Tools For Assessing Communication Skills

Self Perceived communication competence scale

Discuss about the Revisiting Intercultural Communication Competence.

The first tool that I have used to assess my communication skill is the Self Perceived communication competence scale that is also called SPCC. Often it is seen that the communication abilities of a particular person may vary in different situation and with the different kinds of people, they talk (McCroskey & McCorskey 1988). In many cases, it is found that when one person may be more competent in talking with one category of people, they may not be similarly competent with another person of another category. Therefore, this tool helps us to realize the particular type of person I am comfortable in speaking and the type of person makes me nervous. After using this tool, I got the scores that helped me to identify my communication competence when speaking with different people. I realized that I have moderate scores in this tool. It showed me that I have moderate competence in speaking in public, meeting, group, dyad, stranger, acquaintance and friends. I developed the knowledge that I have more scopes of development in my competence skills. In my professional life as well as in my personal lives, I will come across different strenuous situations where I need to communicate with all types of people in order to complete the responsibilities or reach the goals. Therefore, effective communication with each types of member in lives is important and hence I will be working more on my competence skill of communication. This would help me to establish successful relationships with different types of members both in personal and professional lives and would help me immensely when I will be participating in teamwork (Muller et al., 2018).

The second form of tool is called the nonverbal immediacy scale self report or the NIS. This tool mainly helps to give an idea about how the individuals are practicing behavioral or signaling cues that help in providing positive feelings towards another person during the time of communication ((McCroskey & Richmond 1993). After using the tool, I found out that I had achieved a score of about 80. This tool has separate set of categories for each type of genders and therefore I needed to analyze my skills with the score value for the male category. I realized that my score belonged to the moderate category of the males where marks above 104 indicated high level of non-verbal immediacy and marks below 83 shows low level. However, my marks are more towards the lower level limit and therefore, I need to work on my non-verbal communication skills as well. I need to be very careful about the nonverbal gestures that I undertake while interacting as that have the capability of either developing relationships and leading to success of business or may also lead to loss of business, conflicts, ineffective teamwork, power struggles and many others (Haslam et al., 2014). Therefore, I need to work on these skills of communication so that I can communicate effectively with others showing respect and maintaining dignity of others.

Nonverbal immediacy scale

The third tool that I have used is the Personal Report of intercultural communication apprehension or the PRICA.  This tool mainly helps to measure the communication apprehension in the intercultural domain. This tool is mainly seen to help an individual to understand how well he has developed his cultural competency in the aspect of communication with people from other cultures (McCroskey & Richmond 1995). This tool is mainly seen to contain 5 important scales which needed to be used in completing 14 important questions in the analysis of cultural competency. Here, I have achieved a score of about 34 that feel in the category of low cultural competency in communication. Marks below 32 shows low intercultural apprehension and marks above 52 indicated high cultural apprehension. Therefore, I realized that I need to develop intercultural communication skills, as this has become one of the most important aspects in the present day business. In the present era, globalization has become one of the most interesting concepts that are bringing every organization huge scope of making profits and circuiting their fame all over the world (Stitch et al., 2018). Hence, it has become important for every employee to be culturally aware and competent to communicate with people from different cultures. Hence, my low intercultural apprehension may become a barrier in my path of success. Therefore, I need to work on this skill so that I can emerge as exceptional professional in the coming generation.

The fourth tool that I also used is called the talkaholic scale. This scale mainly helps to provide information of about the measure of compulsive communication conducted by the individuals. There are many people who are seen to be verbal and they face difficulty in being quiet. However these people are not those individual who talk unnecessarily when not needed or those who speak offensive words that are not wanted to be heard by people (Neuliep & McCrsokey 1997). Rather researchers have determined that more a person talks and expresses himself and are communicative with others, they are more positively perceived by others. Individuals who are highly talkaholic are seen to be as an effective leader or being more competent as a member. I have scored here 27 and I fall into the category of low talkaholic scale. The marks less than 30 are called low-level talkaholics and that above 39 are high-level talkaholics or compulsive communicators. This is one of the most negative aspects of my communication, as I cannot express my ideas properly. I fail to provide effective feedback and cannot justify my point stating and sudden from lack of confidence. As I am quite introvert in nature, I usually do not talk much with others and try to avoid any unnecessary talks on the floor. This is indeed one of the negative aspects as effective feedback providing skills is one of the most important traits of leadership. Moreover, as I am introvert, I cannot express my view on a team and for this, I will not be able to express my concern and ideas. These may result in negative situations where others may perceive me incorrectly or may think that I am not approachable or I that would not help them with effective suggestions (Kahar et al., 2016).

