2. Effective Communication
• is crucial for working successfully with others
• enables to maintain relationships
• accomplishes tasks with both individuals and
groups
• motivates
• helps to overcome obstacles
• creates a relaxed, comfortable, trustful and
psychologically safe feeling
3. What is Communication?
• „Communication is a dynamic process that
individuals use to exchange ideas, relate
experiences and share desires through speaking,
writing, gestures or sign language.“
Glenn & Smith, 1998
4. Components of Communication
• anthropological component
–
• social component
–
• signal component
–
• process component
–
Krallmann/ Ziemann, 2001
communication happens between at least two human
beings
participants have certain intensions when
communicating and understanding each other
during communication participants refer to a socially
adapted set of signs in order to transmit a message
there are continuous changes during communication
5. One can't not communicate!
• Any kind of behaviour is communication
• Communication is an interactive process of
sending and receiving messages
• Communication can be seen as the link between
the sender’s and receiver’s internal experiences
!
The effectiveness of any
communication depends
on how closely the receiver’s
understanding matches
the sender’s intent
Watzlawick, 1996
6. Sender and Receiver
SIGNAL
SENDER RECEIVER
The only message
that matters
is the one the other
person receives
!
Schulz von Thun, 2001
encodes the meaning
in his mind to a signal
deciphers this signal
so that a similar
meaning is stimulated
in his mind
= a recognisable
term, the sum of the
messages in
interpersonal
communication
7. Verbal and non-verbal signals
• Verbal signals
– transmit the content
– are the words of the
message
– deal with speech,
intonation, pitch, rhythm,
etc.
• Non-verbal signals
– transmit the relational
dimension
– postures, body
movements, touches,
tone of voice, eye
contact, pauses, rate of
speech and volume
!
Each message consists
of verbal and
non-verbal signals
Birkenbihl, 2005
8. A simple example from daily life
• Verbal example
„I am amused“
– The sentence is spoken,
the sense can be
recognised by the
different words and
letters used
• Non-verbal example
Somebody is laughing
– In this case laughing is
body language which
can indicate the fact,
that the person is
amused
9. Congruent and incongruent messages
• congruent message
– Verbal and non-verbal
signals endorse each
other
– Example: Somebody
who says that he is
unhappy and weeps
• incongruent message
– Verbal and non-verbal
expressed are
contradictory
– Example: Somebody
who says that he is
happy but weeps
!
Non-verbal signals
have stronger impact
than verbal signals
Steiger, 2002
10. Implicit and explicit message
• Explicit message
– expresses
the information
directly
• Implicit message
– expresses
the information
indirectly
!
There is a great danger of
misunderstanding in the
field of implicit messages
Adams, 2003
Editor's Notes
Effective communication is crucial for working successfully with others. It enables us to maintain relationships and accomplish tasks with both individuals and groups. Communication will be effective if this transmission of ideas, knowledge. etc., is realized successful. Successful communication and motivation by leadership assures that people have the power to overcome obstacles on the way and are innovative in doing this. It creates a relaxed, comfortable, trustful and psychologically safe feeling.
In our every day-lives we can find a lot of examples for the importance of communication. But, what is the meaning of communication? The dictionary of foreign loan words says: understanding one below the other, relations and connection. But this can’t be all.
Other definitions say that communication is the process of exchanging information and ideas. They are talking about an active process, which involves encoding, transmitting and decoding intended messages.
Glenn and Smith define Communication as follows
Communication has four components: The first one is the anthropological component, outlined by the above statement that communication is an act between at least two human beings. There is no communication between animals as they do not have a consciousness.
Second, communication is social: The two participants have certain intensions when communicating, e.g. understanding each other.
Third, participants of a communicative act refer to a socially learnt set of symbols and signs in order to transmit a message.
Fourth, communication is always a process, which means that there are continuous changes during a communicative act (‘turn taking’) and that communication always refers to a certain context so that the same utterance may have different meanings to different participants in different situations.
Communication is an interactional process in which meaning is stimulated through sending and receiving verbal and non-verbal messages. When we are together with other individuals, it is not possible not to communicate. Even silence as a particular sort of not speaking is a form of communication. Silence is not just "not speaking", but can involve refraining from speaking, even though I should speak or somebody is expecting it from me. This is the extreme of the basic principle of Watzlawick summed up as: "One can't not communicate". That means that any kind of behaviour is communication.
There is always a sender and a receiver behaviour, When a sender speaks, he encodes his concern in a recognizable term, called signal. The signal in interpersonal communication is the sum of the messages. This will be deciphered by the other person, called receiver.
The content of the signal which is transmitted by the sender, is often not identical to the content which reaches the receiver. If all goes well, the sender transmits the meaning in his minds so that a similar meaning is stimulated in the minds of the receiver. The effectiveness of any communication is judged by how closely the receiver’s understanding matches the sender’s intent. If he has decoded the signal "correctly" that is, what is sent is what is received then understanding has taken place.
Finally, the only message that matters is the one the other person receives.
We send our messages through both verbal and non-verbal channels.
The verbal signals are the words of the message, the content.
Nonverbal communication is a silent form of communication, which has a great influence over our social environment and the whole communication process. It allows us to send messages to others conveying what we are feeling or thinking without verbal language.
The non-verbal signals transmit the relational dimension of the message. They indicate how we feel about the message, how we feel about ourselves and how we feel about the receiver.
Nonverbal Communication has many different functions in the communication process. It regulates relationships and can support or even replace verbal communication in some situations. It has stronger impact on impressions than the accompanying verbal message.
But each message exists of verbal and non-verbal signals.
To illustrate the difference between verbal and non-verbal communication the following example of a daily situation in life tries to visualise the difference:
When someone's behavior is not congruent there is a discrepancy between the verbal, nonverbal parts of a message. This is called the double message.
Verbal and non-verbal communication must be honest, congruent and authentic. Otherwise the desired effect of a successful communication fails.
„KLICK“
Non-verbal behaviour has stronger impact on impressions than the accompanying verbal message. Whenever there is this kind of discrepancy between the verbal and non-verbal message, people tend to believe the non-verbal.
In order to understand the message, it is important to determine whether it contains an implicit message as well as the explicit one. Something is expressed directly with the explicit message, whereas the implicit message expresses it indirectly.
All messages in a report can be explicit or implicit, which means that there is a great danger of misunderstandings in the field of implicit messages. In addition ,this is made more complicated by the fact that there are apparent explicit messages. Given all the variables it is easy to see why misunderstanding occurs between people.
