Effective Communication

Building a definition of effectiveness for your effective communication.

Improve Listening Skills

Learn how to improve listening skills for your leadership development.

Free Business Writing Tips

Effective free business writing tips for good business writing.

Understanding the communication process

In the real world, noise interferes with every message, complicating its flow through the communication model. If you understand the communication model, you can take the time to think about noise that may interfere with your message at various d take extra precautions to ensure your message arrives intact. In this communication article you will learn the basic model or flow of the communication process. You will also examine real-world complications that makes successful communication a challenge by this article.

The basic Communication Model

  • In an ideal world, communication involves these simple components
  • A sender, who is the person initiating the communication, or broadcasting the message.
  • A message, the specific set of words, gestures, and images that the sender uses to convey what he or she wants to say.
  • A channel, though which the message moves.
  • A receiver or receivers, or the audience for the message from whom the receiver often expects a response.
  • Feedback, which is the response from the receiver to the sender.

Sender Complications

You don't store away information like objects of inventory placed in a box or put on a self. It's necessary for you to be aware of how your internal frameworks and filters interpret and convert data, knowledge, and facts into information and messages. If you are not aware, the messages you send out may not be what you think they are. Unexamined frameworks and filters can make your messages sound repetitious, and give the impression that you're inflexible. Your personal communication style - how forceful or meek you seem, for example - can affect how your message is interpreted.

Message Complications

The receiver, just like the sender, has frameworks and filters for interpreting messages. You can be certain that the receiver's frameworks and filters will differ from the sender's, due to cultural difference, state of mind and health, company values, or communication style. The differences complicate the communication process, reinforcing the need for clarity. Therefore, before actually sending your message you need to look at the noise that the receiver brings to the process, and adjust the message accordingly.

Feedback Complications

Both sender and receiver must actively seek clarity in their communications. When the receiver of your message provides feedback, you'll know whether the receiver has interpreted the message as intended. However, If feedback is angry, ambiguous, or nonexistent, it introduces even more noise into the communication process, making shared understanding an even more difficult goal to achieve. In this article you learned the mechanics of how the communication process works and how to identify the complications that occur in real world communications.