatory thing that I want to apply throughout the learning process of building effective communication style. Without practice myself the entire effort to attain coarse, reading books or magazines and visiting mentor will be in vain will turn to ash. Therefore, these efforts and hard work of six months will help me to learn all the techniques to communicate with others.

Gantt chart of action plan

	June 1	July 15	Aug 1	Sept 15	Oct 1	Nov 15	Nov 31
Mentor
Reading periodicals
Personal journal
Development course
Self-practice

Therefore, it can be concluded that this particular essay has identified 5 efficient communication diagnostic tools based on which the process of diagnosis about the strength and weaknesses are found. There are two important issues which have been identified. One is the problem with intercultural communication and another is associate with the high tolerance for disagreement. The literature review has been conducted on these two topics. The action plan has discussed how and when I can manage to train myself to become an effective communication by overcoming all my shortcomings.

References:

Adler, N. J., & Graham, J. L. (2017). Cross-cultural Interaction: The International Comparison Fallacy?. In Language in International Business (pp. 33-58). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Cleveland, M., Rojas-Méndez, J.I., Laroche, M., & Papadopoulos, N. (2016). Identity, culture, dispositions and behavior: A cross-national examination of globalization and culture change. Journal of Business Research, 69(3), pp.1090-1102.

Crane, D., Kawashima, N., & Kawasaki, K.I. (2016). Culture and globalization theoretical models and emerging trends. In Global culture (pp. 11-36). Routledge.

Hoo, P. L. S. (2016). Exploring culture theory global leadership and organizational behaviour effectiveness in cross-cultural communication in asian business negotiations. International Review of Management and Marketing, 6(7), 57-64.

Kamber, T. (2017). Gen X: The cro-magnon of digital natives. Generations, 41(3), 48-54.

Kartikawangi, D. (2017). Symbolic convergence of local wisdom in cross–cultural collaborative social responsibility: Indonesian case. Public Relations Review, 43(1), 35-45. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2016.10.012

Kinloch, P., & Metge, J. (2014). Talking past each other: problems of cross cultural communication. Victoria University Press.

Konstantinides, S., Torbicki, A., Agnelli, G., Danchin, N., Fitzmaurice, D., Galiè, N., Gibbs, J.S.R., Huisman, M., Humbert, M., Kucher, N., & Lang, I. (2014). 2014 ESC guidelines on the diagnosis and management of acute pulmonary embolism. Kardiologia Polska (Polish Heart Journal), 72(11), pp.997-1053.

Lim, R. E., Sung, Y. H., & Lee, W. (2018). Connecting with global consumers through corporate social responsibility initiatives: A cross-cultural investigation of congruence effects of attribution and communication styles. Journal of Business Research, 88, 11-19. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.03.002

Luck, S. L., & Swartz, S. (2016). A german-american alliance: Simulated real-life cross-cultural business communication exercise involving german and american classrooms. The Journal of Business Diversity, 16(1), 38.

McCroskey, J. C. (1977). Oral communication apprehension: A summary of recent theory and research. Human communication research, 4(1), 78-96.

McCroskey, J. C., & McCroskey, L. L. (1988). Self?report as an approach to measuring communication competence.

McCroskey, J. C., Richmond, V. P., Johnson, A. D., & Smith, H. T. (2004). Organizational orientations theory and measurement: Development of measures and preliminary investigations. Communication Quarterly, 52(1), 1-14.

McCroskey, L. L., McCroskey, J. C., & Richmond, V. P. (2006). Analysis and improvement of the measurement of interpersonal attraction and homophily. Communication Quarterly, 54(1), 1-31.

Neuliep, J. W. (2017). Intercultural Communication Apprehension. The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication.

Neuliep, J. W., Hintz, S. M., & McCroskey, J. C. (2005). The influence of ethnocentrism in organizational contexts: Perceptions of interviewee and managerial attractiveness, credibility, and effectiveness. Communication Quarterly, 53(1), 41-56.

Palyga, A., & Wardaszko, M. (2018). A management model for effective team communication in business simulation games. Paper presented at the , 10711 43-57. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-78795-4_4

Richmond, V. P., McCroskey, J. C., & Johnson, A. D. (2003). Development of the nonverbal immediacy scale (NIS): Measures of self?and other?perceived nonverbal immediacy. Communication Quarterly, 51(4), 504-517.

Shi, X., Brinthaupt, T. M., & McCree, M. (2015). The relationship of self-talk frequency to communication apprehension and public speaking anxiety. Personality and Individual Differences, 75, 125-129.

Stachova, K., Stacho, Z., & Vicen, V. (2017). Efficient involvement of human resources in innovations through effective communication. Business: Theory and Practice, 18(1), 33. doi:10.3846/btp.2017.004

Stahl, G. K., & Tung, R. L. (2015). Towards a more balanced treatment of culture in international business studies: The need for positive cross-cultural scholarship. Journal of International Business Studies, 46(4), 391-414.

Teunissen, E., Gravenhorst, K., Dowrick, C., van Weel-Baumgarten, E., Van den Driessen Mareeuw, F., de Brún, T., … & O’Reilly-de Brún, M. (2017). Implementing guidelines and training initiatives to improve cross-cultural communication in primary care consultations: a qualitative participatory European study. International journal for equity in health, 16(1), 32.

Teven, J. J., McCroskey, J. C., & Richmond, V. P. (1998). Measurement of tolerance for disagreement. Communication Research Reports, 15(2), 209-217.

Thomas, D. C., & Peterson, M. F. (2017). Cross-cultural management: Essential concepts. Sage Publications.

Zhang, J., & Shi, Y. (2017). The application of vague language in international business negotiations from a cross-cultural perspective. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 7(7), 585. doi:10.17507/tpls.0707.1