The Five Diagnostic Tools For Effective Communication

Analyzing Communication Effectiveness

Discuss about the Strategic Non-Profit Communication In Multicultural.

Communication is a very important aspect of human interaction. No person or individual can survive without communication. People need to send messages to each other to clarify concepts, show affection as well as pass important information during various circumstances. Communication I a process, it starts when the sender sends the message to the receiver through a channel, the receiver encodes the message and sends back the feedback through a channel. However, it is not a guarantee that whenever the sender sends a message will always get a correct feedback, sometimes the receiver may misunderstand the message. Therefore it is good to keep in mind some of the factors that may hinder or affect effective communication process. This may include semantics, misinterpretation of the message and noise. Before I set my essay to start looking at the various diagnostic tools let see the diagram below which highlights in black and white how effective communication takes place.

In order to know that communication has been effective, therefore, the feedback must be relevant to the sender of the message. We can easily analyze the effectiveness of the communication process between people using various concepts, these concepts include;

Persistent difficulties experienced in the social use of verbal and non-verbal cues to pass information can be manifested in various ways. Firstly, there can be a sign of the person in question having difficulties in using communication for the social purpose, for instance, greeting and sharing information in a manner that is appropriate for the relevant social setting. When someone is not in a position to express himself in the social setting, it is a sign of communication ineffective. This tool can be used to see how and to what extent people can influence relationships as they interact with each other. This tool relates to verbal communication. Verbal communication happens daily and at least every person who is normal talks to people in a social environment. In my study, I found out that some individuals could not talk effectively before a single individual that they could do it to a group. This shows that this type of individual has a high sensitivity to confidence, they prefer large groups of people.

Impairment is the inability to change communication to match context or the needs and requirements of the receiver or listener. Impaired individuals cannot communicate effectively to other people because whoever they do, the message context tends to change immediately. They cannot, therefore, take part in active listening and assertive perception. However, impaired people can take part in non-verbal communication. Communication effectiveness can also be diagnosed in the ease to follow rules. Literally speaking, people who follow rules clearly as stated definitely have good communication skill. They can take part in verbal, non-verbal communication through the act of active listening and assertive perception. When people follow rules, they display a high ability to communicate information which has been understood and integrated.

Five Greatest Communication Diagnostic Tools

The five greatest communication diagnostic tools that hinder and affect communication can be traced using the five communication senses of a human being. For people to listen and talk effectively, they must hear using the ears and talk using their mouth. Therefore to effectively know that communication is effective, we can diagnose the ability of ones talking or listening also. We communicate messages via sight by use of various signals which comprise of expressions and gestures as well as postures (our body languages movements which are non-verbal communication). When a person looks at something, light bounces off the particular object onto the pupil in the eye. The eyes help in judging distances. Consequently, the second most common way is hearing. This is relatively related to listening despite the slight difference in meaning between them. Hearing helps to effectively perceive messages and engage in active listening and also engage in verbal communication. However, somebody can effectively engage in non-verbal communication without this tool, for instance, the deaf has mastered their sign language and can effectively communicate without having the help of ears.

This essay, therefore, is a self-diagnosis of the five major diagnostic tools and how they are used in measuring the extent to which people can communicate effectively verbally, engage in active listening, non-verbal communication and be assertive during the process of communication. The information generated by the five tools I will discuss play an important role in effective communication. I will also discuss two main concern which is closely related to the five diagnostic tools and how they related to each other. These two main issues include the public speaking anxiety which tends more on the ability to present information before people or audience as well as low tolerance to disagreement. My essay will as well analyze a literature review which I will discuss the major concepts and also theories which are related to communication. Using this reflective process, I have successfully acquired competence in handling various communication issues which I will discuss later in the review.

In my essay, I have discussed the five diagnostic tools, these tools include self-perceived communication competence questionnaire. This questionnaire serves to analyze how individuals can perceive and analyze information when faced with a communication situation say talking to the public or even a single individual. The second tool I have employed in this discussion is the personal report of communication apprehension that is used to gauge communication instances including how individuals can behave when confronted with a communication situation. The third diagnostic tool that I have employed in this essay is a personal report which relates to public speaking. People have different abilities when I come to public speaking(Boling, 2017). This tool is greatly influenced by anxiety and the level of confidence of people. The second last tool that I have discussed is the willingness of people to hear or listen with their orientation based on listening and lastly, my diagnostic tool is the tolerance for disagreement. This gives information from studies on how people can tolerate for disagreement in various situations as they talk.

