Communication Evaluations

           

This week’s assignment was eye opening and a little surprising. I learned that I am not as strong a listener as I thought I was. Through these evaluations I learned that I listen differently depending in the area of my life that I am in. When I am at work I am very time oriented and consider my time to be very precious. I do not have time for dilly dallying and playing games. I come across as wanting people to state their needs and move on while with my friends I am a little less controlling I am still unnecessarily harsh and can be insensitive to others needs. All this time I thought that I was a good, people oriented listener who took the time to consider others and their feelings but my friend and colleague did not feel the same way. In all other aspects of communication my scores were very similar to theirs and if they varied it was only by a point or two. I am fair and not aggressive when listening to others and I do not force my opinions and views on others while still being able to share them freely. These scores did show that I can be a little anxious when speaking to large groups which is something that I am aware of and work at fixing every day. Other than my listening skills all other assessment results were just as I expected they would be.

Through this week’s assignment I have learned that listening is just as important as speaking while communicating with others. If I do not hear and consider the point that someone else is making then I cannot communicate my opinion of their idea effectively. This is important because while working with children and families I have to be able to listen to how the parents want their children to be raised and how they want them to learn. If I do not pay attention to this then I will have unhappy parents and could cause for a highly stressful classroom with a lot of animosity and unhappiness. 

Communicating with others

         

           I have spent this week analyzing the ways that I communicate and how I am affected by the way different people communicate with me and I realize that I do communicate with different people differently. I noticed that while working with a woman who has less of an education than I do that I tend to speak to her differently. It isn’t that I treat her as uneducated but she doesn’t always understand terms or concepts because she lives a simpler life so I will usually simplify my thoughts so that she will easily understand them. I never realized that I did this until this week and I do not mean to behave this way but my friend does not seem to mind. I truly believe that changing the way that I speak with her would be harmful to our relationship because she is always making negative comments about people who use words that are too big for her and them trying to make her feel stupid.

            This coworker and friend is not the only person that I treat this way. When I am working with people who I know have the same or a similar education as I do I will speak with them as an equal. Throughout the week I noticed that the way I communicated with a person depended on who the person was and what the context of the communication was. I catered to the other person’s needs while having a conversation with them which would be similar to the Platinum Rule of treating others the way that they would like to be treated. While my intention is not to treat some people as unintelligent I believe that it is important to not make myself appear to be better than or smarter than them either.

            When speaking with others I think it is important o consider where they come from and how they will get the most out of your communication efforts. I also believe that it is important to make them feel like they are an equal in the conversation and have value to add to what is being discussed. And finally, I believe that no matter who the person is and what they have to say it is important to listen to what the other person has to say and validate that person’s opinion. Doing these things will allow the other person to feel like they are an important part of the communication process and help them to open up and communicate more effectively. 

Communication Skills

While viewing the children’s show Suite Life on Deck with my daughter I first watched it without sound and to me that was an interesting experience. Trying to determine who was and wasn’t friends was difficult. I found myself really trying to read lips to determine the context of relationships. After viewing the show with sound I realized that in some cases when I thought people were trying to be helpful and kind I completely misread the scenes and there was some form of mischief underway. The kids, while playing nice with each other through the scenes were really saying some sarcastic things to each other. Also noted was the way the parent spoke to the boys. In the silent video it looked like she was being loving because she was always smiling at them and hugging them but she really was saying not nice stuff to them and yelling at them a lot you just didn’t notice that by glancing at them because she did it all with a smile and a hug.

            One thing that I realized through this exercise is that while body language is important it is also important to have the ability to listen. This is important because if you do not listen then you may view something out of context and misunderstand what you are viewing. Communicators MUST be strong listeners to ensure proper communication. If we do not learn how to effectively listen to others than we will have trouble helping others get the things that they need. 

          

  One person who has demonstrated competent communication skills is the Pastor at my church. One reason why he is extremely effective at what he does is because he makes sure that he is up to date and educated in what he is talking about. If Pastor Keith is talking about something everyone knows that he is taking about the most current issues and he has the most accurate knowledge of the subject at hand. Something else that he does well is engage his listeners. Pastor Keith is very good at involving his audience in conversation regarding the subject that he speaking on and allowing them to way in and discuss their opinions and he can do all of this while never getting off topic. He is good at facilitating a two way conversation while still getting his point across. If there was anything that I would like to learn from him it would be how to be a good facilitator. I know how to research a topic and communicate what I have learned but I tend to have trouble keeping the conversation on track when I am facilitating a group conversation. It seems that I let the conversation get away from me and tend to let others take over so I would want to learn his skills for controlling an audience and still allowing them to feel like they are a part of the conversation.