I used three assessments to self-evaluate my communication styles, and then had my husband and my supervisor at work complete the same assessments as they related to my communication skills. I was surprised how differently my husband rated my listening skills compared to how my supervisor and myself rated my listening skills. Do I listen differently to him and possibly other family members than I listen to colleagues? His score indicated I was more content-oriented while my own score and that of my supervisor indicated I was more people-oriented. Could it also be the perception of how others view my listening skills?
I was happy to see my results of communication anxiety. This has been something that I have been working on for several years. I have been placing myself in positions where I can speak out in public and teach in front of large groups of both people I know and those I do not know. If I had taken this assessment many years ago, I can easily see how I would fall in the high category. Today, my husband rates me as having moderate anxiety, although the score barely borders the line between moderate and mild. My supervisor and myself rated me as having mild anxiety. My supervisor's score was close to being moderate, but my own score rated on the low end of mild, bordering low anxiety. This is interesting to me because although I may feel less anxiety, others interpret or perceive that I have a higher level anxiety. Does this mean I am not being true to my feelings and trying to convince myself that I feel less nervous and anxious than I really do?
In my professional life, I am glad I have made changes in my levels of communication anxiety, but realize that I still have more work to do to be more comfortable in more situations. I believe my professional life will put me in more situations where I may be uncomfortable than my personal life, so I know I need to keep working on this.
In my personal life, I feel I need to be more responsive to the feelings of those I am close to. It is difficult to think that I may listen differently to those in the work place compared to those in my personal life. While I understand the need to conduct myself professionally in the work place, I don't feel I should be treating those closest to me differently, especially if having empathy is something that is important to them.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Communication Among Different Groups & Cultures
Do I communicate differently with people from different groups and cultures? Of course I do.
In general, I tend to speak very fast. People who know me well, and in casual conversations, this does not seem to create any problems. However, when I am speaking with people who I know do not speak fluent English, I try to slow down, enunciate my words, and provide good eye contact so I can heighten the chances of them understanding me. When I am presenting in front of a group of people, I cognitively slow down, think about my words, and change my tone at different times so they will catch the points I am trying to emphasize. There have been times that I have been presenting or in a business meeting when I get very passionate about what I am talking about and my speaking tends to naturally speed up and my volume increases. This is hard for some people because they have interpreted that to mean that I am upset. I have had to learn from this experience to be cautious of how I am speaking and to take the time to slow down.
The things I communicate to others can be different depending on whom I am talking to as well. In an article titled Interpersonal Communication and Diversity: Adapting to Others I read, "When we communicate with people who have different cultural backgrounds than our own, we tend to share less information with them than we do with people who share our cultural heritage" (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2011, p.97). I have seen this true with personal experiences of mine that are of a more spiritual nature. When I am speaking with those who I know share the same religious beliefs and values, I tend to give more details to my experience than when I am talking with those who I know do not share the same religious beliefs as myself. While I don't necessarily agree with my thinking in this aspect, it is what is comfortable for me.
I think there are times when we are more comfortable sharing greater details about an event or experience with some people than we are with others. There will always be information that I will share with my spouse or possibly other close friends or family that I would not share with others. I have noticed even after an event, like a conference I participated in or a vacation I attended, people will ask me how things went. While I may not base my answers so much on differences in culture, I may base my answers on how well I know the person or how much time I think we have, and then leave out certain aspects of my experience to match who I am talking with. I think we can all find our happy balances between information that could or should be shared with everyone, and information that should be kept between just a few individuals. I think the important thing to pay attention to is that I am not intentionally leaving information out just because someone is different than I am. Instead I should be giving the information that fits the situation and individual I am speaking with.
