Unless you are a hermit living on a desert island or high on a mountain, you will most likely have to learn how communication in relationships works. You will have relationships with your family members, your neighbors, people in school, colleagues at work - even vendors in the market place. To improve communication in relationships, it is necessary to:
1)Be open to the prospect of improving communication in relationships.
2)Be aware that it is necessary for more than one party to change so that communication can be opened and enhanced.
3)Be open to changing your attitudes and way of speaking or writing, if necessary.
4)Be open to adjusting to the other party's point of view, when that other person is proven to be correct.
There are people who find it hard to do all these. Such people may need the help of a counselor or psychologist to uncover and thresh out any possible problems hindering them from accepting these steps for change.
Improving communication in relationships may necessitate:
1)Fostering an environment in which all parties may feel encouraged to express their opinions without fear of being attacked, criticized, or made fun of.
2)Acknowledging that other people have a right to have feelings and opinions, just as you do.
3)Acknowledging that you may have problems with communicating in relationships, and that the problems exist not just with the other person.
4)Holding back from blaming the other party for all problems that crop up when communicating.
5)Acknowledge that you only have control over changing yourself, not the other person.
6)Going slow at relaying emotionally-sensitive information.
7)Opting to write down any perceived problems before sitting down with all other parties to discuss these problems.
Miscommunication is a pretty common result of a breakdown in communication in relationships. When does miscommunication become prevalent?
1)When one or both parties believe that their point of view is the only correct one.
2)When the individual belief systems of all parties concerned tend to clash because of inherent differences.
3)When one party prefers to keep his thoughts to himself, leaving the other party jumping to conclusions.
4)When one or both parties rush into message delivery without thinking that the message imparted may hurt the receiver of their message.
5)When one or both parties opt to use negatively-worded statements when addressing the other person.
So how does one improve communication in relationships? Communication can improve if one takes the following advice to heart:
1)Learn to see things from the point of view of another person.
2)Use words which have a more positive slant to them so that the other person will not react negatively.
3)When possible, try to encourage and motivate the other party to improve - particularly if the other party is a subordinate.
4)Do not react in the heat of anger.
5)Think carefully about what words to use before you speak them.
Communication with another person can be affected by our powers of persuasion. How does one manage to persuade another person to accept his point of view? Here are some ways:
1)Restructure your message according to the point of view of the other person.
2)Maintain a friendly environment in which you and the other person will communicate.
3)Supply proof to back up your own statements.
4)Think if you are in a position to supply what the other person wants. If you are, then perhaps you should attempt to meet such desires, needs or expectations. Certainly a person whose wants have been satisfied will be in a more accommodating state of mind, meaning most likely he will try to acknowledge in return what you need.
1)a conversation between two people 2)small group communication 3)a speech made to a wide audience.
All these can be considered forms of interpersonal communication. All forms of interpersonal communication rely on a sender (from which a message originates), a message, a communication channel (or medium such as the voice of a person), a receiver, and feedback. Examples of these elements of interpersonal communication may change depending on the situation but it is still interpersonal communication.
When something obstructs the process of interpersonal communication, such as noise, there are negative consequences that result. For example:
1)if the sender finds it difficult to be heard, the receiver may not be able to react to the message being sent.
2)the receiver may not be able to provide necessary feedback to the sender of the message.
This makes interpersonal communication a very important process to follow, regardless of the size of the group involved in interpersonal communication.
What are the ways in which interpersonal communication can break down or be obstructed?
1)Predominance of emotions - the sender may be subconsciously influencing how the message is received because of his emotional state. Or the receiver could be providing emotionally-influenced feedback in return.
2)Filtering - when this problem occurs, the receiver may not get the whole message because the sender has restructured the message to suit his own purposes.
3)Information overload - sometimes, there are senders who provide too much information at one time, making the receiver feel burdened with the size of the message. The receiver may then not be able to respond to the sender.
4)Defensiveness - a receiver who feels threatened by the message could react in a defensive way - even if the sender did not intend to put the receiver on the defensive.
5)Cultural bias - the message of a sender could subconsciously be colored by the cultural perspective maintained by the sender. If the sender and receiver come from different cultures, this could result in communication breakdown.
6)Jargon - a sender should make sure that the receiver can understand him when the sender resorts to using jargon. This is because the sender may wind up being frustrated because the receiver fails to understand him or reacts in an undesirable way.
How does one improve interpersonal communication then? There are four possible ways:
1)Make messages simpler - do not resort to long messages because this makes it more likely that the message will not get through, be misinterpreted, or simply ignored. Short messages are easier to absorb and react to.
2)Restrain your emotions - if you become emotionally agitated, wait until you have your emotions under control before you send a message or feedback.
3)Listen closely - make it a point to listen well to the person speaking to you. Many cases of breakdown in communication occur because the receiver does not listen closely to the message.
4)Provide sufficient feedback - If you are the receiver, make it a point to assure the sender that you have received the message by providing a summary of what the message was about. This facilitates the communication process even further.
For interpersonal communication, it is important that both sender and receiver make an effort to improve the communication process. If only one party chooses to make an effort at improving communication, interpersonal communication will still not be achieved. Both parties - the sender and the receiver - have to do their part. Only then will dynamic communication interpersonal be achieved.
Peter Murphy has sinced written about articles on various topics from Modelling, Marketing and Web Development. Peter Murphy is a peak performance expert. He recently produced a very popular free report: 10 Simple Steps to Developing Communication Confidence. Apply now because it is available only at:. Peter Murphy's top article generates over 90500 views. to your Favourites.