Communication Diagnostic Tools and Communication Issues

Personally, having a score of 70 in my average communications skills falls me in the level of moderate communication level. I noticed that I have the ability to talk to large numbers of people that I could communicate to one individual, this is based on the self-perceived communication style. The apprehension also verifies that. I also had a score of 72 in the willingness to listen in my apprehension, this also falls under moderate score. The worse score I scored was the tolerance for disagreement which I got a 42 score which despite falls in the moderate level of communication ability. Despite the fact that this score falls in the moderate level, I ought to improve it as it was the lowest score I achieved in the self-apprehension. In my own view, disagreements are unavoidable in the day to day interaction with human beings especially when it comes to making decisions that influence you. Finding the right way in which both people can agree is a very hard encounter.

I can vividly flashback an incident that happened me the time I was an operations manager at the standard chartered bank. I was to move to the next branch where I was to start my duties there for the first time. Having no idea of who I was to meet there but knowing what I was to speak could not tally in my perception. Though I was aware of what an operations manager does and how he presents his issues before daily duties begin, I felt uneasy and naive some minutes before the presentation. This instance shows how I was affected as much as the public speaking anxiety is concerned. Many people usually fall into this trap and find it hard to communicate just like it happened to me. The most important thing is to know how to compose yourself and overcome the anxiety(Ehrlich, Richards, Lejuez, and Cassidy, 2016).

In the second tool, tolerance for disagreement, I was in a law firm when I was given a task which I was very sure I could not complete, but due to the insisting characteristics of the managers and to avoid a lot of arguments that would be unhealthy according to me, I had to do the task. This example shows how I avoided arguments and tolerated for disagreement. In doing so, I was just trying to avoid unnecessary arguments which could waste time as well as rise unnecessary conflicts which would have an effect on our previous relationships.

Personal Diagnosis of Communication Effectiveness

My third tool of diagnostic which is communication apprehension is the anxiety or fear which infests someone when confronted with a situation where he has to talk with people or a group of people. According to(McCroskey,2008), these negative associations in communications cause different levels of communication apprehension of individuals and makes people evade voluntary engagements with one another. The four major types of Communication apprehension which relate to anxiety include audience, context, and the situation itself.

Public speaking is another tool, this is very vital to communication, research done by scholar stipulates that public speaking have a predominant element for successful public speaking is the ability to establish credibility and ability to communicate effectively(German, Gronbeck, Ehninger, Monroe and Germam, 2017). People who are predominant in communication apprehension, therefore, do not include others in their decision-making process and consequently are not likely to propose communication with their friends or people around them. Therefore, from the research done, it is evident that communication apprehension is greatly determined the extent to which individuals(Rosenberg and Chopra, 2015).

Disagreeing entirely depend on certain factors, according to (Tevin et al, 2009), tolerance for disagreement was conceptualized by research which was conducted in group communication in an organization setting. People differ for various reasons and the level or instances in which one person differs with others depends on whether the communication is face to face of online and who they are differing with. Another factor that the researcher proposed was the background at which the specific communication is taking place. The framework that revolves around CA which is related to tolerance for disagreement is therefore affected by some factors. These factors include verbal communication, emotions in the communication process, non-verbal communications which include a sign that others may not like(Allen, 2017). Additionally, these factors are also accompanied by expressiveness ability, argumentativeness, assuredness and supportiveness not forgetting verbal aggressiveness. These factors have a great impact on the entire communication process that may lead to disagreement. They greatly dictate how employees perceive their managers in organizations.

