Importance Of Effective Communication Skills And Tools For Self-Diagnosis

The Process of Communication

Communication is the process or act of transferring information from person to another. Effective communication skills are vital for achieving success in all aspects of life. In the era of globalization, strong communication skills are necessary to achieve maximum efficiency and growth in life. There are various forms of communication styles that an individual can pursue and each of it has their own relevance. Efficiency of communication can be ascertained through proper diagnostic tools that are related with the communication process. My own communication style has been analyzed by using these effective tools, which are as follows: 

Listening is one of the crucial elements for effective communication. Willingness to listen diagnosis is the measure developed to ascertain the willingness of an individual to listen while making a communication. My willingness to listen scale is 73.  I am a moderate listener as even though other things are going on my mind, I willingly listen to the speaker. I can attentively listen to a speaker even though the content of the speech is very boring.  Generally, I can also listen to a disorganized speaker. I never feel relaxed while listening to a non-responsive and non-immediate speaker. Even though the view of the speaker is different from mine I can willingly listen.

The behavior that is used by the people to display or show positive feeling to other person is known as nonverbal Immediacy. My non-verbal immediacy scale is 67. This scale helps in measuring my immediacy scale. I have a relaxed body posture while talking to the people as it makes the other person more comfortable about the communication. I occasionally use my arm and hands as gestures while talking to others. I occasionally use monotone while talking to other people.  I rarely frown while talking to other people. As frowning is a bad sign that should not be used while talking to other people. Making eye contact with people is a good sign and I rarely avoid eye contact during conversation as it displays confidence. I often sit close and stand close to the people while communicating.

This scale is generally designed to know the degree to which a person can tolerate when other person disagree with their own beliefs. My tolerance of disagreement scale is 34 that are moderate in nature. I prefer to be in groups, where the belief of all people matches my own beliefs to avoid any chaos and confusion. I never get involved in any or any such circumstances, where lot of disagreement is present. I rarely involve with people having different viewpoint then mine. I would mostly like to work alone in peace instead of working with individuals having several conflicts. I am peace loving person so I mostly prefer to join a group with no disagreements.

Diagnostic Tools for Self-Diagnosis

Talkaholic scale is a tool to measure the communication skills of an individual. My talkaholic scale is extremely low at 25.  I talk more than required in certain situations, where I should be mum. This is a poor quality for effective communication that should be overcome. While the other times I mostly feels compelled to be quiet.  Generally, I talk more than I should sometimes. Therefore, I need to improve my talkaholic scale through proper training and spoken classes.

This diagnostic tool is developing to ascertain the communication skill of an individual through intercultural context. This skill generally determines the flexibility of communication to any form of racial or cultural group. I preferred to be involved in discussion with groups from different culture whenever I am allowed an opportunity. I prefer to remain a calm and relaxed posture while making conversation. This helps the group belonging to different culture to easily communicate with me in comfortable manner. Though sometimes I get nervous and tensed while talking to them. As sometimes my thoughts becomes confused and jumbled up while talking to individuals from different culture. I have a moderate level intercultural communication apprehension. 

From the above analysis and findings I identified the key issues that need to be overcome for making effective communication skills.

Improving talkaholic skills: I need to focus more on my talking skills and avoid unnecessary talk. While engaging in talk with other person I need to put away all the distractions. The communication to be made should be brief and specific. Moreover, I should practice empathy while talking to other. As this would help in developing better understanding for the unspoken part in my communication made with other. This would further help in responding more effectively.

Tolerance for conflicts: I need to develop my tolerance for conflict very strong. As every time running from the conflicted situation is not the solution. I need to develop potential skills to remain stable and effective in circumstances when people are strongly opposing my views. Conflict is an inevitable element that exist both in our professional and personal life that cannot be avoided. This can be managed through taking an online course for the management of conflict. Moreover attending a workshop or reading a book for conflict management would help in resolving the issue.

Last month, I had to give presentation on stage to represent my company in front of various people and business personnel’s. Though I was fully prepared beforehand and practiced my speech so that I would not forget my part but all went in vain. I started my presentation very fluently but after a while I strayed from the presentation part and started talking more than wanted. This flaw made the whole content boring and too long for the audience, which made the whole presentation useless. I was not being specific to the point which further made the interaction worst. Therefore I need to learn my talking and communicating skill part for achieving maximum success in future. I need to learn to be brief still specific while communicating my topic. The other person should easily understand what I am trying to say to avoid any chaos or confusion. I should avoid making small talks with my audiences to remain focus at my goals. We all get drifted off from the main topic when someone else misheard or talk to the other person. Who am I communicating or talking to matters a lot for effective results in the business world.

