The Communication Process
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This lesson describes the process of communication. Terms such as sender, receiver, channel, encoding, decoding, noise, and feedback will be defined and explained with examples.
Spandex, Anyone?
When was the last time you thought about your communication? Have you ever really considered what occurs when information is exchanged, or do you just go through your daily motions treating communication much like you do breathing, in that you find it to be an effortless, almost automatic activity? Don't feel bad if you do; as with most things that we do on a continuous basis, the process of communication becomes easy to forget. So, let's see if we can refresh your memory and get you to think about the communication process as frequently as Spider-Man thinks about his spandex.
The Communication Process
The communication process is relatively simple and is divided into three basic components: a sender, a channel, and a receiver. The sender will initiate the communication process by developing an idea into a message. This is also known as encoding. The sender will then transmit the message through a channel, or a method of delivery; think of things like e-mail, phone conversations, instant messages, face-to-face discussion, or even a text message. The message then moves through the channel to the receiver, who completes the communication process by interpreting and assigning meaning to the message, which is also known as decoding.
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Now, since most communication exchanges involve a continued dialogue between senders and receivers, a feedback loop was added to the communication process. Although I know some of you wish your spouse would forget about this at times, the feedback loop is a critical component in the communication process because it ensures a message was properly received and interpreted by the other party. In the workplace, feedback is especially significant so that a manager can be certain the messages that he or she sends are, in fact, received and interpreted correctly, eliciting the appropriate action from subordinates.
Can You Hear Me Now?
Here's where the communication process starts to get tricky. We all know that there is a major difference between hearing and listening. We can use either one of those during the communication process, but it is only those individuals who use effective listening skills when communicating that will be able to check for understanding during the exchange.
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An understanding is achieved when both the sender and receiver agree on the shared meaning of a message. That is, that each party can agree on what is being communicated without the need for inferences or assumptions. While this is certainly the goal of all communication, it is not always achieved.
There are many reasons why a message fails to generate a shared understanding or meaning. Noise is defined as any interference that causes a disruption between the sender and receiver in the communication process. Barking dogs, your coworker listening to his or her voicemail on speakerphone, car alarms, and the excessive bass coming from your car stereo are not the only noises I am talking about. Noise can be psychological, physical, physiological, or semantic noise.
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Psychological noise refers to things that are going on in your head as you engage in the communication process. Perhaps you are wondering if you left the iron on at home, or what to make for dinner, and maybe even if the other person can smell that awful fart you just let rip. It can also be any personal opinions, stereotypes, or perspectives that get in the way of you accepting what the sender is saying. If the message conflicts with what we already think or believe, we can have a hard time listening to the message, and thus, we don't get the full understanding.
Physical noise is that first type of noise I talked about a minute ago; they are those physical sounds that make it difficult to hear someone's message, much like when you are trying to give a really hot person your number at the nightclub with that music pounding in your ears.
Physiological noise refers to things like hunger, fatigue, headache, stress, or really anything that prevents us from giving our full attention.
Semantic noise occurs when you have a hard time understanding the words, language, or grammatical structure of a message. This is common when two people from different cultures are communicating.
Effective Communication in Action
To better understand the communication process in action, let's take a look at this example.
Mary is happy 7-year-old girl who decides to set up a lemonade stand so that she can save some money to help pay for her brother's operation. After a long day of selling, Mary has collected $20.00. She is overjoyed and cannot wait to tell her family about her success. Just then, an evildoer steals the $20.00 from Mary and takes off down the street. Mary knows that she must act fast so that she can catch that evildoer and get her money back. Without hesitation, she climbs to the roof of her house and turns on her personalized tentacle signal. As Mary waits for help to arrive, she formulates her message. She knows that she must encode all of the information that she has related to the incident and the evildoer who took off with her hard-earned money.
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When Octopus Man arrives on-scene, she begins to convey her message to him verbally, which is also known as the channel. Octopus Man begins to receive the message from Mary when he starts to think about how good Lobster Woman looked in her new spandex shell last night and how hung-over he is from the party. Octopus Man knows he needs to ignore this noise so that he can effectively listen to Mary's message and get the information that he needs to catch the evildoer.
Once Octopus Man decodes Mary's message he provides her with feedback through a series of confirming questions to ensure a shared understanding of the situation is reached. Once confirmed, Octopus Man quickly jumps into action, catches the evildoer, and returns Mary's money to her. Without the effective communication between Octopus Man and Mary, this situation could have had a much worse ending.
Lesson Summary
Let's review. The communication process is relatively simple and is divided into three basic components: a sender, a channel, and a receiver.
The sender will initiate the communication process by developing an idea into a message, also known as encoding. The sender will then transmit the message through a channel, or a method of delivery. The message moves through the channel to a receiver, who completes the communication process by interpreting and assigning meaning to the message, also known as decoding.
Since communication is rarely a one-way exchange of information, a feedback loop was added to ensure a message is properly received, interpreted, and understood by the other party. An understanding occurs when each party can agree on what was being communicated without the need for inferences or assumptions. Noise is defined as any interference that causes a disruption between sender and receiver in the communication process. Types of noise include psychological, physical, physiological, or semantic noise.