Business Communication and its Importance for Receiving Skills

Question: Discuss about theBusiness Communication and its Importance for Receiving Skills. Answer: Interpersonal communication may be defined as the exchange of important information and details between two or more individuals. Effective communication skills are important in interacting with others and help in the advancement of interpersonal relationships between the speaker and listener. During the process of interpersonal communication, information is sent by one individual and received by another (Robinson et al. 2013). Effective interpersonal communication takes place when both the message sender and the message receiver understand the message and the output of the conversation is successful. Development of proper skills for interpersonal communication is extremely important. These often include active listening, proper feedback giving and receiving skills, maintaining proper body language while communicating, maintenance of courtesy and many others. This assignment will try to highlight how effective interpersonal communication is influenced by values, attitudes and self est eem. Values can be defined as principles as well as standards or qualities which an individual or group of people consider in high regards. Values are those attributes which help in guiding the different ways people lead their lives and take proper decisions. Values are attributes which individuals hold dear along with those qualities which those individuals consider them to be worth of. This is one of the most important traits in an individual that often influences his interpersonal communication skills. Values make people judgemental and thereby it has immense impact on the communication between two individuals. Values which are important to speakers may not match with the values of the listener and hence it plays an important role in interpersonal communication. Researchers are of the opinion that values dictate about how individuals should be behaving and therefore this procedure can totally modify the interpersonal communication skills of an individual (Rosenberg 2015). Values may be of two types. The first type of values may be explicit which are mainly stated overtly in value judgment. It may be also implicit which can be inferred in non-verbal behaviour. They are usually held or seen as a part of cultural system as well as pattern. Therefore an individual will often develop several cultural values which reflect in his interpersonal skill and thereby modify the communication that takes place between that individual and other listeners. Researchers are of the opinion that cultural values are also an important set of values besides personal values of an individual. Culture bound values are exceptionally important for intercultural communication. These values involve power distance as well as uncertainty avoidance (Mackie and Hamilton 2014). Moreover individualism versus collectivism and masculinity are also important attributes that come into play during interpersonal communication. Low and high context communication as well as immediacy and expressiveness, sel f disclosure and also emotional and behavioral expressiveness are important elements that modify interpersonal communication. In schools, colleges, science, business and many others, often people are trained to talk in third person and mention just about facts which leaves values out of communications. However, in reality, these result in less understanding of the messages and the messages are also not well absorbed. When an individual gets the scope of expressing values confidently, the words about new behaviors or alternative solutions not only surprise people but also help in grabbing attention. These value based conversation helps listeners drawing in and also earns their trust. Beside values helping in grabbing attention, it also helps in finding common good. When individuals talk about their values, they can connect with people and thereby find common grounds and build consensus. It might happen that likeminded people can often disagree of the various types of details of new initiatives as well as a proposed legislation also disagreeing and discussing how to achieve it. However, the same people can find common good when different principles are taken in consideration like opportunity, liberty, equality, family as well as fairness. Guiding values and principles can help individuals engaged in communication to find consensus which at a high level can open doors as well as minds leading to more fruitful discussion. Being relevant is also an important value in interpersonal communication besides finding common good. When individuals are engaged in interpersonal communication while speaking of their values, they actually speak common languages which are relevant. Researchers are of the opinions that connecting to audiences with the help of words, symbols, images and stories grounded in values eventually help in making new ways accessible and also relevant to busy lives of the people (Samovar et al. 2014). Researchers are of the opinions that values resonate in human hearts, minds as well as gut. They are of the opinion that when emotions and reasons collide, emotion variably wins. They are of the opinion that values work not only at the level of the mind but they also touch the emotional workings of the hearts and are expressed as gut instincts. Being honest is yet another value based interpersonal communication that brings out successful outcomes among individuals. When individuals are stating their values clearly as well as consistently, they automatically give authenticity to their words spoken in interpersonal communication. When individuals communicate about hat each of them stand for like the values that guide their businesses, their work life, their personal lives, the principles that they pass on the children and others, their words get marked by authenticity the famous cognitive linguist namely George Lakoff had already stated that A position on issues should follow from ones values, and the choice of issues and policies should symbolize those values. Attitudes are usually conceptualized by the presence of three important components. These involve cognitive, affective as well as conative components. They play an important role in developing interpersonal communication skills. The cognitive components mainly involve beliefs of different individuals about their attitude objects. The affective component involves different emotional as ell as evaluative reaction to that of the attitude object. The last one is the conative component. This mainly involves the behavioral intentions developed towards the attitude object (Prllas 2014). One of the most suitable example that can be depicted as a disruptive attitude during interpersonal communication is racial prejudices. Researchers above define prejudices in communication as a judgment which remains based on the individuals previous experiences as well as decisions. Prejudices in interpersonal communication may be of two different types which often affect