Willingness to Listen

Moreover, while communicating with the audiences I need to maintain positive attitude and smile. The audiences would respond positively to us when we appear more accessible. I would take online learning classes for effecting communication and improving my skills. I would consult an expert or read books for improving my communication techniques would beforehand make notes and write the specific point for before starting any meeting or presentation. Furthermore, I would carry the script along with me for the presentation in future. I would also pause and think before speaking and not just randomly say the first thing that comes to my mind. From now onwards, I would take a moment before my speech and pay attention on what I have to say and how I have t say it. This effective skill would allow me to avoid any embarrassments in future.

In another situation, while I was doing a group project for the management in my organization, conflict took place between my colleagues due to misunderstanding. I participated in the conflict and started arguing with the. Later on, I escaped the situation by making some excuse rather than solving the dispute. My tolerance of disagreement is quiet moderate; I need to learn more on my conflict management skills. Conflict or misunderstanding can arise anyhow in our personal or professional life. Escaping such situation is not the solution for managing conflict tolerance. I need to practice for directly addressing the conflict. By addressing directly this kind of heated disputes, I would be able to solve the disputes more efficiently. Moreover, I need to practice normalizing my relationship with my colleagues after the conflict. As after the disagreement I did not talk to them for two weeks at a stretch. This is really a bad quality which I should definitely look into for maintaining a better working environment in my organization.

If in future, if ever I am going to experience any conflict in my workplace, I would try to re-establish my relationship after the conflict in a positive manner with my peers. Normalizing individual relationship after the conflicts would help me in teaching that conflict necessarily does not damage our relationship with the people. To maintain effective communication and avoid in the conflict in the management I would also try to desensitize myself. I would list all the individual and situations with whom we are going to avoid my conflict in future. I would strengthen my conflict tolerance practices by attending workshop or courses in conflict management.

Nonverbal Immediacy

Efficient communication skill is important for maximization of profit in this competitive era. As per Varcarolis (2016), every person should work on their communication skill to attain maximum success. To reach the desire goals people generally have to be involved in professional and efficient communication dealings.

Conflicts between individuals are common trait of human behavior. Whenever people interact with each other and create or develop relationships, disagreement automatically emerges. According to Testa, Hibbing and Ritchi, (2014), various researches have been already been made on conflict management. Still may studies have failed to distinguish between the disputes leading to purposeful disagreement and negative interpersonal outcomes. This often leads to several positive outcomes and better decision for the organization. In the current scenario, disagreement is quiet normal in and common in the workplaces. Disagreement can be generally in nature. Whatever is the result, constructive or destructive is mostly depended on the individual’s communication skills and affinity between them. Efficiently managing the mutual disagreement among the employees lead to better and stronger relationship (Stubbings, Rees & Roberts, 2015).

The creation of tolerance for disagreement mostly arises from groups and contexts related to organization. According to the authors, Price and Anderson (2012), conflict is mostly associated with negative outcome.  It is generally ascertained as disagreement and difference on opinion on issues. Disagreement within individual is often identified by distrust, existing hostility, competition among people as well as self perpetuation. Shahbaz et al. (2016), formulated the theory for tolerance for disagreement to provide them to discuss about the threshold people have while dealing with communal conflict. As per the authors disagreement and conflict are two different things as disagreement does not necessary mean to give rise to conflicts.  People can normally disagree with each other without creating any conflict.

According to Biocca and Levy (2013), some people generally get more involved in situations of conflict as compared to others. This is caused due to negative interpersonal; affect plus disagreement. Tolerance for disagreement measure is an approach made to differ the conflicts related to disagreement. Stubbing, Rees and Roberts (2015), were also too keen in the measures ability so that prediction of both positive and negative interaction among people within small groups, interpersonal and organizational contexts can be identified.

Most recent treatment of disagreement theoretical approach are also the same as per the earlier work as per Pull (2012). Conflicts are generally known by suspicion, hostility and suspicion.  It is more likely that disagreement creates conflict in an organization. The chances of conflict increases when affinity and trust level between the communicator is very low. Individuals generally differ to an extent to which they are able to tolerate disagreement therefore avoiding entering into conflicts. Conflict is only created when the disagreement made between the individuals is taken personally. As per Coopman and Lull (2014), individuals having extreme tolerance level for the existing disagreement are usually dispute resistant. He further explains that individuals with low level of tolerance are prone to more conflicts and disagreement.

Tolerance for Disagreement

In an organization, the satisfaction level of employee is affected more by the manager’s tolerance for disagreement rather than by the tolerance level of employees. Flexibility of communication as well as cognitive flexibility were ascertained to be related in a positive manner tolerance for disagreement. On the other hand, in a negative manner is linked to individual’s verbal hostility (Hook et al., 2017).  The versatile communicator is more likely to disagree as well argue with another people willingly. People with high tolerance level tend to approach disagreement and arguments. Moreover, these people do not necessarily ignore confrontations, when there could be differentiation of opinion. 

