APSS1L01_20211_G

Tomorrow’s Leaders
Term Paper

Effective Communication

Student Name: Chan Hau Yan

Student ID: 21084792d
Part A
Effective and accurate communication are crucial factors for the growth
of a successful leader (Luthra & Dahiya, 2015). It is a leadership quality
that worth discussion and should be applied in daily life and the
profession of physiotherapy.

“Communicare” is the Latin root of communication, which means “to

share” or “to be in relation with”. While “Common”, “commune” and
“community” are related words, suggesting the act of “bringing together”.
(Cobley, 2008). According to Trebar and Noah (2008), “the act of
communicating involves transmitting and processing information
between a source and a recipient”. While Knapp and Daly (2002) pointed
out that “interpersonal communication is the process whereby one
individual stimulates meanings in the mind of another through verbal
and/or nonverbal means.” All the definitions of effective communication
involve sources and recipients and mention the sharing of information
and knowledge. Both definition 2 and 3 involve information processing.
However, only definition 3 mentions the verbal and non-verbal channels
and the change of behavior. By referring to the three definitions, effective
communication can be defined as “conveying one’s message to another
accurately, so that the receiver can understand the message and their
thoughts, behaviors and feelings may change accordingly.
The above communication model is suggested by Schramm (1954), it
illustrates the process of communication between a sender and a receiver.
It shows that communication is not end until a response is given from the
receiver. Schramm believed that “the communication process consists of
information-processing organized around a shared orientation to certain
signs” (Elleström, 2018). In the model, there are overlapping area in the
fields of experience, which means that there is mutual understanding
between the sender and receiver (Mathias, 2020). The noise in the model
can happen at any time in communication to affect both the ability to get
through and the message content.

In the process of communication, the sender coverts his thoughts into

words and creates a message, which is encoding. The receiver tries to
understand what the sender wants to convey, which is decoding. When
the receiver responds, the sender can receive the feedback and make sure
his message is accurately transferred. Communication will be more
effective if adjustments are made according to the feedbacks. Since the
receiver delivers a message to respond, he then becomes the sender. The
roles of sender and receiver can be reversed many times in a
conversation. The noise indicated in the model is the interruptions in the
message process. The presence of noise results in differences in the
message sent and received (Elleström, 2018). Schramm emphasizes on
the importance of shared experience. Sender and receiver need to share
the fields of experience, otherwise there may be communication
breakdown (Ting et al., 2017). If the overlapping area is larger, the
communication will be more effective. Therefore, this component is
important for the transmit of message to achieve effective
communication. For people with different cultural backgrounds, they may
have fewer common fields of experience, resulting in less effective
communication. This circular model shows an interactive and
comprehensive communication. Noise, which is the disturbance that
commonly appear in daily life, is also included in the model. It can
clearly show the process and components of daily conversation.
Therefore, it can allow better understanding of effective communication.
A possible gender difference in developing this quality is the
communication styles. Women tend to speak more tentatively while men
speak in an assertive way. The indirect communication style of women
results in more difficulties in development of effective communication
than men.

Effective communication has great importance in the profession of

physiotherapy. To improve the quality and efficiency of care of the
patients, it is an essential skill (Abaraogu et al., 2019). Parry and Brown
(2009) pointed out that verbal and non-verbal communication are
involved as physiotherapists have to communicate with the patients,
colleagues, and other healthcare professionals. It is crucial to understand
the concept of effective communication in order to apply it in workplace.
Physiotherapists need to build relationship with patients and show
empathy to them. To encourage patients to tell their stories, concerns, and
expectations, effective communication skills is important (Langridge,
2019). After gaining an understanding of the patient’s needs,
physiotherapists will design a treatment plan. They have to provide
instructions to the patients clearly and explain the goals and details of the
treatment plans. According to the concept of common field of experience,
physiotherapists should use simple wordings and examples, which lies in
the overlapping area of the two fields of experience, to explain the
patients’ situation and the treatment plan. In this way, the patients can
understand the plan well and effective communication can be achieved.
During the treatment, it is critical for the physiotherapists to apply their
communication skills to motivate and encourage their patients to follow
the treatment plan and do exercises at home (Abaraogu et al., 2019).