Reference:
Beebe, S.A., Beebe, S.J., Redmond, M.V. (2011) Interpersonal communication: relating to others (6th ed). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/bbcswebdav/institution/USW1/201520_02/MS_MECS/EDUC_6165/Week%203/Resources/Resources/embedded/beebe_ch4.pdf
In general, I tend to speak very fast. People who know me well, and in casual conversations, this does not seem to create any problems. However, when I am speaking with people who I know do not speak fluent English, I try to slow down, enunciate my words, and provide good eye contact so I can heighten the chances of them understanding me. When I am presenting in front of a group of people, I cognitively slow down, think about my words, and change my tone at different times so they will catch the points I am trying to emphasize. There have been times that I have been presenting or in a business meeting when I get very passionate about what I am talking about and my speaking tends to naturally speed up and my volume increases. This is hard for some people because they have interpreted that to mean that I am upset. I have had to learn from this experience to be cautious of how I am speaking and to take the time to slow down.
The things I communicate to others can be different depending on whom I am talking to as well. In an article titled Interpersonal Communication and Diversity: Adapting to Others I read, "When we communicate with people who have different cultural backgrounds than our own, we tend to share less information with them than we do with people who share our cultural heritage" (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2011, p.97). I have seen this true with personal experiences of mine that are of a more spiritual nature. When I am speaking with those who I know share the same religious beliefs and values, I tend to give more details to my experience than when I am talking with those who I know do not share the same religious beliefs as myself. While I don't necessarily agree with my thinking in this aspect, it is what is comfortable for me.
I think there are times when we are more comfortable sharing greater details about an event or experience with some people than we are with others. There will always be information that I will share with my spouse or possibly other close friends or family that I would not share with others. I have noticed even after an event, like a conference I participated in or a vacation I attended, people will ask me how things went. While I may not base my answers so much on differences in culture, I may base my answers on how well I know the person or how much time I think we have, and then leave out certain aspects of my experience to match who I am talking with. I think we can all find our happy balances between information that could or should be shared with everyone, and information that should be kept between just a few individuals. I think the important thing to pay attention to is that I am not intentionally leaving information out just because someone is different than I am. Instead I should be giving the information that fits the situation and individual I am speaking with.
Reference:
Beebe, S.A., Beebe, S.J., Redmond, M.V. (2011) Interpersonal communication: relating to others (6th ed). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/bbcswebdav/institution/USW1/201520_02/MS_MECS/EDUC_6165/Week%203/Resources/Resources/embedded/beebe_ch4.pdf
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Reading Non-Verbal Communication
I watched a show called Granite Flats, season 1 episode 2, a show I have never watched before.
First I watched the show without sound, attempting to read the characters non-verbal cues to how they were feeling and their relationships with one another. At the beginning you see things shake, what I would relate to as an earthquake since I grew up in southern California where we experienced many earthquakes. The scene took place on what seemed to be a military base. People ran around panicked. Families were rushing into basements, MP's and hospital staff ran to look out windows. Their facial expressions all seemed to show a look of immediate concern and many looked scared. As they looked up in the air, a black smoke cloud rose from one area in town, indicating to me this was not an earthquake.
The interactions with one another without sound made it hard to tell their relationships to one another. For instance, there was a scene with a fire truck where a man in pajamas seemed to be bossing around men in military uniforms as they put out fires and kept people from rushing into the fire. The man in pajamas seemed to be their captain or someone they knew and took orders from. However, when I watched the show again with sound, it was quite apparent that the man in pajamas was someone none of the men knew. At first contact, they tried to get him away from the scene, but the man in pajamas introduced himself as a Lieutenant. Then the men listened to him and took orders from him and they all worked together to put out the fire from where the bomb has happened.
Another interesting part about relationships was between the town sheriff and the military police and veterans hospital staff. As the town crisis happened, the scene showed the sheriff in his house with is family. He immediately moved them to the basement out of harm's way, kissed his wife and left in his police car. It showed him make a radio call from his car, expressing looks of concern and what seemed to be yelling. He arrived at the veterans hospital where he was met by the head MP and hospital staff as they watched men come in badly injured from the explosion. They chatted quickly as they looked at the injured men coming in the door and seemed to be talking about how they would be helping one another. After a few minutes, the sheriff said something which made them all chuckle and they seemed to be in lighter moods. After watching the show with sound on, I realized I had misjudged this relationship as well. There was tension between the town sheriff and military personnel. They didn't seem to get along. The sheriff was there to offer his help and support for the crisis, but the MP and hospital staff didn't seem to want him around, thought he would get in the way and interfere. With sound, you could tell their relationships were strained, but without sound, it seemed as if they were all there helping one another. The sheriff stayed in good humored spirits throughout the show, despite knowing he was not welcome while the military men spoke poorly of him and his sticking his nose in their business.
