When Radhika concluded the class by sharing with
us the things to take note in effective communication – purpose, audience,
context and channel, I felt the point on channel was interesting, so
I shall share my thoughts on this.
Nowadays, less
people engage in face-to-face communications as alternative forms such as
Emailing, texting via Short Message Service (SMS) provide much more convenient channels and are able to
reach out to more people at one go. However, I feel that these convenient channels
of communication may hinder effective communication, and should be used with
care.
1.
Speed
of communication
Effective
communication is the key to successful planning and decision making. Effective communication
involves a constant feedback and exchange of information. In planning, every
question will lead to a reply which may generate more questions and replies. Sound decisions are made using information obtained from the process of questioning and replying. Decisions
can be made faster if the communication process is spontaneous and continuous.
However, with email and texting, information takes a longer time to travel
especially when the recipient fails to check their mail.
When I was
planning for the Freshmen Welcome Camp for Bioengineering last June, I communicated
with the Bioengineering Club President by email. As all the planning only started 1
month before the actual camp, everything was in a rush. Planning was hindered
by the slow email response from the President, and I felt frustrated with the
lack of support provided. It resulted in a poor working
relationship and developed into a vicious cycle of not wanting to communicate with each other at all. Thankfully, the camp went well in the end. On hindsight, I felt that we could have used an alternative
channel at the start e.g. telephone calls which allow faster exchange of information. A better working relationship would definitely make the camp experience more enjoyable for me.
2.
Lack
of emotions
Another problem
of emailing and texting is their limitations in expressing emotions. I believe that effective communication stems from emotions. For example, the recipient can relate to the thankyou message more if he is able to feel the sender's sincerity. However via emails, the recipient
of the message can only interpret how the sender is feeling through the
contents of the text. If the recipient misinterpreted the sender's emotions to be
negative, misunderstanding may arise and working relationships could be
strained.
I emailed my logistics member to check
on the collection of keys for the rooms we booked for the camp. She replied me in the mail “Please
read your previous mail.” When I saw the mail, I interpreted that she was
annoyed with me for constantly checking the details and I felt slightly
offended by her reply. However, after clarifications, the message was meant in
a cheeky way. If it was through voice conservation over the phone, I would not develop the unpleasant feeling as her tone would hint that she was simply joking with me. This
shows that emotions are part and parcel of effective communications to show our intentions. Probably that’s
why we have emoticons such as :P to show mischief, :D to indicate happiness and
:( for sadness/unhappiness.
3. Do we need rules for certain channels of commnications?
Many of us
may have planned meetings before and texted message to a group of people
informing them about a gathering. Here’s an example:
“Hi friends,
meeting in NUS on Friday 4pm”
After one
day of waiting, no one replied to indicate their attendance and you texted them
individually again for confirmation. Then you receive different replies like
“I cannot
come, so I never reply the message.”
and
“I got the
notice, so I never reply the message.”
There is no
fixed rule on what does “no reply” indicates. This would defeat the purpose of
using texting as a convenient channel for communication (information
dissemination) as the sender has to check with each person again for the reply.
On the other hand, texting to big groups is very useful to disseminate information which doesnt not require replies. E.g. There is no ES2007S class on Tuesday.
I feel that having a protocol or guidelines on how to use certain communication channels is exaggerated. In a group, certain rules may be established along the way as setting rules at the start can be too intimidating. My friend once shared with me that her project leader sent an email requesting them to email in a certain format. Although it was a good initiative by the leader to create an organised system, it was not well received by the members of the team.
In all, I feel that 4 points of effective communication - Purpose, Audience, Context and Channel are interrelated. For each purpose, audience and context, we can choose different channels to get the best out of the communications.
The channels are simply tools for us to utilize. If we can use them to our advantage, it will help us communicate effectively with others regardless of workplace environment or simply with our friends and family, and avoid unnecessary conflicts and misunderstandings.
The channels are simply tools for us to utilize. If we can use them to our advantage, it will help us communicate effectively with others regardless of workplace environment or simply with our friends and family, and avoid unnecessary conflicts and misunderstandings.