Positive non-verbal communication, for instance, nonverbal immediacy may hinder disagreement as it brings forward a positive argument which is healthy and exposes the parties to a low chance of disagreeing(Lavelle, Dimic, Wildgrube, McCabe and Priebe, 2015). Also, negotiations in emotions between tow conversing individual also lower the levels of them disagreeing. When people listen to each other and pay attention to each of the issues and emotions, it is very hard for them to disagree. According to De Dreus findings in (2010), emotions greatly affect the level of interpersonal communication and detects the level of agreement when two people or more are discussing issues.

Reflection on Communication Concepts and Theories

At this point, my essay, therefore, points to developing an action plan to deal with the issues that affect my communication skills. This will act as a guide that I will follow in day to day practice as I encounter on various occasions. I will be evaluating myself and determine my level of improvement. To begin with, I ought to start keeping a journal that will direct me to the areas that I have improved and the areas that still need improvements. This journal will serve as a short-term self-assessment tool that will help me gauge whether I am improving my rate to effective communication. Consequently, the journal will assist me to know the extent to which I can handle various situations, I will be reporting this instances on daily basis, for instance, the number of times that I disagree with my friends in a week will be recorded and a short-term actions plan will be generated for the next week. This journal, I will keep it for six months where I will evaluate myself again. However, because this strategy may expose me to misappropriation where I may tend to be biased, I opt to hire my close friend Dan Misruk who is a communication list having attained a diploma in communication. This friend will assist me to learn confidence strategies which will help me develop presentations and also make my public speaking most effective. This will be done in a span of six months where I will have to go and present again and see if I have improved my communication apprehension.

I will also practice apprehension avoidance techniques, these will include mental practices which have been of late used by many athletes in their performance(Bowman, 2018). I will also take deep breathes whenever I encounter a presentation and realize I am anxious, these breathe reduces the anxiety and makes one who is to deliver a talk be composed. By employing this strategy, therefore, I hope to avoid anxiety at the present time. To complicate this also, I have chosen some important books which relate to improving communication skills and communication apprehension. These books include Effectiveness” by Richmond, Wrench, and McCroskey (Amazon.com, 2017a), “Umm. .: A Complete Guide to Public Speaking” by O’Loghlin (Cengage Learning, 2017) and “Managing Interpersonal Conflict (Interpersonal Communication Texts)” by Donohue (Amazon.com, 2017).

I will as well attend various training seminars and meetings that will acquit me with knowledge, skills, and attitude to develop my communication skills. This will be a great move because I will also get certificates from this seminars and meetings. I ought to take the frontline in participation by answering questions and reacting to issues. According to (Zhang et al, 2017) in the book on Effective people and communication skills, for one to improve communication, one must take part actively in learning communication strategies which are conducted in this seminars.

Besides all these plans, I will also practice in self-evaluation. I will be training myself whenever I am alone in my room. I will buy a new mirror which will help me be my audience. I will be talking to myself in the mirror so that I can gain confidence. In this actions, I will be behaving like presenting the speech to a crown or individual. Also, I will have video recordings and audios and listen to them when I am free so that I can correct mistakes that I have made. This will help me improve my skills and confidence. In this practice, I will exercise body language during my presentations. This will include the use of gestures, blank face, smiling to the audience in some instances, tilting the head back or even nodding while I am presenting.

In conclusion, therefore, Communication is very important in day to day activities. Without effective communication, communication does not have any meaning. For people to understand each other, they must always know how to communicate effectively(Thompson, 2018). Effective communication comprises using the various skills that relate to communication to relay your message. Different people can communicate differently and have different qualities as much as communication is concerned(Mukherji, Jain, and Sharma, 2016). There are those people who cannot talk to a large group of people, others cannot talk to individuals while others cannot talk to neither groups nor individuals. This traits however can be overcome by practicing the skills for effective communication. Diagnostic tools in this essay are very relevant and can be used to evaluate ones level of communication. Communication might be effective only if the right measures are put into consideration as we saw in this essay in our simple communication model. In this essay, I gave an insight to five major diagnostic tools which are used in gathering information of the communication issues that I presented. I also discussed the two key concern which included the tolerance for disagreement and public speaking. I have devised ways on how I will improve the skills for future preparedness. We can improve communication by attending various teaching seminars and hiring communication specialist to train us(Kurtz, Draper and Silverman, 2016).

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