Communication is intermingled with all daily functions and activities with friends, family, co-workers, classmates, and others. The world is completely reliant on communication in every aspect of daily life. This opens the door for miscommunication and conflicts to arise. Understanding the communication process is crucial to improve communication skills and build effective communication habits.
Importance of Effective Communication
The importance of effective communication is demonstrated through daily activities. Everyday people all of the world rely on communication. Whether oral, auditory, written, electronic, non-verbal, or any other means, the communication process is repeated many times daily. Communication is the primary means by which people obtain and exchange information. When communication is misunderstood, schools, organizations, relationships, businesses, ideas, products, and people suffer. Eliminating misunderstandings is a key part of effective communication.
Communication is defined as the exchange of thoughts, messages, ideas, or information as by speech, signals, writing, or behavior. Effective communication occurs only if receivers understand the exact message the sender intended to transmit and feel the information at the end of exchange is clear. The ultimate goal of communication is to convey information and understanding of information from one person or group to another person or group.
At any time during the communication process misunderstandings and conflicts can occur. Miscommunication can cost money, waste time, cause setbacks, hinder production, result in injury or even death. Those are just a few examples of the problems that arise when communication is not effective. With this in mind, the importance of effective communication should be immediately clear.
Communication Process
The communication process consists of a non-verbal or verbal message being sent and received with effective feedback to ensure the message is clear and understood. Understanding the communication process lays the essential foundation one needs to improve communication skills and develop effective communication habits. Miscommunication can occur at any stage in the communication process. The stages and elements of the communication process are shown below:
- Source-where the message comes from
- Message-ideas, thoughts, information to be communicated
- Encode-formulate words to transmit message
- Channel-mode used to transmit message-written or verbal-such as email, or phone
- Decode-receiver listens or reads message clearly
- Receive-person processes and reacts to message
- Feedback-receiver responds to sender showing understanding
Four Elements to sending the message:
- Formulates the message intended to communicate
- Considers possible internal and external barriers that may affect the message
- Encodes message into words sender wants to use
- Transmits the message clearly
Four Elements to receiving message:
- Hears or sees message from the sender
- Processing of message is affected by internal and external barriers
- Decodes the message
- Interprets message and uses feedback to for clarity
To improve communication skills and have effective communication without misunderstanding and confusion in all situations, the goal should be to lessen the frequency of problems at each stage of this process, with clear, concise, accurate, well-planned communications.
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References
Goodall, H.L. & Goodall, S. (2002). Communication in Professional Context:
Skills, Ethics, and Technologies. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
The Communication Process Retrieved January 20, 2010.
Amanda-Makenzie Braedyn - Amanda-Makenzie Braedyn has been working in the communications field for 10 years. Amanda-Makenzie holds a Bachelor of Science in ...
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