Elevate Fundamentals of Your Communication Skills

There is too much noise in the world now a days. We are being bombarded with information from each corner, no matter if it is physical, digital, virtual, or real. Everyone seems to be sharing something or the other. Amidst the noise, it becomes imperative for us to elevate our communication skills that can influence and can get opportunities for our messages to get consumed by our audience. This article sheds light on some basic elements of communication skills. I believe this piece of writing will definitely add value to those who are seriously looking forward to improving their communication skills.

Let’s unfold communication:

Communication is the key to success in all your settings—personal life, professional life, social life, and so on and so forth. It has emerged as the most sought-after skill in your professional world. It is the total of your experiences that you have gained so far. Your ability to communicate comes from experience, and experience can be an effective teacher. It can be more clearly inferred if you tap into the situations you communicate, some communication strategies you feel like implementing, the course of actions you put together, the way you design and choose your message, and finally you figure out the ways you choose to deliver your message.

Let’s Review Essentials of Communication Skills:

Here, I would like you to walk through some fundamentals of your communication skills. Though these aren’t new for you, they are still substantial tools to build on your knowledge, skills, and competencies.

Coding and Decoding:

Coding is a process of taking an idea or mental image, associating that image with words, and then speaking those words in order to convey a message, whereas decoding is the reverse process of listening to words, thinking about them, and turning those words into mental images.

Sender/Communicator:

All of the people involved in the conversation or speaking context are referred to as communicators. In place of sender and receiver, it is utilised since, when we communicate with others, we simultaneously receive messages from other people as well as transmit them.

Message:

The message consists of communicators' actions, both spoken and unspoken, that are understood by others to have significance. The words we say make up the vocal part of the message, whilst other nonverbal elements like our posture, eye behaviour, body language, gestures, and even our aroma, all contribute to the nonverbal aspect of communication.

Channel/means of communication:

The channel, which engages all of our senses in a face-to-face setting, is the way by which a message is transmitted. While texting, the channel is the mobile phone; in online communication, it is the computer. A speaker's recording does not have the same psychological effect as listening to them talk in person or seeing them on television, ,viewing them on YouTube, and therefore the channel can have a big influence on how a message is interpreted.

Noise/Environment:

Noise is any interference that interferes with the sending or receiving of messages. Noise may be classified into three categories: physical, psychological, and physiological. The term "physiological noise" describes physiological conditions or states—like a speaker's headache or the illness, or the audience's hunger or temperature—that might skew the message. Mental or emotional situations like a recent breakup, anxiety about a loved one, or a shopping list that might obstruct the transmission or receipt of messages are known as psychological noise. The real sound intensity in a space, such as loud music or chattering, is referred to as physical noise. Disparities in people's worldviews can cause message interference known as "cultural noise," which can impede effective communication and understanding.

Worldview:

Your worldview is the general framework that shapes how you perceive, understand, and engage with the world. For example, it could be the way you acquire knowledge, your belief system, your system, and the ways you perceive the universe, your approaches for accomplishing day-to-day tasks, and your problem solving methods, so on and so forth.

Context:

The last element of the communication process is the context in which the speech or interaction takes place. Earlier, they could be actual physical settings where communication occurred, such as in a place of worship, an apartment, a workplace, a noisy restaurant, or a grocery store. However, presently you communicate in both physical and virtual settings.

Let’s walk through communication models:

Linear Model:

Back in 1949, Shannon and Weaver for Bell Laboratories, proposed a three layered model that was intended for radio and television transmission. However, over a period of time, it began to be used in human communication skills. If we deep dive in this model, it seems to be as a one-way process of transmitting a message from one person to another. This approach is insufficient if you consider instances where you speak with someone face-to-face or when you deliver a speech; communication involves much more than just sending out messages to other people.

Transactional Model:

Models of communication have apparently evolved. I believe those who have been putting in their efforts for improving their communication skills. They might have come across the most useful model for understanding public speaking, Barnlund’s transactional model of communication. According to the transactional model, communication is a continuous, round process. People we connect with have an ongoing impact on us, and we are impacted by them. The encoding and decoding processes, the communicator, the message, the channel, and noise are some of the interdependent activities and elements that make up the transactional paradigm.

This short discussion on the fundamentals of your communication skills will surely support the readers to reflect and recall the essentials for their communication skills.