the quality of the conversations between individuals. They are either positive or negative. Although prejudices can be determined as both positive and negative, there remains a high tendency of individuals to determine them as negative. Researchers are of the opinion that negative ethnic prejudice actually mainly refers to act as a negative attitude. It can be defined as an antipathy which remains based on faulty as well as inflexible generalization. This may be felt and expressed during interpersonal communication which may affect the opposite listener and may affect relationship development and bonding (Koerner a nd Fitzpatrick 2013). This kind of attitude may be directed towards group as well as whole of the race or even towards an individual as he or she may belong to the race. This type of attitudes is criticized ad therefore individuals should try to develop positive attitudes with equal outlook towards all which when expressed in interpersonal communication will bring out positive outcomes. Attitudes and perception also impact business communication in both positive as well as negative ways. Often employees develop extreme views and thereby fail to see others perspectives. They develop the attitude that the opposite person is wrong and therefore this attitude involuntarily gets reflected in interpersonal communication creating feeling of disrespect for each others. Again there are individuals with similar attitudes who inadvertently overlook instances of miscommunication. This is mainly because they develop the attitude that they are always in agreement with the other. Interpersonal communication may be affected by impact of pre-established attitudes. If one individual has a firm attitude about a particular issue, he is likely to communicate about it with a very strict and black-and-white perspective. If one individual is determined that starving is the best way of getting lean, then even most comprehensive and compelling arguments for the need of balanced diet will not register with that person as she had developed a pre-existing attitude. This affects proper flow of interpersonal communication because this ingrained way of thinking impacts the individuals ability to accurately and fully comprehend anything other than what she herself believes in (Greenwald 2014). Attitude of preconceived notions often affects the ability to accurately communicate in a given situation. For example, if an individual colleague comes up with an opinion of conducting survey to measure the needs of employees and the later employees had already developed a notion that surveys do not provide proper results, then the latters attitude will impact on the accurate and effective communication between both the individuals (Abrams, Zimbres and Carr 2015). Often attitudes developed form previous experiences can also affect a present interpersonal communications the individual may show judgmental attitudes towards the current situation. Another issue found due to improper attitudes is incomplete communication. When an individual leader is assigning new member of the team, his attitude may make him perceive that the new member is already experienced and can thereby provide best results. So he did not communicate with him properly by through training. This incomplete communication due to improper attitudes may result in loss of the teamwork and may affect productivity. Researchers are also of the opinions that overly optimistic attitudes assign can cause ineffective forms of communications. Often many individuals remain too casual with their approach and attitudes that do not care for reminders and last minute workers or unmet deadlines which are not met on time. Due to such attitude, communication may not simply register with him. Often individuals may have the attitude of always providing a conflicting in to every interpersonal communications and thereby people may find it difficult to communicate with civility. Often this results the individual in avoiding others and thereby limit all forms of his communication and interactions. This often leads to a variety of miscommunication problems. This is mainly because they would neither step forwards to clarify and solve issues or take responsibility for problems which rise because of their joint failure to communicate (Heiss et al. 2015). Self esteem is the value that one places on herself or himself. Self esteem help to understand out identity and develop belief in ourselves. It I how an individual feels and how he perceives himself to be. People with high self esteem are usually found to be more outgoing. Therefore, they are more willing to communicate and try harder to complete a task even for the second time after failing for the first time. As they communicate effectively, they seem to perform well academically and professionally. They remain more shielded form any from of stress and tensions. On the other hands, it is found that lower self esteem makes individual aggressive towards others which makes communication difficult with such person. Three important components of self esteem guide interpersonal communication. These are need for control; need for inclusion as well as the need for affection. It is not that the individuals with higher self esteem need all the three components in higher amounts but that they are more successful at meeting these needs through their interpersonal communications with the others in comparison to those who has low self esteem. Conclusion: From the entire discussion, it becomes clear that changes which we want to see can come from value based businesses and mission-driven non profits which communicate form their values. Different articles, speeches as well as calls to action which remain grounded in values help in properly infusing every activities and works with power and meaning. It also makes sure that the chorus of the voices is consisted as well as honest. Maintaining proper values in interpersonal communication ensure successful outcomes in development of relationships both in personal and professional fronts and help in enhancement of ones own personality. Harboring proper attitudes are also exceptionally important for every individual for marinating effective interpersonal communication. Improper attitudes may involve being overly optimistic, becoming judgmental, occurrence of conflicts, incomplete communication and many others which affect the communication procedure and failure of effective outcomes. Individu als who have higher self esteem can communicate more effectively than those with lower self esteem. Therefore these three are indeed important aspects of interpersonal communication and should be properly developed by all to achieve success in life. References: Abrams, K.M., Zimbres, T. and Carr, C., 2015. Communicating Sensitive Scientific Issues: The Interplay Between Values, Attitudes, and Euphemisms in Communicating Livestock Slaughter.Science Communication,37(4), pp.485-505. Greenwald, A.G., 2014. Why attitudes are important: Defining attitude.Attitude structure and function,429. 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