Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2. What is Communication?
Receiver:
Your message is delivered to individual members of your audience. Barriers of
communication is very important. Have in mind the actions or reactions you hope your
message will get from this audience. Keep in mind, though, that each of these
individuals enters into the communication process with ideas and feelings that will
undoubtedly influence their understanding of your message, and their response. To be
a successful communicator, you should consider these before delivering your message,
and act appropriately.
Feedback:
Your audience will provide you with feedback, as verbal and nonverbal reactions to
your communicated message. Pay close attention to this feedback, as it is the only
thing that can give you the confidence that your audience has understood your
message. If you find that there has been a misunderstanding, at least you have the
opportunity to send the message a second time.
Context:
The situation in which your message is delivered is the context. This may include the
surrounding environment or broader culture (corporate culture, international
cultures, and so on).
Barriers:
To deliver your messages effectively, you must commit to breaking down the
barriers that exist within each of these stages of the communication process.
Let’s begin with the message itself. If your message is too lengthy, disorganized,
or contains errors, you can expect the message to be misunderstood and
misinterpreted. Use of poor verbal and body language can also confuse the
message.
Barriers in context tend to stem from senders offering too much information too
fast. When in doubt here, less is oftentimes more. It is best to be mindful of the
demands on other people’s time, especially in today’s ultra-busy society.
Once you understand this, you need to work to understand your audience’s
culture, making sure you can converse and deliver your message to people of
different backgrounds and cultures within your own organization, in your country
and even abroad.
2. Kinetics- This refers to body movement like gestures, facial expressions and
posture in communication.
3. Paralanguage- The sound, pitch, intensity and accent that a person talks
with. Provide examples
Intimate zone – a distance of half a meter between sender and receiver. In African
cultures this zone is used comfortably by strangers or business associates talking
to each other. In other cultures this zone is reserved for lovers, good friends, and
family members in caressing, holding an intimate conversation or showing
affection.
Entering this zone for any other reason could be threatening to the receiver and
cause the person to retreat, avoid eye contact and feel uncomfortable. Beware of
violating somebody’s intimate zone too often – especially in the business
environment. Your non-verbal signs my convey the wrong message and offend a
colleague or make a client feel uncomfortable and threatened.
Personal zone – a distance of one and a half meters between sender and receiver.
The space around workers working together usually falls around this zone. If
people are crowded too closely together, they may feel threatened and this can
lead to conflict.
Public zone – distance of more than three meters between sender and receiver. A
speaker addressing a group of business people should maintain this distance
between himself/herself and the audience.
8. Language- Not everybody speaks the same language and if you cannot get your
message across it becomes a barrier in the communication process.(MORE could be 10
mark question)
Factors that play a role in forming perceptual barriers are: background, education and
training, intelligence, occupation, needs, personality, age, sex, religion.
Intrapersonal communication
This is communication with oneself. This context cannot be ignored and is concerned
with an individual debating a topic in his or her mind, making decisions or
experiencing internal conflict.
Interpersonal communication deals with relationships between people, usually in
face-to-face private settings.
Interpersonal communication is the primary way relationships are created,
maintained, and changed.
Interpersonal Communication
This is communication that takes place between two persons, and has to adhere to
the following conditions before it can be seen as interpersonal communication.
Organizational communication
Organizational communication “Is use by management and employees in a business to
achieve organizational goals”.
Horizontal,Vertical,Diagonally ect
Public communication
This context is more formal and structured, with one person addressing a large
number of persons.MORE
Intercultural Communication
This is when members of different cultures interact and communicate. Cultures have
different ways of communicating, verbally and non-verbally, and to be able to
communicate effectively cross-cultural barriers have to be overcome.
Electronic communication
This communication involves using any form of technological device such as a cell
phone, or email, or Skype ex. It is cheap, quick and easy for short messages or notices
e.g. memo’s.MORE-ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES?
1. Effective communication
The job will get done faster.
No mistakes will be made therefore no problems will arise and time will not
be wasted.
People will know what is expected of them.
It will prevent the feeling of confusion and inadequacy.
When people know what is expected of them they tend to be more
motivated to get the work done.
Understanding
Love
Patients
Productivity
Creativity
Disadvantages
You might have more than one leader personalities
Everyone is an individual
Schedules my clash and finding time to meet up to work on task at hand may
be difficult.
Different cultures and religions may effect decisions
Talk rather than act
Members sometimes loose the feeling of personal responsibility
Work can be time consuming.
One might have to do all the work
Misunderstandings
Conflict can arise
15. What is the hallo effect?NB
The halo effect refers to a cognitive bias whereby the perception of a particular trait
is influenced by the perception of the former traits in a sequence of interpretations.
Edward L. Thorndike was the first to support the halo effect with empirical research.
In a psychology study published in 1920, Thorndike asked commanding officers to rate
their soldiers; Thorndike found high cross-correlation between all positive and all
negative traits. People seem not to think of other individuals in mixed terms; instead
we seem to see each person as roughly good or roughly bad across all categories of
measurement.
A study by Solomon Asch suggests that attractiveness is a central trait, so we presume
all the other traits of an attractive person are just as attractive and sought after.
The halo effect is involved in Harold Kelley's implicit personality theory, where the
first traits we recognize in other people influence our interpretation and perception
of later ones because of our expectations. Attractive people are often judged as
having a more desirable personality and more skills than someone of average
appearance.
The term is commonly used in human resources recruitment. It refers to the risk of an
interviewer noticing a positive trait in an interviewee and as a result, paying less
attention to their negative traits (or vice versa). www.wikipedia.com
16. Maslow (NB)
It has a huge impact in level 3 (social) and some impact in level 4 (esteem). Social
needs relate to gaining love and belonging, and this is linked to interpersonal
communication. Communication is important in each of our lives, from small talk, to
the intimate conversation of lovers. In order to gain the love and affection that we all
crave, we've got to learn to be interested in other people in return, and to always
keep a nice smile on your face. This will help is fulfil our social and esteem needs and
allow us to shift our focus towards needs of a higher level.
http://communicatebetter.blogspot.com/2009/02/role-of-communication-within-
maslows.html