Communication Basics

Communication is the process in which we send and receive messages, through verbal conversations and through electronic means such as emails, voicemails and text messages. Communication is more than just how you present your message but how you receive and understand messages as well.

Communication first begins within yourself, how you view yourself and how you feel other people view you helps determine how you communicate depending on how confident or unconfident you may feel in different situations. Communication always involves others, meaning that at times you are the message deliverer or the message receiver. Communication is complicated, it isn’t just relaying a message or listening to a message, there are nonverbal communication cues that need to be used to better help you relay the message that you are trying to pass on. Communication quantity doesn’t increase the quality of communication, if a message is clear, consice and easy to understand you don’t need to have a very lengthy conversation. Communication is inevitable, whether we are communicating with another person or observing what is going on around us we are always gathering information from people and things that are around us. Communication can’t be reversed, meaning that once you say something it will be out in the air and you can’t take it back, this is where thinking before you speak or coming prepared is a good idea. You can’t repeat communication because you will never be able to recreate an atmosphere, body language or tone of voice in a manner that would yield the same results.

These main principles of communication are important in effective workplace communication because it helps to keep our tasks and other employees or colleagues on track by eliminating confusion which helps keep productivity at a higher level. Effective communication between management and employees also can leave the employees feeling respected, heard and like an important part of the team.

Interpersonal communication is verbal and nonverbal communication that happen face-to-face. Group communication is interpersonal communication that happens in smalls groups of people. Public communication is a small group of people that are delivering a message to the general public. The difference between these types of communication are how many people are involved in the conversations, interpersonal communication happens between two people where as group communication usually has 3 or more and public communication can have a group of people trying to deliver a message to a larger crowds. These types of communication are similar in the fact that effective verbal and nonverbal communication skills need to be used to make the message easy to understand by all involved in the conversation, the message deliveres and the message recievers. These three communication types are important in the workplace because team efficiency, team morale and knowing the right way to communicate with different types of audiences are all formed from learning and having effective communication skills.