Bad Vs. Good Communication

Part 1: Features of good versus poor communication

Communication is very important in people’s life, because people communicate almost all the time: at school, at work, in the internet. So it is very necessary to know the main rules of good communication to prevent the barriers which lead to the poor communication and other communicational problems. Here are features that are related to good vs. poor communication.

1.1 Wearing masks

One of the main barrier to the good communication is when people are wearing masks, they uphold an image or protect a public identity. For good communication people must be authentic and should not pretend to be who they are not.

1.2 Attacking

Sometimes it happens that during the conversation the sender attacks receiver of the information. Sender must be neutral or positive towards the receiver.

1.3 Active Listening

Active listening is a communication technique that requires the listener to understand, interpret, and evaluate what they hear. The ability to listen actively can improve personal relationships through reducing conflicts, strengthening cooperation, and fostering understanding. (http://en.wikipedia.org)

Active listening is a way of listening and responding to another person that improves mutual understanding. Often when people talk to each other, they don’t listen attentively. They are often distracted, half listening, half thinking about something else. When people are engaged in a conflict, they are often busy formulating a response to what is being said. They assume that they have heard what their opponent is saying many times before, so rather than paying attention, they focus on how they can respond to win the argument (http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/treatment/activel.htm).

Many people are poor listeners, even in everyday life. They tend to listen and think about something else at the same time. This happens even more frequently when people are in conflict. Rather than carefully attending to what the other person has said, many people think about their response while the other person is talking.

Since people in conflict tend to develop hostile and distrustful images of the other, their interpretation of things the other side says or does is also likely to be hostile and distrustful. Ambiguous messages are interpreted in the worst possible way; even clear messages tend to be ignored or disregarded, if they are inconsistent with one's original negative view.

Such poor listening makes good communication almost impossible. No matter how much care one person or group takes to communicate their concerns, values, interests, or needs in a fair, clear, unthreatening way, if the listener is not willing to receive that information in that way, the communication