Communication 1

COMMUNICATION

Communication is something we do all the time yet we get little formal training in the communication process and, for many of us, communication can be a difficult and frustrating experience. Some of the difficulties in communication occur because we communicate both verbally and non-verbally. You may be surprised to learn that about 85-90% of the message we convey to others is expressed non-verbally, through intonation, body movements, and pauses between the words. One frequently cited breakdown is:

55% - body language 38% - tone of voice 7% - words

Often our verbal and non-verbal messages carry different meanings and this can lead to misunderstandings. Five common levels on which the meaning of our words are misinterpreted or ignored include:

1. On the hearing level - we don't take in a lot of messages because of noise, other people's talking, invasion of our physical space, or we feel we already know what the person is going to say.

2. On the understanding level - meanings may be different for different people, especially where cultural differences exist or when technical jargon is used.

3. On the level of believing - meanings can be lost because we don't believe what the other person is saying. We believe they really have other underlying motivations.

4. On the level of relevance - we may say "so what" to what they have to say. We may hear and understand the words but shut them out because we feel they have no relevance to us.

5. On the action-reaction level. We may be so preoccupied with, "How should I respond", or "What am I going to say", that we miss some or all of the message.

Messages originate as thoughts or feelings that must be translated through words. We encode the message by putting it into our own words. Encoding is affected by our anxieties, fears and anticipations about how the other person will respond. The challenge of any listener is to "decode"the communication to get at our true message. The challenge for the speaker is to communicate until s/he is sure that the message has been accurately understood.