Communicate to Stand Out

Communicate to Stand Out – I
Dr Manideepa Patnaik
Editor in Chief at http://www.ubiqusgroup.com/ijmp
Independent trainer on writing at http://sites.google.com/site/awcourse

Communication is the most important tool to succeed in any walk of life. Most jobs, relationships and ventures fail due to lack of understanding of what is communication. Communication is not talking or writing. Even silence communicates and it is the most forceful tool of communication. Non-verbal gestures like the way you communicate with your eyes, jaw movement, smiles, facial expressions, hand gestures, leg postures, your style of walking and sitting and greeting and meeting- all have greater value than talking or writing.

We all roughly know that communication means exchange of information or conveying an idea either through speaking or writing. Although we know the precise meaning of the word, still we fail to communicate which is why we fail. We cannot not communicate. We communicate all the time. If we will learn how to communicate effectively then we will have know that communication is a process. This process has six phases. We ignore the phases all the time which is why we mis-communicate. Mis-communication is technically referred to as communication barrier. We will discuss communication barriers in the next article. In this article we will figure out where we miss in order to communicate for outstanding success. Let us know first that we fail to communicate, when we mess up with any one phase of communication in the communication process which is due to our lack of understanding of communication as a process. A simple smile we give or a simple greeting we make we meet someone passes through all these phases too so as big presentations we make and big business proposals we prepare. If we want to communicate to stand out in relationships and professions, then we will have to constantly aware that that we know the process of communication and that we do not miss out or mess up with any phase of the process.

Communication is a two way information exchange process between a sender and a receiver. The receiver constantly becomes the sender and the sender constantly becomes the receiver when it is spoken communication in informal set up. In formal set up, the sender completes his stage when the receiver starts. Depending upon the communication set up, the role of sender and receiver get defined. If you are reading a text then the author is the sender and you are the receiver but you are not the receiver to the author directly. Your appreciation as a receiver gets known when you give positive feedback about the text by referring the text to many friends and the author gets his fame due to the effective feedback you gave. Thus you become the receiver to the author in an indirect way. If you will constantly argue with the author when you read his book then you do it as the receiver too, but the sender is the present there. But this way of reading makes you an effective reader because not for the sake of the author, but for your won sake, you became an active receiver. In a sales talk, you should constantly interchange the roles. Communication for better life is a vast area. We will learn it all step by step. The basics first.
The following phases make up the communication process.
Phase one- The sender gets an idea to communicate. He conceives the idea well that he wants to put across. This is also called sourcing the idea effectively.
Phase two- Encoding the idea which is also called giving shape to the message. At this phase, you give your idea a particular version such writing or talking or smiling or keeping silent or shrugging shoulders that you think will put across your idea to the receiver the best possible way and he will understand what you meant to say. Depending on your own style, you often decide the form of the message. It is important that you should take into consideration the style of the receiver to decide on the form of the message. Many people ignore this phase of communication because human character is self-centric.
Phase three- Transmission of the idea. At this stage the sender’s job gets over as he physically transmits the idea as he had conceived and planned to transmit either through talking or writing or gestures or postures. These are called channels and medium of communication. Decision to transmit the message verbally or non-verbally is called choice of channel. Decision to call up, or meet personally to convey the message or send an SMS or email the message come under medium of communication. Improper choice of channel and medium can mess up the communication. This messing up happens at the level of encoding where you decide how to communicate.
Phase Four- Receiving. This is the stage where the communication process gets into its challenge. At this stage of the process, the original idea reaches the receiver who is the most important factor of communication for success.
Phase Five- Decoding is the fifth phase. At this stage of communication, the receiver understands, absorbs, interprets, validates and remembers the message received. If the receiver will not be able to understand and remember what has been communicated then the communication fails. Sometimes, although the receiver understands and remembers what you have said, but he does not interpret the message or absorb it o validate it properly as a result of which the communication fails.
Phase Six- Feedback. At this stage, the receiver gives his feedback which is also called responding to the message. This is the most important phase of communication. If the feedback is not proper or if there is no feedback then, there has been no communication.
If you want to communicate to stand out, then you will have to give importance to each and every phase of communication. People often ignore the phases, which mean they just take communication as a two way process between the sender and the receiver without realise that the sender has to do his job in three phases and the receiver also has to do job in three phases. When you do not give importance to reasons for relationship failures, or failure at work in the beginning, you accumulate pillars of communication phase related troubles. When you ignore it again and again, it builds up and becomes a habit.
For example, if you have always been a person who speaks extempore on all occasions then you have not yet acquired the habit to effectively encode and transmit your message well. Encoding and transmission require a lot of planning. If you have always been a receiver who responds almost instantly and immediately upon getting any message, then you have never given adequate importance to decoding as a phase of communication. If you have always been communicating without effectively encoding, planning for transmission and effective decoding then please be sure that all your failures are due to the fact that you have never communicated to stand out. You may have been an outstanding speaker, you may be having excellent command over the language with which you speak and your voice may be the best one has ever heard, but if you have never given importance to encoding, decoding and transmission as the most important phases of communication then chances are high that you have not been a happy and successful person.
In part two of this article, we will discuss more about the phases of communication process with more examples.