Personal Report of intercultural communication apprehension

The next tool is called the Tolerance for disagreement scale. This tool mainly helps in measuring the degree to which an individual is able to tolerate other people who are disagreeing with what the individual believes to be true (Teven & Richmond 1998). This concept of the too can be associated with the concept of argumentativeness. Researchers have stated that people with high level of argumentativeness are more capable of dealing effectively with disagreement and those people who have low level of argumentativeness  are less capable to do so. It is indeed true that most of the conflicts that arise from interpersonal communication are mainly seen to arise from less tolerance for disagreements among the members who are engaged in the communication procedures. This tool was marked on a scale of five and I attended 15 questions. I got a score of about 53. This was  really good score as I fell in the category of high tolerance for disagreement. Scores above 46 indicate high level and scores below 32 shows low level of tolerance. This made me realize that I have good tolerance level and therefore I am able to negotiate effectively with any clients or with any team members.
High level of this skill also helps me stay away from many types of conflicts in my workplace and helps me to possess a cool and composed approach even when other members of the team are shouting on me or blaming me for negative aspects. Therefore, I need to use this skill effectively in my future swell as so that I can maintain effective teamwork and bring business to our organization by proper negotiation.

Last month, our organization got an opportunity to develop a business with a Japanese organization and therefore the Japanese clients have visited our organization to conduct a meeting over the prospects of the project. I was mainly provided the duty to be with my immediate senior to represent the project over a presentation and then conduct a meeting of the important points of the project. On the final day, when the Japanese clients entered the room, I extended my hands for a warm welcome. I saw that the clients became a bit upset and wearily extended their hands for a handshake. They provided me a business card of themselves to which      I stated that I already have all the information. This reply from me made them state that I should be more aware of their culture. I got quite confused, as I could not understand what was happening. While I was interacting with the client, I maintained a strong eye contact with the client, as I knew that this would help the clients to feel that I am quite confident and thorough with my approach. Moreover, during the conversation, the Japanese clients became silent and therefore this made me feel that they were confused. Therefore, I tried to fill the gap of the silence and stated that I would help them again with restarting the presentation if they could not understand any part. The meeting became unsuccessful as they stated that our organization was not competent enough to match up with Japanese culture. Later my mentor told me that they provide huge importance of visiting cards, they do not like eye contact, as they believe this to be disrespectful and that they prefer to maintain silence among conversations where they believe that it helps to maintain harmony and trustworthy relationship. I developed the knowledge that I had no cultural knowledge and awareness and had poor intercultural apprehension.

Talkaholic scale

There was another incident where I was a team member of a group of five who was given project to complete within a deadline of seven days. There was no team leader in the team and therefore we had to divide the work within ourselves. After certain number of days, the deadline was quite near and a meeting was held as none of the members had achieved 50% of the work. Therefore, when the team was discussing and exchanging different types of feedbacks and suggestions, I could not express myself at all. I wanted to say many of the ideas that I had developed in my mind but I could not say them effectively. My team members were upset with me as they had wrongly perceived my approach. They thought that I am not participative and they that i d not want to work with them diligently to meet the goal. They stopped sharing information with me thinking that I do not have interest in the teamwork. This was mainly because I could not be a compulsive speaker and therefore, my colleagues in the organization negatively perceived me.

