Effective Communication

Communication is about more than just exchanging information. It’s about understanding the emotion and intentions behind the information. Effective communication is also a two-way street. It’s not only how you transmit a message so that it is received and understood by someone in exactly the way you intended, it’s also how you listen to understand the full meaning of what’s being said and to make the other person feel heard and understood. More than just the words you use, effective communication combines a set of skills including nonverbal communication, engaged listening, managing stress in the moment, the ability to communicate strongly, and the ability to recognize and understand your own emotions and those of the person you’re communicating with. Effective communication is the tool that helps you expand your connections to others and improve teamwork, decision making, and problem solving. It enables you to communicate even negative or difficult messages without creating conflict or breaking trust.

While effective communication is a learned skill, it is more useful when it’s spontaneous rather than rehearsed. A speech that is read, for example, rarely has the same impact as a speech that’s delivered (or appears to be delivered) spontaneously. Of course, it takes more time and effort to develop these skills and become an effective communicator. The more effort and practice you put in, the more automatic and spur-of-the-moment your communication skills will become.

The success of an individual in a team depends mainly on the extent to which he can engage in effective communication. Faulty communication in organizations can lead to lowered efficiency and effectiveness at the organizational as well as individual level. Also most of the interpersonal friction can be attributed to faculty communication.

Effective management is a principle of effective communication. Interpersonal communication takes places every time we communicate with others. Communication is considered efficient when it succeeds in creating a desired response from the other person. Moreover failures in communication can be very costly for the organization by way of reduced co-operation and succeeding ill feeling between employees. Communication, to be effective, cannot be a unsystematic process. It has to be planned and executed so that it elicits the desired response.