Like peace, people don’t generally understand communication-however, it’s disastrous

Communication is as vast and old as peace, and even humanity. Human communication began as soon as the mankind arrived on the Earth, and the concept of peace did. The age and crosscutting nature of communication suggest that the latter one should have been really mastered to a very high extent. At least, intellectuals and leaders should generally possess it. However, it’s not the case. Like peace, people don’t generally comprehend communication. Consequently, most people commit communication blunders which cause huge negative consequences.

?“86 percent of respondents blame ineffective communication for workplace failures,” is a communication quote we’ve found was most cited in 2021. The statistics have been extracted from a survey by Fierce, Inc. ?The latter one is a leadership development and training company that drives results for business and education by developing conversation as a skill.

?Yet, we’ve not managed to know the publication date of the survey. Our efforts have instead enabled us to detect that the customer survey involved more than 1,400 corporate executives, employees, and educators across diverse market sectors including financial, healthcare, technology and manufacturing.

This survey has revealed other pieces of statistical information highlighting communication-related gaps. “Over 70 percent of individuals either agree or strongly agree that lack of candor impacts the company’s ability to perform optimally.”

?The Cambridge Dictionary defines candor as the quality of being honest and telling the truth , especially about a difficult or embarrassing subject . It nonetheless adds “Nearly 100 percent (99.1) prefer a workplace in which people identify and discuss issues truthfully and effectively, yet less than half said their organization’s tendency is to do so.”

?“More than 97 percent of those surveyed believe the lack of alignment within a team directly impacts the outcome of any given task or project. 90 percent of respondents believed that decision makers should seek out other opinions before making a final decision; approximately 40 percent felt that leaders and decision-makers consistently failed to do so.”

USC Annenberg is the School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California in the United States of America. Its article on the importance of communication between managers and employees also reaffirms the prevalence of communication gaps. “70% of the variance in the scores of employee engagement is caused by leaders. This mirrors the US state of employment, as many managers aren’t creating a working environment that is comfortable and motivational for employees.”

“50% adults leave their jobs to get away from their managers, and to improve their life.”

The school adds that specific behaviors of leaders affect employee engagement, and that the best behaviors are related to strengths, performance management, and communication. “Of those who strongly agree that their manager sets performance goals to help them, 69% are engaged. Of those who strongly disagree that their manager sets performance goals to help them, 53% are actively disengaged, and just 8% are engaged.

?Of those who strongly agree that their manager focuses on their positive attributes and strengths, 67% are engaged. Of those who strongly disagree, 71% are actively disengaged, and2% are engaged.”

It further says that Warton Professor Alex Edmans has found a 14% per year return on stock was achieved by the companies on the “100 Best Companies to Work for in America” list, compared to the average 6%. “64% feel as though they don’t have a strong work culture. Companies that are culturally-minded perform better than those which aren’t.”

The school says it has drawn the information from a study by Gallop. It doesn’t indicate the study publication date either. The article publication date doesn’t appear either. It means that this information can be outdated or current, depending of the publication date. But we’ve decide to use the information since we first believe it’s recent. Secondly, even if had been out in the distant past, we believe it can still be valid today.?Yet of course, there can some differences, if another similar study is performed.

We believe so because the information actually reflects the situation we ourselves observe today. For example, I know employees who are always complaining about burnout. It has been more than 5 years since I learnt their burnout. Some of them almost work every day. They do their work, not because they are really engaged, but only because they don’t have anything else that can maintain their life. For this, especially those being underpaid are eager to establish their own businesses, to leave the jobs.

?More details on Communication cross-cutting Nature

Like peace, communication is cross-cutting. Communication is needed in every field- from informal settings such as families, and friendship to formal ones like business. Communication, as the fact of exchanging information between or among people, is an exercise conducted every time. You communicate and are communicated to on the continuous basis. In other words, you are always conveying information and messages and receiving others both verbally and non-verbally. You even do so indirectly or unconsciously.

