Essay Sample on Organizational Communication Strategies and Practices Application

Effective communication is essential for the success of organizations. Organizational communication is essential for motivating employees, enhances socialization to exchange ideas, plays a critical role in decision-making, conveying organizational goals and objectives to all stakeholders, and acts to control individuals' behavior (Lewis, 2019). This essay will discuss the three most valuable insights gained into organizational communication practices and strategies, their assessment, and an action plan for applying each insight to enhance my academic and professional effectiveness.

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Developing Strong Communication Skills

Communication skills refer to sharing and conveying ideas and feelings effectively (Lewis, 2019). When competition is stiff, superior communication skills will give you an edge over other job applicants (Guffey et al., 2019). Guffey et al. (2019) said that employers rank strong communication skills among the first top-five qualities in evaluating job-seekers after problem-solving skills and teamwork. She stressed that superior communication will make one marketable on the job market even during difficult economic times. Good written and verbal communication skills are essential in delivering your messages and understanding information fast, increasing your ability to get promoted at the workplace. These pronouncements stress the importance of sharpening your communication skills, especially in the contemporary digital age, where there is a big job applicant pool.

Essentially, there are three basic forms of communication, verbal, written, and non-verbal. Verbal communication is by way of speech. Written communication is through texts, whereas non-verbal communication includes posture, eye contact, elimination of barriers, and probing more information by reading body language and facial expressions. Guffey et al. (2019) asserted that it is important to be time-oriented in our communication, assess the audience's culture, and use non-verbal communication that could outweigh written and verbal communication in depicting the kind of person we are at the workplace. These considerations will make us effective in communicating.

Assessment of Communication Skills

Strong communication skills are important for my academic and professional success. For instance, appreciating my classmates' different cultural values and interpreting their body language and facial expression will enable me to consult and exchange ideas with them effectively in my coursework. Having good oral speaking skills can enable me to appropriately ask my instructors and lecturers questions. Furthermore, mastering the right writing skills such as correct grammar and use of vocabulary will enable me to pass my examinations. Besides, assessing my future boss's and work colleagues' body language and facial expressions will be vital in understanding their needs and expectations of me. This understanding will essentially help in following task procedures and instructions to the latter in my future workplace. Moreover, the understanding will make me create a good rapport will my colleagues, thereby improving my ability to work in teams to achieve set organizational goals and objectives.

These insights have influenced me to change my behavior and thinking immensely. I have stopped judging people because of how they speak, appreciating that their cultural background may have influenced their communication. I have also learned that it is important to adopt the right posture, make eye contact, and read my instructors' and lecturers' body language and facial expressions to understand what I'm being taught effectively.

Communication Skills Action Plan

Due to the importance of these strong communication skills, I have resorted to reading various books to sharpen my grammar and communication skills essential in asking questions rightly in class and answering examination questions. I have also resorted to always making eye contact with my lecturers to improve my attentiveness, sitting upright during class sessions to increase my attention span, and reading my lecturers' and course instructors' body language and facial expressions to understand the concepts they teach in class effectively.

Developing Listening Skills

Listening is the capability of accurately receiving and interpreting communication content. Therefore, listening is vital in understanding messages and communication (Eisenberg et al., 2017). Guffey et al. (2019) said that listening is essential for employee satisfaction, career success, and organizational effectiveness. However, according to some researchers, we listen at approximately 25 to 50 percent efficiency (Guffey et al., 2019). This low percentage is unwarranted, especially in this digital age of communication, where listening skills are vital for workplace relationships and business, negotiating contracts, writing messages, and rescheduling appointments. Besides, recruiters are always looking for good listeners to employ them as managers since listening is a key aspect of leadership necessary to analyze situations and make decisions. To develop listening skills, we must first overcome effective listening barriers before developing listening skills (Guffey et al., 2019). Such barriers include physical barriers (e.g., noisy surroundings), psychological barriers (e.g., contrasting ideas, values, and knowledge), language problems such as unfamiliar words, non-verbal distractors such as unusual clothing, and faking attention.

Furthermore, active and attentive listening is a skill and art requiring one's self-control, knowledge of what is required in becoming an effective listener, ignoring your feelings and needs, and paying special attention to the speaker. In an organization at the workplace, active and attentive listening is essential for resolving workplace conflicts by actively listening to the conflicting parties, encourages communication of new ideas, reduces attrition rates, promotes teamwork, and improves morale to attain set organization targets.

