Chapter - 11
Effective Interpersonal Communication:defining interpersonal skills
What Is Interpersonal Communication?
Interpersonal communication is the process of exchange of information, ideas and feelings between two or more people through verbal or non-verbal methods.
It often includes face-to-face exchange of information, in a form of voice, facial expressions, body language and gestures. The level of one’s interpersonal communication skills is measured through the effectiveness of transferring messages to others. It involves a two way exchange of information.
It is also relational, meaning that it is aimed towards building and sustaining relationships among people.
The most obvious example of interpersonal communication is a conversation where both parties are actively participating and trying to understand each other.
An interview for a job is an example of interpersonal communication since interview questions are not merely transactional; oftentimes interviewers aim to build a relationship with the interviewee because strong relationships are essential for a productive workplace.
An argument is a great example of interpersonal communication because it balances relationship maintenance with negotiation of contrasting goals.
Online chats are an example of interpersonal communication even though they are not in-person.
Similarly a virtual meeting over Zoom or Skype is an example of interpersonal communication among a group of people.
The process of interpersonal is complex unless we understand some basic features of this process. According to P. Hartley there are a number of fundamental process.
a) Social perception – how person A interprets the behaviour and characteristics of person B.
b) Social identity – how person A sees him or her in term of their role and status. We communicate in ways which support this sense of social identity.
c) Coding – how A and B choose to express themselves. Do we use slang or jargon or technical words? What non-verbal signal do we use?
d) The dual nature of ' the message' which always includes both informational and relational aspects.
e) The influence of social context.
From the above process, we can realize that the effective interpersonal communication demands both social understanding – recognizing the process, social skills and being able to use the behaviours and techniques.
What do we mean by interpersonal skills?
Interpersonal skills are the qualities and behaviours we exhibit while interacting with other people. They are considered to be one of the most sought-after soft skills.
We demonstrate them whenever we engage in any kind of verbal or nonverbal communication. In fact, qualities as basic as body language and attitude toward others greatly affect our chances of excelling at work.
Strong interpersonal skills are a key indicator of success in a working environment, as benefits include the ability to cooperate with teammates to solve difficult problems, as well as simply enhancing your popularity around the office.
On the other hand, lacking them might lead to conflicts with colleagues or management and cause others to see you as a hindrance to getting the job done.
When applying for a position, consider what interpersonal skills are necessary in your target role and industry. You then need to make every effort to match those requirements with demonstrated examples from your own experiences.
After all, employers are not only looking for a candidate with the right credentials, but also one who will fit in with the culture of the company and contribute to its growth.
What are the most important Interpersonal Skills?
1.Non-verbal communication:- There are a wide range of non-verbal signals, including facial expression, gaze, gestures, posture, bodily contact, spatial behaviour, clothes and appearance, non-verbal vocalization (paralanguage) and smell. We usually react the combination of these signals. For example, we may decide that someone is lying to us because they fidget, avoid eye contact, hesitate when they talk etc. There are significant cultural differences in the meaning of non-verbal signals.
so we use a combination of signals to show what we means. Make sure that our verbal and non-verbal messages are in harmony and are appropriate to the culture and the contest.
2.Reinforcement:- It is the use of encouraging words alongside non-verbal gestures such as head nods, a warm facial expression and maintaining eye contact. All these help to build relation and are more likely to reinforce openness to other.
3.Questioning:- Questioning is the key to gaining more information and without it interpersonal communications can fail. Questioning is fundamental to successful communication - we all ask and are asked questions when engaged in conversation. ... Although questions are usually verbal in nature, they can also be non-verbal. Generally two type of questions closed and open questions are asked to extract information. An open question allows the person to answer in whatever way they like. Open questions encourage people to talk and expand whereas closed questions encourage short answers. Inexperienced persons often ask too many closed questions and do not get the detailed answers which they really want.
4.Reflecting:- Reflecting is a skill often used by counselors and other people who have to conduct very personal interviews and who want the other person to talk in some detail about their own feelings and attitudes. Reflections are more neutral. They feed back to the speaker some aspect of what they have just said. This invites them to elaborate or extend what they have been saying. We can reflect in different ways and achieve different results. This will depend on whether we are interested in the factual statements that the other person has made or in their feelings about what they are saying.
5.Opening and closing:- The ways in which we establish the beginnings and endings of a particular interaction require consideration. For example, sales staff often receives very detailed training on how to start the interaction with the customer. Often this involves making conversation to establish the sales representative as more friendly and helpful than just as salesperson. Consider all the different possible ways of starting a conversation with someone. The choice of opening can be very important in formal situations such as an interview, where the opening can establish either positive or negative atmosphere.
6.Listening:- This is the most important technique of interpersonal communication. Listening is a core competence. people who cannot listen cannot relate. poor listening undermines the ability to communicate with others. Developing our skill as a listener involves two major steps:
recognizing any barriers which prevent us listening with full attention;
adopting and practicing behaviours which help us listen.
The typical recommendations to support active or positive listening include the following
# Being receptive to the other person - showing that we are prepared to listen and accept what they are saying.
# Maintaining attention – using eye contact, head nods and appropriate facial expression.
# Removing distractions.
# Delaying evaluation of what we have heard until we fully understand it.
7.Self-disclosure:- When we communicate with other people we can tell them various things about ourselves. Self-disclosure is the process of sharing information about ourselves with other people. When we self-disclose, we provide some information to the other person about ourselves: how we are feeling, what our background is, what our attitudes and values are, and so on. We need to self-disclose to develop a relationship with another person. In business, we have to develop good relationships with other people in the organization, and so self-disclosure is an important issue.
8.Assertiveness:-
What do you mean by assertiveness communication?