Likewise, peace is necessitated, for every sector to flourish.Right communication is also needed for every field to develop. “There can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development,” states the UNDP, United Nations Development Program. “In fact, what an organization requires mainly is communication.

It is an inseparable, essential and continuous process just like the circulatory system in the human body,” says the Institute for Integration of Medicine and Science/UT Health San Antonio, before adding “The existence of an organization depends upon a number of things like unity of command, delegation of authority and responsibility, teamwork and leadership, each one of which entails a strong support of interpersonal communication. Interpersonal communication, therefore, becomes the lifeblood of an organization.”

?In other words, no communication, no existence of any organization. All areas of life- such as friendship, intimacy, marriage and family, education, leadership, business, peace-building and mediation, international relations and diplomacy, talks and conversations, security defense, just to name a few since we can’t exhaust the list- are strengthened or destroyed by communication. Effective or right communication reinforces them. Ineffective or poor communication ruins them.

?It’s important to note that all the problems already mentioned, like burnout, are communication-related. For such questions to be handled, the leaders and employees must openly and honestly discuss them to seek a solution beneficial to both parties. Otherwise, the problem will persist. But, it will force the employees to secure an option benefiting them. The probable option is to quit for other occupations or own business. You’ll then be running the risk of losing talents.

We’ll come back to effective communication in one of our next editions. But briefly, effective communication is the one which allows your recipient to receive the message as correctly as you intended. It can also be called open, supportive, and truthful communication.

In truth, communication isn’t a field over which you possess full control. You’re able to manage information and messages from your side. This signifies you have the ability to decide what to say and in a way to say it. However, you have no control over information from another person to you. You don’t even have control over how your information and message receiver will react either. You don’t surely know how they will treat the information and message.

That’s one of issues proving communication complexity and the reason why people should be interested to fully comprehend this field. It also justifies the undeniable importance of effective communication. You need to ensure that your information recipient has understood it as exactly you wished it. You can use a number of ways to check whether they have comprehended it or not. You can create a room for discussion around it. If you’ve sent them an email, you can’t suppose they have understood perfectly. You can even call them to verify it, to shun communication gaps.

?In the above photo, we were even conducting a communication activity. We were giving justice-related messages and information to the citizens. The activity was in the framework of a USAID-funded project called, Duteze Imbere Ubutabera- Let's Promote Justice- from 2018 to 2020. I was then working for the nongovernmental organization, Search For Common Ground. We had to seek the citizens' feedback, to ensure effective communication, as this below photo shows it.

In fact, communication gaps create colossal loses. This point is supported by Alvernia University. It highlights that miscommunication/ineffective communication can cost companies millions of dollars per year. It adds that a survey of 400 companies has cited an average loss per company of 62.4 million US dollars a year, due to miscommunication errors.

?Pillars for people to perfectly understand communication

We think that no one can question that communication isn’t generally understood. The above information has attempted to prove it. Even this quote from Forbes’s article in July 2020 supports it. “The biggest problem we see is that as soon as a person gets a title, they automatically believe they are a great communicator and that anything they say or write is easily understood. Communication is a leader's most important tool.”

“Therefore, take the time to learn how to best communicate across all mediums and media to ensure understanding,” Shane Green , SGEi - a world-renowned speaker, author and television personality, and experienced business entrepreneur who consults global Fortune 500 leaders.

Additionally, we believe that nobody can challenge the fact that communication is paramount for everyone and every field. You need to understand two essential types of peace for you to perfectly understand peace. Communication also bears two essential types you have to comprehend for you to perfectly understand it. ‘Perfectly’ means fully, completely, flawlessly, correctly in every way. It means you need to understand communication correctly in every way. The two types of communication are verbal communication and non-verbal communication. Those of peace are positive peace and negative peace.

