Communicating
Effectively
This week, we learned about communicating effectively while
working on an Instructional Design project.
For this assignment, we were asked to watch a video that has a purpose
of communicating in three different modalities: as written text, as audio and
as video. This was very interesting for
me because it showed to me the importance of being mindful of clear and concise
communication in whatever form you are communicating. Below, I break down each form of
communication in more detail.
Email:
What
does each message mean?
In the
email message, Jane is speaking with Mark about an ETA on a missing
report. This is important to her because
his report contains data that she needs for her report. At the end of the email, she suggests that he
can even send the data in a separate email, maybe suggesting that he doesn’t
even need to do the report. But the way
that she says this at the end makes the message even more confusing. Jane is making the message confusing because
she is forgetting to avoid ambiguity.
Dr. Stolovitch talked about avoiding ambiguity in our video this week. (Laureate Productions, n.d.).” The message is kind of confusing for Mark and
that it comes off as kind of unprofessional in my opinion. If Jane would have taken the time to write
the message a little more clearly, she could have made her point a little
better. She opens and closes the email
professionally, which is a good thing.
Overall, this is an ok way of communicating. Not the most effective.
Voicemail:
What
does each message mean?
The voicemail message from Jane to Mark comes off as being a
little friendlier. You can hear in her
voice the importance of the message and that there is some sincerity in her
tone. Dr. Stolovitch said in his video
that tone can have an impact on any communication (Laureate Productions,
n.d.). When communicating to a coworker
in a voicemail, tone is one thing that the sender needs to be aware of and make
sure they are using the proper tone.
Jane is anxious to get the report from Mark because it is so important
for her report that is also due. But in
the message, you can hear her anxiety, but it is also being presented in a tone
that shows she is trying to be professional.
The end of the message, just like in the email, is rather confusing and
hard to comprehend exactly what she is saying.
The wording of it is confusing and would cause me to have to listen
again if I was Mark. In the email, I was
able to re-read the message to comprehend the final sentence. In the voicemail, I would have to listen to
it a second or third time to understand her message. Overall, it is a good piece of communication,
but is just as effective as the email.
Face-to-Face:
What
does each message mean?
This
message from Jane to Mark is by far the most effective of the three forms of
commicating in my opinion. In the
message, Jane is speaking to mark in a fair tone, and she has a smile on her
face as she is talking. She doesn’t look
upset or anxious. Dr. Stolovitch talked
about the importance of body language when speaking face-to-face (Laureate
Productions, n.d.). In this message, her
body language is welcoming and is not confrontational at all. The only thing that I saw as being closed off
is that she has the patrician between her and Mark and her arms are crossed on
top of the patrician. This could be
taken by Mark as being closed off and a little frustrated with Mark. The ending of the message is a little bit
easier to understand from Jane. She says
that she needs the data but Mark could just send the data in a separate email
if needed. I didn’t have to watch the
video a second time to understand that discussion.
Overall Evaluation:
As we
moved from one form of communication to the next, the message became clearer for
the viewer. The most confusing was the
email. As people are reading emails,
tone can be interpreted by the viewer that wasn’t meant by the sender. This happens quite often in my personal
life. Written text offers no tone and is
open for interpretation. That can be a
terrible situation. The voice mail was a
little more effective for the viewer because tone was interpreted by the listener;
it was present in Jane’s voice. The only
thing that made the voicemail difficult was a lack of body language. While listening to the voicemail, you are
still kind of unclear whether Jane is anxious about getting the data from Mark
and is she is upset he hasn’t sent it to her yet. When we got to the face-to-face interaction,
it became clear that she wasn’t upset and presented some comforting body
language. The patrician of the cubical in-between
the two people could be viewed as a bad thing, but to me the look on Jane’s
face was telling that she wasn’t upset at Mark.
She is just anxious to get her report finished, which needs Mark’s data
to finish.
For Future Use:
As I
move forward in my career, I will be able to use the most effective form of communication
with my team. This exercise helped show
me that the form of communication is dependent on the message that needs to be
conveyed. If it is just a quick reminder
about a meeting or some other deadline in the project, an email can be used to communicate. I will only use emails in the future if there
isn’t any chance of tone being interpreted by the reader. Quick messages that are not about some ones
lack of performance can be effectively communicated by email. Voicemails to me can be a tricky thing to
use. It allows you to convey the tone of
your message, but there is not chance for the listener to see your body
language. I will probably avoid
voicemails completely, unless it is to ask a co-worker to stop by so we can
chat or to call me back so we can talk.
I will never leave a message for someone with information that is
important and that should be done face-to-face.
My preference for communicating is in the face-to-face form. This exercise this week helped me understand
that with visual evidence. In a
face-to-face meeting, you are able to convey your tone, body language and your
overall demeaner to your audience. You
can give them ease by having nice open body language with a soft tone in your
voice. Or if you are in a pinch, you can
show them that this is important with your body language and an urgent tone in
your voice. The problem is that
face-to-face meetings can’t always be accomplished. So, I can now see how I have to evaluate my communication
choice before just sending an email to a co-worker. Taking the time to evaluate before can help
make the project go so much smoother!
Resources:
- - Laureate
Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (n.d.).
Communicating with stakeholders
[Video file]. Retrieved from http://class.waldenu.edu
