The document provides an overview of effective communications topics from the Manage Train Learn (MTL) course topics series. It introduces the series as a collection of topics to help learners master skills. The topics are designed as editable slides that can be used in training programs with attribution to MTL. The document then covers various aspects of effective communications including definitions, reasons for communicating, the communications loop process, obstacles in sending and receiving messages, and the importance of communication throughout history and in modern organizations.

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Effective Communications
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MTL Course Topics
COMMUNICATIONS
Effective Communications

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Effective Communications
Communications
MTL Course Topics
The Course Topics series from Manage Train Learn is a large collection of topics that will help you as a learner
to quickly and easily master a range of skills in your everyday working life and life outside work. If you are a
trainer, they are perfect for adding to your classroom courses and online learning plans.
COURSE TOPICS FROM MTL
The written content in this Slide Topic belongs exclusively to Manage Train Learn and may only be reprinted
either by attribution to Manage Train Learn or with the express written permission of Manage Train Learn.
They are designed as a series of numbered
slides. As with all programmes on Slide
Topics, these slides are fully editable and
can be used in your own programmes,
royalty-free. Your only limitation is that
you may not re-publish or sell these slides
as your own.
Copyright Manage Train Learn 2020
onwards.
Attribution: All images are from sources
which do not require attribution and may
be used for commercial uses. Sources
include pixabay, unsplash, and freepik.
These images may also be those which are
in the public domain, out of copyright, for
fair use, or allowed under a Creative
Commons license.

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ARE YOU READY?
OK, LET’S START!

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Communications
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INTRODUCTION
The act of communicating is the most distinguishing feature
of human beings. Unlike other species, we spend most of
our lives communicating in one form or another. But for
something that is so natural to us, none of us succeeds in
communicating effectively all the time. Our personal, work
and social lives are littered with the debris of failed
communications. This introduction to Effective
Communications outlines why communications are so
important in our lives and why they so often go wrong.

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EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONS
There are two ways to define effective communications...
1. through the art of 1-way communicating in which we
send a message to others in order to express ourselves,
give instructions, pass on our personal views. To be
effective, such communication relies on effective self-
expression.
2. through the art of 2-way communicating in which we
share our attitudes, feelings and information with
others. To be effective, such communication relies on
knowing that the message we give others has been
received, understood and acted upon as we intended
and that in turn we receive, understand and act upon
other people's messages. This type of communication
involves not just effective self-expression but also
effective listening as well.

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WHY WE COMMUNICATE
There are five main reasons why we communicate:
1. as a means of understanding our environment and
learning about it, both for protection from danger and out
of curiosity
2. to express our wants and needs to others who can meet
them
3. to make contact with others for friendship and affiliation
4. to work in co-operation with others to achieve some goal
5. to simply express ourselves.
Through communicating, man is learner, survivor, socializer,
builder and artist.

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THE LOOP
Communicating is a fallible process because it involves
actions by human beings. It is a process involving not just
what we say and the means to say it but our thoughts,
feelings and perceptions as well.
At its simplest, effective communications consists of seven
steps:
1. a message to transmit
2. a sender to send it
3. a language to encode it
4. a method to convey it
5. a receiver to receive it
6. a decoder to make sense of it
7. a sign to say "Message received and understood!“
This is the communications loop. When it works the way
everyone intends it to work, communication is effective.

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MTL Course Topics
SENDING A MESSAGE
There are numerous obstacles in the way to sending a clear
message to another person that you can be sure they will
understand. These include...
1. sending a message that you don't need to send
2. sending an incoherent message
3. sending too much information and overwhelming the
receiver
4. not sending enough information and puzzling the
receiver
5. not explaining why you have sent the message
6. not phrasing the message in a way the receiver
understands
7. using incorrect language rules, bad grammar, bad
spelling
8. missing something important out
9. sending false, outdated or incomplete information
10. using double-speak by saying one thing and meaning
another.

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RECEIVING A MESSAGE
There are numerous obstacles in the way to receiving a
message sent by someone else and understanding it in the
way they intended. This can happen when...
1. the sender uses the wrong medium to transmit the
message, eg. using the phone instead of writing it down
2. the message is lost, mislaid or sent to the wrong person
3. the message is badly timed or too early or late to have
any meaning
4. the message becomes distorted in transit
5. the message is incomprehensible
6. the receiver chooses a different interpretation from the
one intended
7. the receiver is unable to act or react to the message
8. the receiver ignores the message.

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CAVE PAINTINGS TO EMAIL
It seems that at every stage of man's evolution, the need
and desire to communicate has been present. So strong is
our need to communicate that we seek ever and ever better
ways to do it.
In our pre-history, through sign language and cave paintings,
right down to the present day through computers and
satellites, we have discovered countless ways to
communicate with each other. Our restless search for ever-
better ways to talk may be a sign that we are unlikely ever
to achieve the perfect model of communications that we
seek.
"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million
typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of
Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is
not true." (Eyler Coates, US librarian)

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MAN, THE COMMUNICATOR
"We are told by anthropologists that homo sapiens was, and
is, an undifferentiated animal. In other words, he has no
special characteristics for defence, attack or escape which
help him survive. He has no great size like the elephant;
strength, like the lion; speed like the deer. His teeth are
small, his claws are weak and brittle. They are no use as
weapons. He has no horns. He can neither see nor hear
particularly well and his sense of smell is poor, so he can
easily be taken by surprise.
Yet he has outclassed all other animals. This must be
because his big brain, his upright posture, his tool-making
ability made that possible.
But, above everything else, his developed brain enabled him
to speak. Speech is man's most important attribute, as it
enables him to communicate with other men." (Doris
Wheatley)