Effective communication is an essential quality for a leader. Schramm’s

model of communication has shown the effective way to communicate.
This quality can be applied in daily life and many professions, including
physiotherapy.

Part B

My strength in communication is that I good at being a listener. When my

friends share their difficulties to me and ask for advice, I will listen to
them attentively and give responds accordingly. Sometimes I might not
be able to provide concrete suggestions to them, but I will show them that
I am willing to listen to them as I care about them. When they share their
personal thoughts and feelings to me, I will not judge them as I know
everyone has different backgrounds, which can lead to various mindsets.
Moreover, I will not tell their thoughts and experiences to others as
gossips. One of my friends said that she trusts me and feels comfortable
when chatting with me. She will even tell me things happened in her
family and express her emotions in front of me, which is very personal. I
think that being able to make others willing to talk to me is my strength in
communication and I hope that I can keep it in the future.
Candor

My weaknesses in communication are that sometimes I lack empathy and

I am not good at using i-message. When I was F.6, I was stressed by the
academic and extra-curricular activities. I thought my parents knew my
situation well and can understand my tiredness and pressure. However,
they often asked me things about my study, for example the method of
calculation of marks in DSE and the JUPAS admission information.
Since I felt tired after having tutorial classes and ECA, I always tried to
explain to them as fast as possible. Nevertheless, they often could not
understand what I said and need further explanation. When they kept
asking, I felt annoyed and negative speech ran out. I blamed them for
having poor comprehension skills and cannot understand my words. I
would throw tantrums and showed annoyance in my tone to them at that
time.
When I look back, I realized that it is normal that my parents cannot
understand the current public exam system. We are born in different
generations, and we have different field of experiences. The wordings I
used may not be common in their age group and they may not know some
specific terms as well. For example, it is normal that they do not know
that SBA stands for School-based Assessment, and it can affect my DSE
grades. I lack empathy and do not know that they care me a lot as parents.
They asked a lot just to know more about what their daughter is
experiencing. They could hardly know my feelings and difficulties, but
they were trying to do that. Actually, I wanted them to showed care and
understanding towards the stress I was facing, but I did not tell them how
I felt and what I wanted using i-message. I just blamed them and
responded to them with facial expressions and gestures that showed my
impatience. I found that it is the lack of empathy and the wrong
expression method of mine that lead to ineffective communication
between my parents and I after attending lecture 10.

How to improve the quality in your daily life for both your personal and professional
development regarding your weakness? - Concrete ways for yourself? Detailed plans?
- Literature support?

To be a good physiotherapist and leader in the future, it is crucial for me

to improve my skills in effective communication.

Regarding empathy, I will try to apply the rule: THINK. Before speaking,
I will think about whether the words I say are “t”rue, “h”elpful,
“i”nspiring, “n”ecessary, and “k”ind. It is necessary to think before
speaking, especially when I am not in good mood. By keeping this rule in
mind, I believe that I can chat with others with empathy and avoid saying
things that may hurt them regardless my feelings at that moment. The
relationship between my family and I is expected to improve. Apart from
helping me to take others’ feelings in consideration, empathy also allows
me to choose the right wordings so that my listeners can understand the
message I am trying to convey. In the future, I can also apply empathy on
my patients when explaining their situations to them. For example, I can
make use of metaphor and use simple words to explain the complicated
principles of the rehabilitation tools. In this way, patients can decode my
message easily even our fields of experience may not have much
overlapping area.

For the method of expressing my feelings, I will try to use the technique
of i-message but not using “you” statements. By identifying my feelings
and the behaviors which cause my dissatisfaction, the listener can know
my thoughts clearly. If I have disagreement towards the actions of my
colleagues in the future, I could also use this technique to express my
feelings and suggest ways to improve instead of blaming them so that I
can de-escalate the conflict and have better interpersonal relationship.

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