Monday, 16 November 2015

Week 3 [16.11-22.11] "Effective Communication"

hi,
I would like to present an article: "Effective Communication, Not As Easy As It Seems"
This article isn't scientific, but I hope that will be interesting for you. You can find this in:
In this article we find about what is effective communication and what it gives to people, businesses or organizations who use it.
I wonder what are your feelings about information in this article and I have some question for you:
1) Do you think that now the communication is effective?
2) What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?
3) What are the methods of effective communication brought you in your company? (hypothetical company)

Good week!
Wiesiek

37 comments:

  1. Hi Wiesław,

    1) Do you think that now the communication is effective?

    It depends where the communication should be effective. In my home I know what my wife is saying to me, so in my opinion this kind of communication is very effective :-).
    But with other people it depends, for example if you don’t like someone there can be some difficulties in communication at all and really if you don't have to don't speak to this kind of person. The same situation is when you don’t want to talk to someone especially when someone is calling from the bank and he or she want to "give" you some money.
    On the other hand communication is very easy and effective when you are rest or you have plenty of time and this person is someone who likes you and vice versa.

    2) What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?
    I think the first point will be not interrupt when someone else is talking.
    Second thing will be talk short and precise - don’t talk more than it is necessary.

    3) What are the methods of effective communication brought you in your company? (hypothetical company)

    If I want something from another person I am doing always the same things. First I write an email and usually another person sends me some answer. Second step is when I don’t know nothing more from emails I usually go to this kind of person and ask what she was thinking off.
    And really it depends on company in which I am doing some project. Every company is another kind of story and another episode about how to get some info.

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    Replies
    1. You are happy husband then, if you understand your wife :D

      Delete
  2. Communication – for me – is the most important issue in the world. Without proper communication all our life, work, science may go wrong . Bad communication can develop unpredictable situation in all parts of our life. For example, poor communication in marriage finally can divide a couple. Similarly the same happens in countries, governments, companies, etc.
    Currently we have too many communication channels. Information is too easily broadcast to everybody without any reflection. These actions create unpredictable difficult situations. The same information can convey a different message for different people . For example info on social media website: #WTF can generate different feelings: from negative to positive. Therefore I think nowadays communication is too chaotic to be communicative and we must be very careful what and whom we write or say to.
    For effective communication, in my opinion, there are a lot of different things necessary. For example:
    - We must know what we want to say\write
    - We must know whom we want to say\write to
    - We must know when we want to say\write something important message etc.
    Everything depends on what the main purpose of our communication is. For example, if we would like to say\write without any respond or understanding it is not important what, when and whom we send something to. But if we want to inform the part of our team about some important issues we must analyse our message.
    Unfortunately I work in governmental institution, where some modern ways to communicate are too slow to develop. I think sending emails is too slow to deliver some hot information. I think the most effective way of transmitting breaking news must be delivered directly, for example via mobile phones.

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  3. I have to agree with ZC. Communication is a key root of all successful relations and cause of all problems (miscommunication).

    Regarding your first two questions, I think the answer is.. it depends.
    It depends what communication channel you're asking about? What type of communication is meant, private or business?
    Generally, we have all the means to communicate truly effectively. Apart from real chatterbox, everyone is interested in being very effective in communicating his/her needs for sure. Then the question arises if everyone is thought how to communicate effectively. For those who feel having issues in this area, I agree with the author of the article, that simple set of verification questions would be very helpful and pretty efficient way of increasing ones consciousness about effective communication.

    What are the methods, I would encourage and insist on very precise communication. The clearer the message the better. But less verbose, as nobody I guess, is expecting a proper elaboration on a let's say simple statement.

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  4. Thank you for your previous answer.

    In my opinion very important in communication is the ability to listen. Sometimes I can see how people respond to the question of what they wanted to hear and not what they heard. Sometimes it is a major problem especially during inspections at the company. Are we as a society know how listen to others? What is your opinion? I think so, but there are some exceptions ...

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  5. Hi Wiesław,

    1) Do you think that now the communication is effective?
    In my opinion it depends on the situation, because for example if you have a stressfull situation in work and you write email , your collegaue might not understand you, and communication will not be effective because it will begin to write e-mails about the situations.
    But if you write emails with your friend or wife and he/she understand you communication is effective.

    2) What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?
    In my opinion message must be concrete without unnecessary information, because if you have in message unnecessary information you can
    wrong understand the message

    3) What are the methods of effective communication brought you in your company? (hypothetical company)
    I prefer meetings .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Iwo Thank you for your answer.

      I agree with you that the message must be concrete without unnecessary information, and I also prefer the meeting, but unfortunately this is not always possible.

      Delete
  6. 1) Do you think that now the communication is effective?
    In my honest opinion it isn't. Especially in corporations. Of course it's based on my own experience. Feel free to disagree with me. Communicating with our collegaues is a bit different, if we know them quite well it's easier than to communicate with just met person.
    2) What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?
    I totally agree with my collegaues in this matter. Simple, straightforward messages would be the best.
    3) What are the methods of effective communication brought you in your company? (hypothetical company)
    I enjoy meeting with other people, especially when you have whiteboard to express your feelings :)

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  7. Thank you for another answer Mateusz,
    I have never worked in large corporations, but in conversations with friends who work in corporations I refer similar experience.

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  9. I work as an analyst, my job is to gather requirements from clients/users and to prepare technical documentation for developers. It's impossible without effective communication. In all of my previous companies (large corporations) people abused email, cc'ing nearly everybody. As a team leader I used to get dozens of emails daily. Clearly, nobody asked himself the third question from the article you posted - who needs to hear the message.

    Effective communication requires mutual understanding. I think that face-to-face communication is most beneficial. You get immediate feedback from your interlocutor, can ask additional questions, encourage. Sense of humor helps to lighten the atmosphere and assertiveness sets the boundaries. Stakeholders always have growing I usually try to enrich conversation with some images, for example application screen designs, business process flow etc. One picture is worth a thousand words.

    I currently work in Scrum methodology and I think that daily scrums are good way of communication. Whole team is on-site and verbal communication is on a daily basis. We also use issue tracking software linked with code repository and design tool and instant messaging. Now I receive up to five emails daily and I'm very happy with that.

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  11. Thank you Mikołaj

    Whether in your companies used software to conduct remote conferences. I think about programs like Cisco or Cisco Vebex TelePrezence. These programs give quite interesting possibilities, but if I remember rightly they are quite expensive.

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  13. 1) Do you think that now the communication is effective?

    Between whom?

    2) What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?

    I am confident that there are few things needed for effective communication:
    - common ground (as in sharing required knowledge),
    - conciseness and brevity,
    - mutual respect.

    3) What are the methods of effective communication brought you in your company? (hypothetical company)

    I don't think I understand your question. I interpret it as "what have you done to deserve being employed" (sarcasm intended). I guess I just knew enough and I could express my knowledge both in writing and orally.

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  14. Hello,
    communication is one of the most important points in projects and has to be organized and planned. If we are talking about communication between employees in most cases we can solve more during one meeting than by exchanging few mails. After that we have to confirm the conclusions of the discussion by formal email, because disadvantage of this kind of decision making process are memory leaks.

    I found in comments some important points like ability to listen or not interrupting. I am pretty sure that the most important is respect between conversation participants. We should take care about good atmosphere, and have to give clear messages. Participants should be open minded for different points of view, otherwise people are not active in discussion.

    Methods from project management are helpful. Scenario of the meeting too. Pressure on proper preparation for the meeting can improve productivity.

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  15. 1) Do you think that now the communication is effective?
    It depends between whom and what is the purpose of the communication. At work it is effective the most of time. But when I meet my friends the purpose is not an effective communication but just listening to each other and having fun.
    2) What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?
    Like my predecessors I think message must be brief and straight to the point. Also a simple openness and a true will to understand (or help) each other are the most important in effective communication independently if it is a formal professional, communication or a less formal one.

    3) What are the methods of effective communication brought you in your company? (hypothetical company)

    In my company we use Scrum and participate in weekly meetings. I also like the fact that we are not afraid to ask “stupid questions”, which helps a lot in communication.

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  16. This all are a bit tricky questions. Communication may be effective but it don’t have to be effective. It all depends on many different factors. For example who is communicating, what are the relation between those people, is the topic familiar for both sides.
    Very important part is understanding of each other and understanding of the topic. If we don’t have this, than communication may be very hard. In cases like this I often prefer drawings or other visual presentation of concepts especially in my company

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  17. Thank you for all answers.

    In my opinion, if at company its very formal relationship, it hinders effective communication. I used to work in a company where o wos very formal relationship, "stupid questions" were unacceptable.The beginnings of the work were terrible, Interactions too were "hermetically sealed", I needed a lot of time to enter into normal relations with other employees.

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  18. 1) Do you think that now the communication is effective?
    A good strategy for communicating more effectively is to help your audience listen more effectively. To make your message more "listenable," you have to be able to understand it from your listeners' perspective.
    Indeed it is important to be aware of the need to understand human interaction during a verbal or physical exchange. This contributes to increased efficiency of communication.
    When you speak, you use words that have a significant impact on the attitude of your interlocutor. Indeed a positive word (strong password) will be more reassuring than a negative word (black) and this can greatly change a call. you should know that only 17% of communication is through the voice, so it is important to be clear and concise in his speech, and to use appropriate words

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  19. 1)
    I believe that effective communication depends on many factors. I think it can be effective or not.

    2)
    I compare it to send the message:
    -must Be contacted.
    -must Be the transmission of information.
    -And Finally, the same message has to be clear and the two parties must be certain that the message has been received correctly.
    There are still social conditions, as a form of communication, eye contact, body language, but they are not required in all forms of communication.

    3)
    It depends on the circumstances.
    If we talk on business topics, we sell, we offer a language should be fit, tone and arrangement conversation.
    While the communication from the boss to a subordinate can be laconic. as well as talk about the technical details. It may be e-mail.

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  20. I would argue that effective communication is the most important thing when it comes to any project. When you look at the top most successful IT companies you'll see how much effort they put into communication. There are also many layers of communication you have to consider. Communication between the company and the employers, between the stakeholders and the company, between team members and so on. Effective communication raises productivity of teams, enables to understand the customer needs and to provide better services and also rises morales, reduces turnover and brings other valuable benefits.

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  21. I would argue that effective communication is the most important thing when it comes to any project. When you look at the top most successful IT companies you'll see how much effort they put into communication. There are also many layers of communication you have to consider. Communication between the company and the employers, between the stakeholders and the company, between team members and so on. Effective communication raises productivity of teams, enables to understand the customer needs and to provide better services and also rises morales, reduces turnover and brings other valuable benefits.

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  22. Hi, I think it depends on what our goal is. For example, are we talking about the one-way or two-way communication? If we want only to deliver some information to the recipient, In my opinion we are the champions in this kind of communication. I think about advertorial on TV and radio, ads in the city and more. In other cases more important than the technique itself can be motivated to do it well. Why do we need a communication plan if no one will want to use it.

    In addition to the communication plan for the project needs, it is important to take care of good communication throughout the organization. Based on my experience, I think it is a good practice to introduce new employees to the current team. You can organize short meetings for this purpose. Not only for improving communication, but also for safety reasons can be a good idea to sending updates to all employees about personnel changes.

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  23. Thank you for your answer, and you think that team building is important, do they really help to improve mutual relations and thus improve communication. Rafał spoke about different communication platforms. And what is your opinion how companies should establish communication with potential customers? How do you think the call center is effective ...?

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  24. 1) Do you think that now the communication is effective?
    I think nowadays there is quite a good communication. Maybe it’s not perfect, but definitely it is very fast and it uses many presentation techniques In my opinion it depends on the situation,

    2) What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?

    I agree with my colliques the best message is simple message to quickly reach people who we wanted to send the information to.
    3) What are the methods of effective communication brought you in your company? (hypothetical company)

    It is a very individual thing, but we should establish some form and frequency of communication. I think the main thing is regular meetings

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  25. 1) Do you think that communication is effective nowadays?

    Depends on the individuals. Communicating is just means for passing information. For that to happen we need a sender, a receiver and a protocol. The effectiveness depends how well the data were formulated and whether the sender and receiver use the same protocol (i.e. language). Fault of just one component (i.e. use of different context) could lead to problems with interpretation.

    2) What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?

    I partly answered this in the answer to the previous question.

    3) What are the methods of effective communication used in your company? (hypothetical company)

    We usually attend meetings during which we can discuss certain aspects related to our projects. However on a daily basis use of well formulated e-mail messages and reports also provide a good way of exchanging thoughts.

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  26. I am thinking now of the communication in IT projects.
    Communication is effective when we exchange infromation.
    I think that communication is effective when we ask a set of direct and short questions.
    And while answering when we focus on it.
    If we do not know what is the essence of the matter how can we expect satisfying answear?
    According to my experience communication is effective when I set myself 'information goals' in relation to the meetings.

    I believe that short and honest answears are necessary for effective communication in daily life.

    According to the methods of effective communication in my company I set goals and try to make sure that certain issues have been discussed and are clear.

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  27. 1) Do you think that now the communication is effective?
    There are many ways of communicating today. We can use phone, Internet or direct communication.
    I think that the most effective is conversation, but it also depends on the people communicating and a subject. Sometimes there are people who can communicate perfectly in even short email or sms message, but I also met with people that I could not understand well even in direct conversation.

    2) What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?
    In my opinion it is important to think not only about what we would like to say, but also how it could be understood (e.g. it is good to read an email or sms before sending it). Information should be ordered, because it is difficult to understand chaotic messages.

    3) What are the methods of effective communication brought you in your company? (hypothetical company)
    It depends on the message. Some information could be delivered by email and it is effective enough, but another should be discussed on a meeting.

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  28. 1) Do you think that now the communication is effective?\

    There is no such thing as communication in general. My ability to communicate depends on many things.
    It might seem easy, but communicating effectively actually takes quite a bit of finesse. Choosing the right words, listening with our minds instead of just our ears, and getting our message across are basic skills. Communication in the workplace will always be a work in progress for me. There is a lot of adjustments needed in the process. I try to remove the barriers that block the process and I hope that it will improve my way of communication. Feedback my co-workers helps in determining solutions.

    2) What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?

    One of the most common barriers to communication is poor listening skills. There are a few reasons for that. For example I can have no involvement or concern with the topic. There also may be some distractions. For example: loud or noisy. There are a couple more reasons for lack of listening. There might be differences in opinions regarding the topic. And this last one in which I have seen many times. Passive listening instead of taking an active role.

    3) What are the methods of effective communication brought you in your company? (hypothetical company)

    Face-to-face conversations and oral communications is the most common methods used in my company. It make possible more detailed discussions to clarify issues. We also use written communications in order to provide clear statements of discussions and their outcome.

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  29. 1. Do you think that now the communication is effective?
    I think that now the communication is effective in terms of delivery of a particular information. Almost every time we have a few different communication channels, when one fails we can use the other one (for example phone - usually with few different numbers, email, instant messenger etc.). The problem lies in quality of information being sent or received.

    2. What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?
    It depends on type of communication. When we just want to talk with other person about something (no matter what) the communication is effective from start. In some work-related issue the most important task is going straight to the point and underlying all relevant parts of message that we want to deliver.

    3. What are the methods of effective communication brought you in your company? (hypothetical company)
    In my company exits something that I could call "communication with confirmation". Firstly, I receive an email with some important points listed. Then, a sender needs a confirmation, which means that I receive a phone call, a message on hangouts or just voice of my colleague from the other side of the room.

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  30. 1) Do you think that now the communication is effective?

    I think that communication now is more effective than ever. The reason of such situation depends on information technology that is present in our daily life.
    Management tools such as portals, web sites are helping team members communicate more effectively. Without email and Internet we can still communicate, but it's expensive and takes a lot of time. Sending letters and calling phone is less effective and sometimes could stop the production. For example company such Amazon could not wok without fast communication with their clients.

    2) What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?

    I think that the time is the most important factor in communication. The specific skills are the second most necessary thing. That's why the communication skills training and business communication courses are these days popular and necessary for the company.

    3) What are the methods of effective communication brought you in your company? (hypothetical company)

    The most important method is daily scrum. Every person in team have 5 minutes to talk about completed and approaching tasks. Thanks to that manager know what's going on on the team and can assign a new task in appropriate way.

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  31. Thank you for your previous answer, as I read them I can see that we all have feelings converge at 99 percent, when we write we exchange ideas, experiences, we work in different companies, we have different experiences but we put similar priorities that are needed for effective communication.

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  32. It's all about communication. Especially in the software industry the most of the wasted time is because of bad communication. One of the most important thing to communicate effectively is to understand that people have different mental models so they don't see the world exactly the same way. This is crucial to realize. In my company we use SCRUM which is a great framework that enhance the effectiveness of communication.

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  33. Some time ago I took part in a communication workshop. We had a task to do - in pairs, each person was supposed to write a word on the other person's back and ask him what was being written. We discovered that if we simply and quickly write the word on the back of the partner - he will only be guessing what we mean. However, if we we write slowly enough and, after finishing each letter, we make sure he got the letter right, he will be confident about what the word on his back is.

    This was a metaphor for communication. I have learned that the sender of the information is responsible for making his statement clear to the recipient, and not the other way round. The sender has to make sure that every single piece of what he is communicating is understood, just like in the metaphor example. This simple rule is a backbone of good communication for me, whether it is interpersonal, organizational or whatever other kind. This refers to the effectiveness of communication, which you are asking about. My observations are that companies, bosses, colleges at work don't necessarily acknowledge that, putting the blame for miscommunication on the recipient (most of the time the lower rank employee) - this takes a lot of self-awareness

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  34. 1) Do you think that now communication is effective?

    Very often it contains too much noise and very little hard data. That the problem of todays communication.

    2) What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?

    Hard Data.

    3) What are the methods of effective communication used in your company? (hypothetical company)
    Operational meetings - monthly.
    Project meetings - weekly.
    Talking (f2f, voice, mail,sms) - everyday :) - most effective

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  35. 1) Do you think that now the communication is effective?

    I think it is pretty good but not always effective. I think in perfect world all needed communication would be processed without violent but is it possible when resources are sparse to argue without fierce? We should watch processes in language in more developed countries to realize which areas are in need of being improved.

    2) What do you feel is necessary for effective communication?

    In my opinion we need stronger psychological control in schools. Many times children and adult are forced to act in roles that they not fit. I wonder if sometimes it's expected to fail someone in front of public when subject is judged by somebody who is not an expert in his field. In other hand someone can feel too convenient therefor it still put himself in risk. I'm studying effective communication to develop company strong but I'm aware that this is endless task.

    3) What are the methods of effective communication brought you in your company? (hypothetical company)

    In this question I rather not answer.

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