Collaborating is the best technique to deal with all such problems as it works by integrating all ideas and knowledge set by multiple people. The major object to find creative solution is generally acceptable to everyone in the organization. Business owners on working collaboratively with the managers can establish policies (Jamieson, Nock & Mendes, 2013). Empathy is necessary for each individual while making communication as this avoids conflicts in the organization. Ability to view a situation from other viewpoint is efficient technique in overcoming complicated situations.

Skills training: to overcome conflict and disagreement tolerance issue special skills training helps in enhancing the individual’s behavior.  Specific skill training like desensitization can reduce uncertainty level of the employees engaging in conflict in the organization. Furthermore as per the study conducted by Gallois and Giles (2015), focusing on the specific areas could enhance the individual’s confidence level. In this context, Linvill, Mazer and Boatwright (2015) also mentioned that adequate and positive feedback is vital to maintain and initiate high positive cycle of individual enhancement.

The talkaholic issue is a method of identifying people or individuals who know and are aware of their weakness and tendencies to over-communicate in a compulsive and consistent manner. Individuals whose scores are past two standard deviations over the mean on the scale are called and labeled as talkaholic. Different variability’s in the behavior of peoples talking have been researched for over half a century in the different fields of psychology and communication` The quantity and the reasons for different variability in the quantity of talks has been the centre in this field of research (Biocca & Levy, 2013). Most of the attention has rotated around quintet verbalizers, with particular consideration to factors resulting in less communication as low self-esteem, introversion, communication apprehensions, and poor communication skills. Similarly little attention has been aimed and directed towards extremely high verbalizers.

Talkaholic Scale

Research on impact of talkativeness on social approach or interpersonal perceptions such as leadership, source credibility, interpersonal attraction, attitude similarity, powerfulness has found positive, strong, linear relationships (Day et al., 2012). This research shows and indicates that more a person or individual talks, the more that individual or person is anticipated and recognized as an individual and perceived to be sincere and credible, trustworthy, a leader, powerful, interpersonally attractive, and to have attitudes similar to that of a observer and perceiver. This relationship or the linear relationship has been shown and found to lead up to and including excessively high talking levels as talking 75 to 90 percent of the time in small groups. positive perceptions show no significant decline in the plots of the different relationships even at extreme high levels of behavioral talking (Lyons et al., 2016). The results of these theories and studies question the theory of talking “too much”. Nonetheless, in surveys of non-student adults and college students, we have yet to find a person who would know someone who talks too much.

One such interpretation for this probable divergence between results of the precise probe and what lay individuals repeatedly report is that lay reports may be perplexing quantity with quality. That is, if someone or an individual does not like or is not fond of something that someone says, one way of describing that feedback is to refer that as an individual who “talks too much.” Thus, “talks too much” is an unfavorable or adverse quantitative term for adverse qualitative reaction. It might be difficult for an individual “A” to use the talks too much description for an another individual who spends immense amount of time talking to other individuals and persons bout the positive qualities of “A”, even though such act or behavior might be embarrassing to “A” (German et al., 2016).

The above explanation does not attribute to everyone all together in everyday interaction, as it does not account for all such descriptions. Not all acknowledgement of too much talking can be deducted. There are also some individuals or people who excessively talk or “talk too much.” We have had them as teachers, professors, students, colleagues, and moreover coming in contact with such individuals in day to day life and also non-academic life. 

Talkaholic issues can drive individual and people away which can result or leave the said individual alone with no social touch or communication and can steal social support from the aforesaid individual (North, North & Coble, 2015). Interrupting, one of the major acts associated with all talkaholic can signal to other individuals and people low self esteem or lack of respect.

Intercultural Communication Apprehension

According to Varcarolis (2017), there are various ways and routes to deal with talkaholic and to deal with them through the best-selling books on personality types. Such strategies include taking attention away from the individual who is a talkaholic, changing the focus of the conversation, creating a distraction, leaving the conversation, typing away at the mobile or laptop while the talkaholic talked away.