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SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION
If you really want to be an effective communicator, it helps
to see yourself as someone who is linked to other people on
every level. Quantum physicists tell us that we (and
everything in the universe) are actually linked through
energy and vibration. We all come from the same stuff. Also,
of course, we are linked by common ties of humanity.
The idea that we are much closer than we think to other
people has led to the notion, put forward by American
social psychologist Stanley Milgram, that everyone can find
a real chain of acquaintance to anybody else by six degrees
of separation.
When Columbia University tested this idea by giving 60,000
volunteers a random name from anywhere in the world,
they found that 384 people found they were linked to their
targets inside 6 moves.

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LANGUAGE
Despite the fact that the one thing that is common to all
human beings is the need to communicate, we do not yet
have any means to understand one another that is universal
and applicable to everyone.
1. there are thought to be about 5000 languages spoken
on the earth, although this number is much higher
when dialects are taken into account
2. each language has its own way of developing words to
describe its speaker's concepts. Some of these do not
translate to other languages.
3. each living language has its own unique set of words
which continues to grow and develop at different rates.
The Icelandic language for example changed less in 1000
years than did English in Australia in 20 years in the last
century. Today, we use words such as "silly" which once
meant "holy" and "gay" for "homosexual" in ways that
have changed completely from their original use.

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HOW WE COMMUNICATE
All studies of how people spend their time at work reveal
that in all cases people spend most of it in the act of
communicating.
Rosemary Stewart's study of top and middle-ranking British
managers found that they spent between 60% and 80% of
their time in sometimes formal, but mostly informal,
interactions with others. The number of different contacts
they had in a day was rarely below fifty.
Henry Mintzberg's study of top American chief executives
found that the amount of their time in verbal
communication was 78%.
Of the amount of time we spend each day in
communicating, 9% is written; 16% is reading; 30% is talking
and 45% is listening.

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MISSING THE TARGET
While everyone agrees on the importance of
communicating, it is still an area that we find hard to get
right. Many of the following scenarios are all too common...
1. the front-line employee who builds an excellent
relationship with a customer but is rarely asked about it
by his boss
2. the mechanic who knows how to fix a troublesome
piece of plant but whose lack of assertiveness means it
never gets heard
3. the middle manager who knows how he can improve
contact with other departments but isn't allowed to
4. the specialists who refuse to share their jargonised
expertise with anyone other than their own profession
5. the heads of organisations who are gifted leaders of
industry but do not know and are not known by their
own staff
6. the directors who are barely on speaking terms.

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THE FUEL OF CHANGE
If a Martian were to land in our midst and report back what
it saw the chances are that it would simply say: human
beings communicate. Our waking hours are filled with the
business of receiving or conveying information.
We wake up in the morning to the sound of the radio. We
watch TV to find out if the roads to work are clear. When we
arrive at work, we look at our mail, make phone calls, attend
meetings, greet people informally, send off instructions
through the Internet, plan presentations, chat to colleagues,
catch up on gossip, indulge in office politics. On the way
home, we stop off for a chat at the local, see some friends
and get home for an hour or two in front of the TV before
retiring to bed ready to start again the next day.
One of the consequences of this total immersion in
communicating is that we believe we do it well.

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THE INFORMATION AGE
One of the reasons why we spend so much of our working
time with others is that we live in a Communications, or
Information, Age.
Since 1950, the level of work in manufacturing has been in
steady decline; service industries have remained steady at
around 11% to 12% of all jobs; but jobs which use
information have risen from 17% in 1950 to around 60%
today.
Professional employees - which includes managers,
administrators, advertisers, teachers, lawyers, doctors, -
have doubled in number in the last 30 years.
In the United States, there are now more people employed
in universities than in farming. The predominant activity of
people in the West today is communicating.

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THE SPEED OF CONTACT
The modern communicator needs to master not only the
media and processes of communications, he or she must
also grapple with the speed of communications.
When President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by a
gunman in 1865, it took five days for the news to reach
London. Today, events almost anywhere on earth can be
instantaneously reported to almost everyone else via 24-
hour satellite, instant e:mail, the Internet, television, the
mobile phone. In one scenario the day will come when
everyone on the planet is wired up to everyone else.
Then, when we are connected our appetite for information
will be fed and continually updated. The report that the
amount of technical data in the world is doubling every five
years is probably already out of date by the time you read
this!

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BUSINESSES THAT TALK
The business organisation is a network of constant
communications. Here is where the aims of communication
- to learn, to build, to affiliate, to express ourselves - all
come together.
1. organisations are by definition collections of people
who communicate
2. communications is the glue that keeps people informed
3. to a greater or lesser extent, all modern organisations
are information networks with a need to create,
process, sift and use information
4. organisations make up their own versions of
communications networks to add to the ones already
there
5. all people who manage others need to be skilled
communicators.
It is possible that the key measure of an organisation's
success is how well it communicates.

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THAT’S
IT!
WELL DONE!

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THANK YOU
This has been a Slide Topic from Manage Train Learn