Intercultural communication is mainly seen to refer to the different messages that are transmitted between two members of two different societies. Researchers are of the opinion that the business in most of the organizations is attaining globalization and therefore the increasingly international world business should be coping with the cultural differences so that the organization can succeed and thereby prosper (Ladegard & Jenks, 2015). As people from different parts of the world have started to work in the same office, intercultural communication has gained enormous importance. When people have intercultural communication skills, they can effectively participate in teamwork, can thereby prevent any form of conflict and misunderstanding, and thereby can foster respect (Martin & Nakayama, 2015). There are many different aspects of intercultural communication that has been researched by different authors over time. One of them is the effective ways of avoiding conflict with the proper cultural awareness. Researchers have stated that people from all over the world with every possible background, creed as well as nationality are responsible for creating a highly heterogeneous workforce. It becomes very difficult for the managers as well as the team members to assume what the other members find inoffensive (Neuliep, 2017). A lack of cultural sensitivity is mainly leading to the different types of claims like that of the discrimination as well as harassment. This costs a huge loss of money to the organizations as the people become unproductive and cannot dedicate themselves in this strenuous situation. Therefore, it is extremely important for individuals to exercise sensitivity and thereby try their best to avoid such conflicts. Many other researchers have focused on the use of proper language as the effective modes of intercultural communication. Words are not always been able to accurately convey a particular idea as the information might be highly complex. The biggest problem of using words in a language is that even numbers have exact values but words cannot have exact values and meanings (Samovar et al. 2014). People of different cultures may perceive them as of different contexts and many not link them properly. Effective intercultural communication mainly tries to bridge the gaps in the language as best as possible. This would help everyone in the workplace to find themselves on the same grounds and would help to prevent any form of misunderstandings. Another important aspect of effective intercultural communication is the fostering of respect among the different members of the teams. Communication happens differently in various cultures. The aspects that one society might find acceptable may not be preferred by the other societies (Sorrels et al. 2015). It is found that when individuals working in the team do not understand the differences and do not take them into account, communication are seen to suffer and conflicts also come to the fore. When employees will not be able to respect each other’s cultural preferences, traditions and inhibitions, resentment will reign and this will lead to the thwarting of the success and the progress in the organization (Martin, 2015). Therefore, individuals who have effective cultural communication will never try to ignore societal differences. In place, it will respect the variations among the human race and will thereby enable people for transmitting information clearly.

Tolerance for disagreement scale

An introvert characteristic is one of the most negative traits that affects relationship and bonding among the different team members working for the organization. It is seen that every individuals working in a team usually perceive the nature of the introvert people as a negative trait (ang & VanDyme, 2015). Team members often become suspicious of the individuals as they may contribute their introvert nature as something where either the individuals are hiding something, or that they are strange and selfish. They are mainly perceived as shady characters and therefore effective communication and relationship building is affected which in turn affects effective teamwork (Kim, Ha & Kim, 2018). Such people are usually avoided and they are not invited for any informal outings or social gathering for which the chances of them becoming a part of the team gets completely diminished. This affects the work output of the introverts as well. They are seen to be overlooked in most of the situations and therefore, they are seen to struggle to develop networks with others. Therefore, even if they have the potential, creativity and innovation in them along with experience and knowledge for leading teams or working within teams, they are not provided importance (Meymandpour et al., 2017). Researchers are of the opinion that advantages of extrovert are quite varied. Extroverts are mainly seen to be social as they are comfortable with communication with everyone and therefore they can really information making other know what they feel. They are seen to be excellent motivator and therefore they can work with many members of the team influencing each to work beyond their experiences (Stepehen et al., 2015). They can participate well in the different networking events such as different types of seminars as well as trade shows. They are seen to outsell an introvert in handling a negative of a disgruntled customer from going to another competitor. Therefore, they are extremely important in the organization as they contribute to higher profit as well as productivity in the organization helping the organization to achieve success. They are seen to be very comfortable with strangers and therefore everyone is their potential client is a potential friend and they can use their skills to impress and influence everyone they meet (Kahnweiler et al., 2015). They seem to volunteer in everything that come along and are highly proactive in crisis where they can forwards their ideas and discussions and this help them to meet the organizational goals effectively. In the present generation, the leadership style that has been mostly gaining appreciation is the transformational leadership style over the autocratic leadership style. This leadership style is mainly seen to motivate employees so that they can work beyond their potential and set themselves as examples that the team members should follow for effective work output (Osborn et al., 2015). Therefore, when a team leader is introvert, he may not develop proper rapport with the teams and can neither motivate them at a constant rate to work beyond their potential they may not set themselves as examples that team members would like to adopt and adopting an introvert trait will again result in negative outcomes in the team members. Therefore, the leadership styles want their leaders to be out spoken develops communication skills that would motivate employees and set themselves an example about how communication should float in the team (Prasad et al., 2016). The more the transparency in the team, the more will be productivity and output.