Type of activities	Current performance	Things I need to improve	Time required
Taking training and workshop for disagreement and conflict management	My failure to communicate is the main cause of conflict in the workplace. I generally posses a straightforward personality but this give rise to several conflicts in my workplace. I speak without thinking whatever is in my mind which generally gives rise to conflicts in the management.  The co-worker generally feels that I am rude and problematic person. After certain level, when the disagreement level is too much, therefore  I start avoiding the situation later on.  But escaping the problem is not the key solution to avoid disagreement. I need to learn and improve my communicating skills and techniques for maximizing my efficiency.  I often misunderstand the message and this further creates conflict in the management.	I should increase my understanding skills through trainings and attending workshops. I should go through the process of resolving conflicts and expanding  my awareness. I should develop my communication skills for resolving the conflict effectively. This would help me in building strong mutual respect for the present employees.  I should sharpen my focus by improving self-knowledge and thus enhancing my effectiveness.  I should listen  first and then talk or make any decision. This could help me in maintaining a smooth flow of communication and better working  environment. I should also attend workshop to ascertain the real area of the problem.  As individual is not the problem, the real reason lies in the conflicting positions. I should try to separate people from problem by maintaining harmonious relationship with them after the conflict. These techniques would help me in overcoming disagreement problem.	The  time for managing this issue depends entirely on my level of tolerating or coping up with problems or conflicts based on the situation. I need to focus on my personality and improve my communicating techniques. I firmly believe this may require few months of training maximum four months . moreover attending workshops and practicing for three weeks can improve my skills for avoiding disagreement by  thinking before speaking
Taking a short course on Compulsive Communication	I think that the communication made by me is compulsive in nature as I more often thinks that the communication I make with other people are compulsive . I believe that whatever I am saying is true and people bounds to believe it. This actually is not relevant in this context. Sometimes I speak more than required to other people  that make the communication very boring and monotonous for the listeners. Sometimes I feel that I speak about irrelevancy issues while communicating but then again I cannot control myself from speaking out.	Skills training remain one of the major strategies for managing talkaholic issues which usually focus on the learning skills that can help an individual enhance specific speaking and talkaholic behaviors and issues. Such skills can relate or lay it on the line to any or parts of speech making course or process with the involvement of research and organization, topic selection, delivery as well as the self evaluation. Focusing some particular areas and then helping it in enhancing on the aforesaid topics and areas can help to boost and increase more self confidence, which can further lead to more improvements and enhancements.	The maximum time that may be required to improving my skills and bringing the necessary changes might take two to three months. It entirely depends on my skills to adapt to the necessary changes.

References & Bibliography:

Biocca, F., & Levy, M. R. (Eds.). (2013). Communication in the age of virtual reality. Routledge.

Coopman, S. J., & Lull, J. (2014). Public speaking: The evolving art. Cengage Learning.

Day, A., Paquet, S., Scott, N., & Hambley, L. (2012). Perceived information and communication technology (ICT) demands on employee outcomes: The moderating effect of organizational ICT support. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 17(4), 473.

Gallois, C., & Giles, H. (2015). Communication accommodation theory. The international encyclopedia of language and social interaction.

Goodman, W. K., Rudorfer, M. V., & Maser, J. D. (Eds.). (2017). Obsessive-compulsive disorder: Contemporary issues in treatment. Routledge.

Hook, J. N., Farrell, J. E., Johnson, K. A., Van Tongeren, D. R., Davis, D. E., & Aten, J. D. (2017). Intellectual humility and religious tolerance. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12(1), 29-35.

Jamieson, J. P., Nock, M. K., & Mendes, W. B. (2013). Changing the conceptualization of stress in social anxiety disorder: Affective and physiological consequences. Clinical Psychological Science, 1(4), 363-374.

Linvill, D. L., Mazer, J. P., & Boatwright, B. C. (2016). Need for cognition as a mediating variable between aggressive communication traits and tolerance for disagreement. Communication Research Reports, 33(4), 363-369.

Lyons, J., Sokhey, A. E., McClurg, S. D., & Seib, D. (2016). Personality, interpersonal disagreement, and electoral information. The Journal of Politics, 78(3), 806-821.

North, M. M., North, S. M., & Coble, J. R. (2015). Virtual reality therapy: an effective treatment for the fear of public speaking. International Journal of Virtual Reality (IJVR), 3(3), 1-6.

Price, M., & Anderson, P. L. (2012). Outcome expectancy as a predictor of treatment response in cognitive behavioral therapy for public speaking fears within social anxiety disorder. Psychotherapy, 49(2), 173.

Pull, C. B. (2012). Current status of knowledge on public-speaking anxiety. Current opinion in psychiatry, 25(1), 32-38.

Shahbaz, M., Khan, M. S., Khan, R. M. I., & Mustafa, G. (2016). Role of self-perceived communication competence and communication apprehension for willingness to communicate in L1 and L2. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 6(1), 158.

Stubbings, D. R., Rees, C. S., & Roberts, L. D. (2015). New Avenues to Facilitate Engagement in Psychotherapy: The Use of Videoconferencing and Text–Chat in a Severe Case of Obsessive?compulsive Disorder. Australian Psychologist, 50(4), 265-270.

Testa, P. F., Hibbing, M. V., & Ritchie, M. (2014). Orientations toward conflict and the conditional effects of political disagreement. The Journal of Politics, 76(3), 770-785.

Varcarolis, E. M. (2016). Essentials of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing-E-Book: A Communication Approach to Evidence-Based Care. Elsevier Health Sciences