Assertiveness communication is the process of communicating and expressing our thoughts, feelings, and opinions in a way that makes our views and needs clearly understood by others, without putting down their thoughts, feelings, or opinions. It is the ability to express our thoughts and feelings openly in an honest, appropriate, respectful and direct way. Assertive communication has the significance of its own. Following are some of them:
➤ It boosts up our confidence level.
➤ It helps us achieve our goals without hurting others.
➤ It leads to clear, open and direct communication. It prevents misunderstanding between we and others.
➤ It creates a good relationship with others as we take a count on others' beliefs.
➤ It leads to the development of a mutually respectful relationship.
What are the different styles of behaviour?
Mainly there are three styles of behaviour. They are:-
1.Aggressive behavior:- Aggressive behaviour fails to consider the views or feelings of other individuals. Those behaving aggressively will rarely show praise or appreciation of others and an aggressive response tends to put others down. Aggressive responses encourage the other person to respond in a non-assertive way, either aggressively or passively.
2.Submissive behavior:- Submissive behaviour gives in to the demands of others by avoiding conflict and accepting being put upon. It includes apologetic and hesitant speech, soft speech, nervous gestures and a reluctance to express opinions. Submissive individual will be seen as weak and easily manipulated. They will certainly not inspire confidence in other.
3.Assertive behavior:- Being assertive involves taking into consideration our own and other people's rights, wishes, wants, needs and desires. People with assertive behaviour are open and clear expression, firm and fluent conversation, and quick, spontaneous answers. The non verbal components include medium level of eye contact; appropriate facial expressions; smooth gestures; relaxed but upright body posture; and appropriate paralinguistics.
Transactional Analysis
In a workplace our communication is everything and if we know 'How" to communicate well with different kinds of people, then we are the king of the corporate. Knowing about Transactional analysis will help us improve ourselves and our communication skills, and we can become the king.
Transactional Analysis is a theory developed by Dr. Eric Berne. His definition of TA is "a theory of personality and a systematic psychotherapy for personal growth and change." He recognized that people can interact from one of the three ego states. The ego plays an important role in human behaviour. People interact with each other in terms of psychological position or behavioural patterns known as ego states. Ego states are person's way of thinking, feeling and behaving at any time.
There are three important ego states.
1.Parent ego
2. Adult ego
3. Child ego
A person of any age has these ego states in varying degree. A healthy person is able to move from one ego to another ego.
1.Parent ego state:- The parent ego state means that the values, attitudes and behaviours of parents an integral part of the personality of an individual. These people like to talk to people and treat with other like children. The characteristics of a person with parent ego state are judgemental, Rule maker, Overprotective, indispensable etc. There are two types of parent ego: critical and nurturing. The critical parent ego is one when a person shows the critical and evaluative behaviour while interacting with other. Whereas the nurturing parent ego is one, when an individual shows the kind and nurturing behaviour, not only towards children but all with whom he interacts.
2.Adult ego state:- It is authentic, direct, reality based, fact seeking and problem solving. Individuals assume that human beings as equal, worthy, and responsible. The process of adult ego state formation goes through one's own experiences and continuously updating attitudes left over from child-hood. People with adult ego state gather relevant information, carefully analyze it, generate alternatives and make logical choice. They think about a situation before arriving at the conclusion. People control his emotional expression appropriately. They behave in logical and rational way.
3.Child ego state:- It is characterized by very immature behaviour. It refers to the state of a person when he behaves illogically and takes quick actions to satisfy the immediate needs without thinking much about its results. Creativity, anxiety, dependence, fear, joy, hate etc are the important features of child ego state.
Transactions
It is about how people respond and interact with each other. Berne called it the basic unit of social interaction. It depends of ego states. There are three types of transactions.
1.Complementary Transactions:-
A transaction is said to be complementary when a person sending the message gets the predicted response from the other person.
2.Non-complementary transaction:-
It also called crossed transaction. A crossed transaction is said to be crossed transaction when the person sending the message does not get the predicted response. For example, the manager is trying to interact on adult to adult basis but the employee response on child to child basis. In such situation, it blocks the communication.
3.Ulterior Transaction:-
It is complex because the communication has the double meaning. Such as on the surface level one meaning and it may carry hidden meaning.
Neurolinguistic Programming
Neurolinguistic Programming was founded by two Americans in the 1970s. they were Richard Bandler and John Grinder. NPL ideas have since been used into a number of popular management and communication texts, as well as being widely used in training. They claimed that we need only three things to communicate well.
1) A clear idea of the outcome we want.
2) Flexible behaviour. We need to find the behaviour which will work in the specific situation.
3) The ability to recognize the responses we are getting from other people. If we can do this, then we will be able to 'home in' on the behaviour which achieves the response we want from the other people.
This theory also emphasizes the importance of non-verbal communication. The theory advocates specific non-verbal strategies and techniques, such as non-verbal mirroring, but it does not claim that each body language signal has a clear and specific meaning. The profounder of this theory argue that body language can indicate how a person is responding rather than giving us specific signs or meanings.
Representational System
NPL is a methodology that helps individuals develops communication skills by providing insight into how information is perceived. It is related with how mind intakes information. Our communication with others usually starts with our thoughts. There are many ways to define 'thoughts' and one of them is how we use our senses internally. We use our senses outwardly to perceive the world, and inwardly to represent experience to ourselves. When recalling experiences, such as a time we went to the beach, what would appear in mind first? May be a picture of beach would appear. Perhaps we just hear the sound of the wave sand children playing, or just sitting by the sea.
When we ask a group of students to describe their teacher, we can get a variety of answers. Some recall hairstyle, some recall voice, some dress, some recall the looks of the teacher etc. this method of taking in and storing information in our minds through our five senses is known as Representational system.
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