Listening Skills Assessment

Listening skills are invaluable to both my academic and professional success in several ways. Active and attentive listening are important in developing mindful thinking, which would reduce depression and anxiety in me. It is also important in establishing good relationships with fellow student peers since actively listening to them would make them view me as interested in what they say and open. Besides, attentive and active listening is vital when writing notes during my lecture sessions as it enables me to jot down exactly what the lecturer says without distortion. Moreover, listening enables me to empathize with peer students and instructors, thereby appreciating whatever they say.

Additionally, good listening skills will enable me to understand better the tasks I will be given at my future workplace, follow the management's instructions to the latter, and build a friendship with workmates. These listening skills will lead to positive performance appraisal by management and eventual promotion to higher ranks and exchanging ideas with workmates for better task performance.

As a result, I have changed my behavior and thinking to integrate the listening skills into my learning. I will look out for barriers to listening the learning institution and eliminate them. I will also ignore my feelings, ideas, knowledge, unusual speaker clothing, and non-verbal cues to avoid bias. Furthermore, I will listen to the speaker and non-verbal distractors to enhance my listening to course content delivered in lectures to improve my academic performance.

Listening Skills Action Plan

I will adopt the right postures, make eye contact, avoid bias by ignoring the speaker's clothing, identify and eliminate barriers in lectures such as noisy students. Furthermore, I will always ignore my existing knowledge and ideas when being taught subjects that I am familiar with, whether at the workplace or in school. My desired outcome will be a good relationship with tutors, students, and accurate writing of notes to improve my academic performance.

Learning Nonverbal Communication Skills

Non-verbal communication is the conveyance of messages or information through non-verbal elements like facial expressions, body language, eye contact, posture, and gestures. This communication entails all unwritten and unspoken messages, regardless of being intended or not. These kinds of messages have a significant impact on the recipient (Guffey et al., 2019). Non-verbal cues also include time, territory, space, appearance, and body movements. The cues affect the recipients' interpretation of the message. The eyes usually reveal the recipient's emotions; facial expressions reveal emotions and feelings, postures such as leaning towards the speaker show that a listener is attentive and interested in the topic, and gestures depict the speaker's thoughts through simple movements of the hand or part of the body. Besides, how we utilize time depicts our personality, our ordering space around us reveals our intentions, and marking our territories communicates privacy (Guffey et al., 2019). Moreover, our appearance in the way we dress depicts, groom, and posture reflect our status, personality, credibility, and potential.

Non-Verbal Communication Skills Assessment

Non-verbal communication cues are very important for my academic and professional success. For instance, I would raise my hand in class to inform the tutor that I have a point to raise or a question to ask, enabling me to understand course concepts better. Besides, my dressing and grooming before an interview panel would tell them about my personality, show my seriousness and potential, thereby being key in determining if they could consider me for the job applied. Additionally, if I decide to isolate myself in a particular corner and read a book, it would send a message that I don't want disturbance or distraction from fellow students. This message would, in turn, give me a peaceful and quiet environment to study. Besides, I might use gestures to acknowledge receipt of something, indicate to a work colleague that I need assistance with something, or indicate that I need them to come over to where I am, to enhance cooperation and teamwork for organizational success.

Non-Verbal Communication Skills Action Plan

I will read various books that define and interpret various non-verbal cues to be conversant with them. This conversance will enable me to appropriately apply the cues in my academic learning and professional environment. My desired outcome will be understanding every non-verbal communication in the learning environment, such as lecture halls and my future workplace. This understanding, in turn, will enhance my academic performance and relationship with both management and fellow employees, resulting in promotions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the three most valuable communication strategies and practices are developing strong communication skills, developing listening skills, and learning non-verbal communication skills. These skills are vital in ensuring my academic and professional success. They improve my ability to ask questions in class and build good relationships with fellow students and future work colleagues. These skills also enhance my cooperation skills in teamwork assignments, improve my ability to follow instructions, and ultimately achieve academic and career goals.

References

Eisenberg, E. M., Trethewey, A., LeGreco, M., & Goodall, H. L. (2017). Organizational communication: balancing creativity and constraint. Bedford/St Martin's.

Guffey, M. E., Loewy, D., & Almonte, R. (2019). Essentials of business communication.