We’ve chosen to link peace and communication since they carry similarities, as already mentioned. One of the similarities is that they are both perplexing to people in general. However, both of the spheres concern everybody even you included. You need to comprehend peace fully, for you to contribute to it perfectly. You need to understand communication flawlessly, for you to practice correctly in every way. You can’t master any field, unless you first employ all necessary time and resources, for you to comprehend it.

?If peace lacks in your region, you will suffer intensely. Even when it lacks in a distant region, you also suffer highly. The world is facing the consequences of Russia-Ukraine war. People generally tend to think of peace only while they are being affected by war. Nevertheless, the war happens because there are underlying problems not addressed successfully. Those problems include issues like generalized injustice, racism, genocidal ideology, exclusion, and threats to security.

?People generally believe that there is peace, when there is no war or large-scale violence. This causes them to ignore other aspects which contribute to the true peace. For instance, they tend to ignore that justice and equity, social inclusion, wealth, good governance, availability infrastructures represent key components of true peace- positive peace. In fact, while no war is being waged and that there are negative issues like injustice, generalized poverty, and structural violence, there is peace. But the peace is called negative peace.

?Actually the true peace goes beyond, to embrace a lot of issues which even contribute to inner peace. For instance, Daniel E. Martínez, Assistant Professor of Sociology from Columbia College of Arts and Sciences, once said “Peace means tranquility. Peace also comes from the comfort in knowing that you have a roof over your head, food to eat and loving family members and friends. Many people are not free from persecution, nor can they count on the comfort of shelter, food and a supportive social circle.”

Moreover, it's communication intervenes to mitigate conflict and tensions or to exacerbate them. Whether you like it or not, communication affects you in one way or the other one, as peace does. This underlines that you have to invest for you to master this field. The investment is nothing else than taking time to read articles like this. You can watch other media products, or even ask people you think are excellent at communication.

?Verbal Communication

Briefly, verbal communication is a type which involves giving information and messages, by means of words. Verbal communication also has two types: oral communication and written communication. Oral communication employs words of mouth. Written communication uses written words or written signs in certain languages.

?Non-verbal communication

Also briefly, non-verbal communication is the one which doesn’t use words- neither spoken nor written words. It instead involves all other means of conveying information and messages than words. Some of them are images like photos, actions, and body language like facial expressions, gestures, postures, and eye contact.

Non-verbal communication is the supreme type of communication. Every person needs to heed this sort of communication.?Particularity has to be exercised by professional communicators, marketers, and leaders. You need to assure that what you communicate verbally matches what you disseminate non-verbally.

An IT and engineering recruitment agency, Appollo Technical (www.apollotechnical.com ), points out that approximately 93% of effective communication is nonverbal, while spoken words account for only 7%. It however adds that people are frequently unaware that they are emitting negative nonverbal cues that others notice. “Positive nonverbal communication boosts your reputation and trustworthiness, which might help you close important business transactions. Clients want to observe how your movements and facial expressions correspond to what you say.”

“However, if you’re on an audio-only call during these crucial chats, your efforts will be squandered since clients or prospects won’t be able to interpret your nonverbal communication. On the other hand, face-to-face video conference sessions allow for better “in-person” contact and the detection of vital nonverbal indicators.”

?We've just addressed the two types briefly, since we’ll come back to them thoroughly.

?Communication General Objectives

?It’s also very important to understand the general objectives of communication. It also enables a person to understand communication. As a result, it also contributes for them to practice communication faultlessly. So, you need to bear in mind that the general communication objectives are to

o??inform,

o??educate,

o??request,

o??persuade/ motivate/inspire,

o??build relationships, and

o??entertain.

By Jean Baptiste Ndabananiye

Experienced Journalist with a demonstrated history of working in the broadcast media industry and peace-building. Skilled in English and French, M&E, Media Production, Peace-building, Leadership, Marketing, Advocacy, and Kinyarwanda- English-French Translation. Strong media and communication professional with a Bachelor's and Master's focused in Journalism& Communication and MBA-Project Management respectively from University of Rwanda and Mount Kenya University.

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