Then the third relationship that was shown in this episode was between three children, probably around ten years old; two boys and a girl. One boy, shown as the son of the sheriff at the beginning of the episode, seemed to always be smiling and excited. Even when the shaking happened and all rushed to the basement, he was smiling and asking something. Even with the sound on, this crisis seemed to give him excitement instead of scared. The other boy's mother was one of the nurses at the hospital. When we watched the show without sound it showed her looking in her son's room right after the incident, not seeing him there and then rushing to the hospital and talking with a man who seemed to be her supervisor. I assumed she had asked him if she could go find her son instead of working. He asked her something, then shook his head no and went inside, leaving her standing outside contemplating whatever he said. When I watched the show with sound however, she really ran up and asked him what she could do to help and if she was needed in a certain spot. He actually inquired about her son and if she needed to get back with him, but she insisted he was fine and she was there to help. He told her what she could do and walked inside. This is opposite of the conversation I thought had taken place. This episode never introduced the family of the girl, although the kids did eat sandwiches at her home.
The relationship between these three kids was interesting. Without sound, it seemed like the sheriff's son was always happy and overly excited, not always displaying the most appropriate responses to the situations. The girl always seemed to be angry, yelling at the boys and telling them what to do. The nurse's son seemed to be caught in the middle of this and unsure how to respond. There was time the sheriff's son left the room for a moment and the girl and nurse's son talked and he started crying. Whatever the other boy said when he came back made them all laugh and it seemed he was making fun of him for crying. When I watched it with sound, I realized I had guessed the relationship between these three kids all wrong. The nurse and her son had just moved into town and these three kids had been assigned to do a science project together at school in the previous episode, so this was a new formed friendship between the three kids. In the previous episode, which I had to go back and watch to make more sense out of this episode and their relationships, some kids at school were picking on one of the boys and the other boy and the girl stood up for him which also helped to form the new relationship with these kids. Although the girl did seem a little bossy even with the sound on, I realized had dramatically misjudged the conversations between these kids.
For instance, in one scene she walks in the bedroom where the two boys were looking through a box of comic books they had pulled out from under the bed. She came in with her arms crossed and her brows furrowed and said something to them. They looked at her and then at each other and put the box of comic books away. It had seemed as if she had told them to put it away, but when I watched it with sound, she actually was showing her disapproval that she had been helping the boy's sister in the kitchen because she didn't like cooking. Then she was expressing concern of what had taken place and indicated this was something other than what people in town were saying it was. The boys were intrigued and put them away to come over and talk about it. What seemed like a conversation where the sheriff's boy was putting together a plot to go investigate and she was saying no and they turned to the other boy for his opinion, really ended up being quite different. She had proposed an original plan, they argued only over the best way to accomplish that plan, and did ask the third boy for his advice.
While there were many other relationships and incidences which happened in this show, including one man who had to tell a wife her husband had died and he got slapped, and then it showed a strained relationship between him and his son and he seemed to look to the sky and curse God often, I realized that without sound, I misjudged quite a bit of the show. I had assumed people were in relationships that they were not. I had thought some looks of concern were for one thing, but they turned out to be something entirely different. The plot was very different than I had guessed. At first, I related the shaking to an earthquake, something I was very familiar with from my own life experiences, but through the show it went from missile attack to bombs and then the unknown. There was thought it was from terrorists, then spies, to local town people.
