Paper Example: Enhancing Communication Skills for Academic and Professional Success

Introduction

Communication is an essential process that makes it easy for individuals to pass ideas from one person to another. Both academic and professional development rely significantly on our ability to communicate our views to one another. Students get different grades in the same paper because they have different abilities to deliver the points to the examiners. When employers interview candidates for a particular position, they mainly look at how effectively the applicants can communicate. Those who can communicate most effectively have a high chance of improving in their fields.

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Whether the communication is in verbal, non-verbal, or written form, its effectiveness is crucial. Excellent communication skills bring about the traits that most employers look at when recruiting workers. An excellent communicator will always be able to socialize well with other workers, and therefore it is easy for them to embrace teamwork. Additionally, people who can communicate effectively are also excellent problem solvers. In our workplace, communication makes it easy to solve issues that may arise between other employees and us. Therefore, when one is an excellent communicator, they have a high chance of growing in academics and professions. Through communication class, I have learned some useful elements of organizational communication. My most appealing insights from the study are the importance of effective corporate communication, face-to-face communication, and excellent listening skills.

Communication in the Workplace

Organizational communication effectiveness has remained essential even in the modern world where there are fast means of sending messages. For effective internal communication, there is a need to avoid all issues that might lead to unclear communication between the employees and the management. Where communication in the organization is useful, it is easy for the organization to succeed. An effective communication system in an organization makes workers remain happy (Chmielecki, 2015). acquiring knowledge of important internal communication has caused me to grow in my profession since I can now secure jobs with ease. I am now ready to prove my professionalism when seeking employment.

Chmielecki further added that effective internal communication is an essential element of management. It is an internal communication that makes it easy for employees to understand the organization's goals and objectives and, therefore, makes them more productive (Chmielecki, 2015). Employees who can get information from their employers are practically motivated and generate the best results. Learning the importance of effective internal communication for effective human resource management has improved my communication skills.

Effective communication in an organization builds and develops a good relationship among the members of staff. When communication is effective, employee motivation significantly becomes possible (Chmielecki, 2015). The strong bond that effective communication builds within the organization is helpful as it makes it easy for leaders to achieve labor retention. The employees also have the role of making internal communication effective. This knowledge has instilled the desire to increase my ability to communicate with other parties.

Organizations need to use a communication channel that delivers the message fast, most efficiently, and in the right form. Although emails and instant messaging interfaces seem to be fast, cheap, and comfortable, face-to-face conversation remains the most effective. Effective use of face-to-face communication makes it easy to build a robust interpersonal relationship between the employer and employees.

One-on-one verbal communication allows the use of both voice and body language to enhance the message and therefore makes the communication effective. It is only through face-to-face communication that it is easy to conclude without misunderstandings and minimum effort (Guffey & Loewy, 2016). This means of communication also allows members of an organization to solve any conflicts that might have arisen. The use of face-to-face communication has made me able to communicate my views effectively with other employees, making me improve professionally.

Face-to-face communication also makes the conversation to be more appealing to the receiver by using voice tools. The voice tools that aid communication include proper pronunciation, voice quality, volume and speech rate, pitch, and emphasis. When we say words correctly, we make our audience to understand the message that we intended. Face-to-face audio communication also makes it easy for speakers to use a voice that is appealing to our audience. The frequency of our voice messages makes the messages to be clear and easy to understand. My ability to communicate with my employers and other workers has dramatically improved since I learned how to make verbal communication more appealing.

Effective communication in an organization also involves excellent listening skills. While paying attention to people who are addressing us, we can get the message. Proper listening skills consist of making sure that we listen without interrupting those who are talking. