By: SPC Eric J. Seiberling
Importance of Communication SPC Eric J. Seiberling – 2
What is the importance of communication? In the following pages, I will attempt to answer that very question. In addition, I will also answer, “What are the barriers that restrict people from communicating effectively?” and “What are the different forms of communication?” I hope that by the end of this paper I will have displayed my own personal communication skills by explaining and answering the before mentioned questions. First, in order to communicate effectively, a person needs to know what barriers there are, and there are many. I will do my best to explain the barriers of effective communication and how to overcome them. These barriers include Language, defensiveness, misreading of body language, noisy transmission, receiver distortion, power struggles, self-fulfilling assumptions, supervisors hesitation to be candid, assumptions, distrusted source, perceptual biases, interpersonal relationships, and cultural differences1. So now, let us break these barriers down, starting with language barriers. Language barriers include using words that could imply another message than the one that the sender wants to send. Moreover, the reason for this is that each person will interpret some words differently. So, in order to transmit the message that you want to send make sure that the words you use to send the message cannot imply anything that you do not want sent. The next barrier is defensiveness. Most of the time when trying to conduct a face-to-face meeting with someone to communicate some flaws in a persons work performance or just to ask them a question on what they have done make sure the message is concise and clear. Most people will get defensive when the person being
Importance of Communication SPC Eric J. Seiberling – 3 counseled has a distorted perception on what is
Bibliography: 1: The Importance of Effective Communication, http://web.cba.neu.edu/~ewertheim/interper/commun.htm, March 9, 2006, Internet Explorer 6.0. 2: FM 22-100: Army Leadership, Headquarters, Department of the Army, August 1999, U.S. Government Printing Office.