In general, I learned that if all you do is read the non-verbal cues, you can misjudge often what is really happening. I related this experience for me as if I was watching a conversation taking place from across the room. Not being able to hear what others are saying but just watching them, one can assume they are talking about certain things, but they could be talking about something entirely different. Another difference watching people in person however, is my relationship with them or what I know about them. Watching a new show and choosing something other than the first episode made it hard to understand the relationships between the people. Had I seen even the first episode of this show before watching it without sound, I would have known some of the characters, know about the new formed relationships, the strain between the sheriff and military, and the new faces that were introduced in this show. I think it would have been easier to guess conversations or things that were taking place had I been more familiar with the characters of the show. Overall, a fun experiment to watching non-verbal cues in others.
First I watched the show without sound, attempting to read the characters non-verbal cues to how they were feeling and their relationships with one another. At the beginning you see things shake, what I would relate to as an earthquake since I grew up in southern California where we experienced many earthquakes. The scene took place on what seemed to be a military base. People ran around panicked. Families were rushing into basements, MP's and hospital staff ran to look out windows. Their facial expressions all seemed to show a look of immediate concern and many looked scared. As they looked up in the air, a black smoke cloud rose from one area in town, indicating to me this was not an earthquake.
The interactions with one another without sound made it hard to tell their relationships to one another. For instance, there was a scene with a fire truck where a man in pajamas seemed to be bossing around men in military uniforms as they put out fires and kept people from rushing into the fire. The man in pajamas seemed to be their captain or someone they knew and took orders from. However, when I watched the show again with sound, it was quite apparent that the man in pajamas was someone none of the men knew. At first contact, they tried to get him away from the scene, but the man in pajamas introduced himself as a Lieutenant. Then the men listened to him and took orders from him and they all worked together to put out the fire from where the bomb has happened.
Another interesting part about relationships was between the town sheriff and the military police and veterans hospital staff. As the town crisis happened, the scene showed the sheriff in his house with is family. He immediately moved them to the basement out of harm's way, kissed his wife and left in his police car. It showed him make a radio call from his car, expressing looks of concern and what seemed to be yelling. He arrived at the veterans hospital where he was met by the head MP and hospital staff as they watched men come in badly injured from the explosion. They chatted quickly as they looked at the injured men coming in the door and seemed to be talking about how they would be helping one another. After a few minutes, the sheriff said something which made them all chuckle and they seemed to be in lighter moods. After watching the show with sound on, I realized I had misjudged this relationship as well. There was tension between the town sheriff and military personnel. They didn't seem to get along. The sheriff was there to offer his help and support for the crisis, but the MP and hospital staff didn't seem to want him around, thought he would get in the way and interfere. With sound, you could tell their relationships were strained, but without sound, it seemed as if they were all there helping one another. The sheriff stayed in good humored spirits throughout the show, despite knowing he was not welcome while the military men spoke poorly of him and his sticking his nose in their business.
Then the third relationship that was shown in this episode was between three children, probably around ten years old; two boys and a girl. One boy, shown as the son of the sheriff at the beginning of the episode, seemed to always be smiling and excited. Even when the shaking happened and all rushed to the basement, he was smiling and asking something. Even with the sound on, this crisis seemed to give him excitement instead of scared. The other boy's mother was one of the nurses at the hospital. When we watched the show without sound it showed her looking in her son's room right after the incident, not seeing him there and then rushing to the hospital and talking with a man who seemed to be her supervisor. I assumed she had asked him if she could go find her son instead of working. He asked her something, then shook his head no and went inside, leaving her standing outside contemplating whatever he said. When I watched the show with sound however, she really ran up and asked him what she could do to help and if she was needed in a certain spot. He actually inquired about her son and if she needed to get back with him, but she insisted he was fine and she was there to help. He told her what she could do and walked inside. This is opposite of the conversation I thought had taken place. This episode never introduced the family of the girl, although the kids did eat sandwiches at her home.
