How to overcome barriers in communication Part II

After "Understanding the purpose of the communication" we need to plan our communication. Again planning is not easy and we need to consider a lot of factors. We will see them all in detail in this blog.

2. Plan your communication: Planning is half battle won. You may wonder.... You may think..if planning is actually required for communication... well it all depends on various facors like...

2.a The message : The actual idea to be delivered
2.b. The importance of the message : How vital is the message.
2.c. The people who are going to receive it : The audience
2.d. Urgency of the situation : The need of the hour
2.e Medium and mode to be used for communication

Now all the above are interlinked and related to each other at various situations. At times you cannot single out any of the above before actually starting the communication.

We will see each individually. I wouldn't be spending much time on each though.

2.a The Message: First and formost... have you understood the message. Are you aware of the content. Do you recognize what is given there. Before we think about transmitting he message.. we have to first understand it correctly. You should also decide how you want the receiver to understand it. Otherwise, it may even turn against you. This is very important because it is a major factor that decides the significance of the other factors described above. You should not have any doubts on this.

2.b.Importance of the message: An important messge requires careful handling and publishing. Its importance helps us decide the mode and medium of communication. For ex: if it is an important message that requires documenting it has to be sent by mail. If it is urgent and important it has to be told orally (either verbal face to face or using phone) and emailed for latter reference.

2.c. The audience: When it comes to the people who are going to receive it, we need to take into consideration a lot of things, which I will elaborate in my further blogs. To put it short..
i) is he the right person for the message
ii) does he have the capacity to decode (understand) the message. We should also check whether our encoding of the message (the format in which we are going to send) is understandable to the receiver.
iii) does he possess the required skill sets to initiate action

2.d. Urgency of the situation: Urgency can be explained in relation to the time required to initate or complete the action for which the communication was intented to. This helps decide the mode and medium of communication (as described earlier) and the audience from whom we expect the action.

Now how does urgency relate to mode and medium of communication. To quote an example: a situation assuming you require an urgent approval from your supervisor at 8.00 am in the morning while your office start at 9.30 am and your supervisor is expected to come only at that time. What would you do....Mail the requirement requirement and wait till 9.30 am for the approval or call him immediately to get an oral approval and also send him a mail for the purpose of documentation???? Obviously the answer is in the latter part. So I bet you definitely see a good correlation between Urgency and medium of communication.

2.e Mode and Medium of communication:

Modes of communication can be classfied into
a. Oral or Verbal - Spoken either face to face or throug any other electroninc medium like phone, mobile etc.
b. Written - Email, fax etc
c. Non Verbal - Body Language and Paralanguage

Medium of communication is any instrument or equipment that facilitates the transmission of information from the sender to the receiver. It can be a phone, mobile, fax and even your computer.. when we send emails.

Now the decision of the mode and medium of communication is pure requirement based. Any communication can have "n" number of options for its medium. An information can be said orally, sent via mail, faxed to the receiver or it can even be conveyed using our body language. But out of these we need to choose the most approriate one that will best suit the requirement. For eg: To ask for a pen from our colleague who is sitting next to you, we ask them directly.. we don't send them a mail or SMS them... eventhough no one is stopping you. Similarly, a usual situation in a corporate... your friend asks you to print something from your system while he is goes and waits near the printer at the other end of the floor.... How eo you communicate... You would usually use your body language if the distance is not that far....like a Thumbs up from your end to say, I have given the print... and a return Thumbs up from your friend on the other end to convey that he has received the print. Could this have been the only way to communicate in this situation. why.... you could have called your friend on the mobile to check whether the print has come ( of course if you have 100% CUG) or... call to the nearest extension to the printer from your phone to check if the printout has come.... See we have options...but you felt for this situation this would be the most appropriate. You may choose to use the next best option only when you feel that the first medium would not work.

So ends this episode on removal of barriers... we would look into more... in the forthcoming posts

Bye