The goals that should be developed by me would be based on the SMART goals. The main goal would be development of my feedback giving and receiving skills development as well as overcoming my introvert nature. The second goal would be development of my intercultural communication skills as well. The goal would be specific. I would be joining a workshop for development of my communication skills. I will focus mainly on the feedback exchange skills as well as overcoming my introvert nature. I would also be researching to find out evidence-based articles to develop my intercultural communication skills. I will also search for internet websites and maintain reflective journal to learn regularly about my development in intercultural communication skills. The goal would be measurable. The mentors of the workshops will take mock tests every week and will also conduct role-play sessions. These sessions will carry marks and such marks will help me identify how well I am developing in these skills. The knowledge that I have developed about my intercultural apprehension from evidence-based articles would be known from the feedbacks of my friend who are from other cultures. Their satisfaction would help me to know how well I am fairing. Moreover, my reflection journals will also help me to understand and measure my progress. The goals are also attainable. Joining workshop would be possible mainly as the workshops are helped on the weekends when I would not have to attend my universities (Bergman et al., 2016). Therefore, it would not require me to miss my university lectures. Moreover, the resource, which is required for the workshop, is also affordable by me. The evidence-based articles that would be collected will be from my university library that is much easier to access and would not require extra resources. I would read the internet articles through my personal computer or Smartphone and these would just be possible with presence of internet connectivity. Therefore, these are easily attainable. The goals are also relevant. This is mainly because the mentors of the communication workshop would be able to guide me with the skills that I lack and would help me with strategies by which I can develop the skills. Moreover, the researchers of the evidence based articles would contain recommendations by the researchers regarding how to develop intercultural communication and apprehension and hence I would be able to develop both skills (Holmes et al., 2017). The internet has large knowledge on different cultures and therefore it would help me to gain cultural awareness. Therefore, the goals are also relevant. The period of 6 months would be required to achieve the goals.

Activity	1 month	2 month	3 month	4 month	5 month	6 month
Admission to workshops for communication skill
Mock tests in the workshops
Feedback from other friends
Evidence based journal collection for intercultural skill development
Reflection journal

References:

Ang, S., & Van Dyne, L. (2015). Handbook of cultural intelligence. Routledge.

Bergman, C., Dellve, L., & Skagert, K. (2016). Exploring communication processes in workplace meetings: A mixed methods study in a Swedish healthcare organization. Work, 54(3), 533-541.

Haslam, S. A., Van Knippenberg, D., Platow, M. J., & Ellemers, N. (2014). Social identity at work: Developing theory for organizational practice. Psychology Press.

Holmes, P. (2017). Intercultural Communication in the Global Workplace, Critical Approaches. The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication.

Kahar, R., Habil, H., Mustaffa, F. Y., & Salam, A. R. (2016). Exposing Students to Industrial Experience through Workplace Exposure Project for Business Communication. LSP International Journal, 3(1).

Kahnweiler, J. B. (2015). The genius of opposites: How introverts and extroverts achieve extraordinary results together. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Kim, S., Ha, J., & Kim, J. (2018, April). Detecting Personality Unobtrusively from Users’ Online and Offline Workplace Behaviors. In Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (p. LBW515). ACM.

Ladegaard, H. J., & Jenks, C. J. (2015). Language and intercultural communication in the workplace: critical approaches to theory and practice. Language and Intercultural Communication, 15(1), 1-12.

Martin, J. N. (2015). Revisiting intercultural communication competence: Where to go from here. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 48, 6-8.

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2015). Reconsidering intercultural (communication) competence in the workplace: A dialectical approach. Language and Intercultural Communication, 15(1), 13-28.

Meymandpour, R., & Bagheri, Z. (2017). A Study of Personality Traits, viz., Extraversion and Introversion on Telecommuters Burnout. Telecom Business Review, 10(1), 1.

Müller, E., Pouliot Evans, D., Frasché, N., Kern, A., & Resti, I. (2018). Stakeholder perceptions of the impact of individualized electronic “Communication Stories” on workplace communication. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 48(1), 11-25.

Nave, S. (2014). Communication in the Workplace.

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

Osborn, H. (2015). The Role of Introverts in Communication Fields (Doctoral dissertation, University of Oregon).

Prasad, M., Roy, D., & Sengupta, P. R. (2016). An analysis of the relationship between personality types and happiness of medical faculty. Journal of Management Research and Analysis, 3(4), 171-175.

Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., McDaniel, E. R., & Roy, C. S. (2014). Intercultural communication: A reader. Cengage Learning.

Sorrells, K. (2015). Intercultural communication: Globalization and social justice. Sage publications.

Stephens-Craig, D., Kuofie, M., & Dool, R. (2015). Perception of introverted leaders by mid to high-level leaders. Journal of Marketing and Management, 6(1), 62.

Stich, J. F., Tarafdar, M., & Cooper, C. L. (2018). Electronic communication in the workplace: boon or bane?. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 5(1), 98-106.