The relationship between these three kids was interesting. Without sound, it seemed like the sheriff's son was always happy and overly excited, not always displaying the most appropriate responses to the situations. The girl always seemed to be angry, yelling at the boys and telling them what to do. The nurse's son seemed to be caught in the middle of this and unsure how to respond. There was time the sheriff's son left the room for a moment and the girl and nurse's son talked and he started crying. Whatever the other boy said when he came back made them all laugh and it seemed he was making fun of him for crying. When I watched it with sound, I realized I had guessed the relationship between these three kids all wrong. The nurse and her son had just moved into town and these three kids had been assigned to do a science project together at school in the previous episode, so this was a new formed friendship between the three kids. In the previous episode, which I had to go back and watch to make more sense out of this episode and their relationships, some kids at school were picking on one of the boys and the other boy and the girl stood up for him which also helped to form the new relationship with these kids. Although the girl did seem a little bossy even with the sound on, I realized had dramatically misjudged the conversations between these kids.
For instance, in one scene she walks in the bedroom where the two boys were looking through a box of comic books they had pulled out from under the bed. She came in with her arms crossed and her brows furrowed and said something to them. They looked at her and then at each other and put the box of comic books away. It had seemed as if she had told them to put it away, but when I watched it with sound, she actually was showing her disapproval that she had been helping the boy's sister in the kitchen because she didn't like cooking. Then she was expressing concern of what had taken place and indicated this was something other than what people in town were saying it was. The boys were intrigued and put them away to come over and talk about it. What seemed like a conversation where the sheriff's boy was putting together a plot to go investigate and she was saying no and they turned to the other boy for his opinion, really ended up being quite different. She had proposed an original plan, they argued only over the best way to accomplish that plan, and did ask the third boy for his advice.
While there were many other relationships and incidences which happened in this show, including one man who had to tell a wife her husband had died and he got slapped, and then it showed a strained relationship between him and his son and he seemed to look to the sky and curse God often, I realized that without sound, I misjudged quite a bit of the show. I had assumed people were in relationships that they were not. I had thought some looks of concern were for one thing, but they turned out to be something entirely different. The plot was very different than I had guessed. At first, I related the shaking to an earthquake, something I was very familiar with from my own life experiences, but through the show it went from missile attack to bombs and then the unknown. There was thought it was from terrorists, then spies, to local town people.
In general, I learned that if all you do is read the non-verbal cues, you can misjudge often what is really happening. I related this experience for me as if I was watching a conversation taking place from across the room. Not being able to hear what others are saying but just watching them, one can assume they are talking about certain things, but they could be talking about something entirely different. Another difference watching people in person however, is my relationship with them or what I know about them. Watching a new show and choosing something other than the first episode made it hard to understand the relationships between the people. Had I seen even the first episode of this show before watching it without sound, I would have known some of the characters, know about the new formed relationships, the strain between the sheriff and military, and the new faces that were introduced in this show. I think it would have been easier to guess conversations or things that were taking place had I been more familiar with the characters of the show. Overall, a fun experiment to watching non-verbal cues in others.
Saturday, September 6, 2014
A good communicator
A great communicator can sometimes be the person who listens so well that I can solve my own problems just by talking with them.
Not too long ago I felt the despair that accompanies anxiety. Things just didn't feel right in my head and I couldn't shake it. Things I normally cared about had no meaning to me and my motivations to accomplish my tasks were fogged. I was in a daze.
I agreed to see a counselor. He listened intently, he showed compassion and care, and he let me talk. It was more than just giving me eye contact, he seemed relaxed, genuinely interested, not hurried or rushed, and that he cared. I felt I could trust him and learn from him. He asked clarifying questions, or questions that made me think and talk through the answers. He was knowledgeable about my situation and offered small pieces of advice when the time was right, advice that once again, made me stop and think; advice that sometimes resolved my own problems and perceptions. He never interrupted me and when he spoke, it was with a calm confidence and peace, without judging me. While he made it clear that I could never be wrong in what I was saying because it was my opinion, he appropriately challenged my perceptions and offered possible alternative thoughts to consider.
He showed me a great example of an effective communicator. I never felt like he knew what he was going to say to me before I came in, but he listened well enough each week to know what I needed to hear. I think this is what Stephen Covey meant when he said that it was more important to listen to understand the other person rather than coming up with a way to reply and thinking of what you will say when they stop talking.
I think if I could learn to have the patience and ability to model some of these characteristics in my professional position, I would be a much better leader.
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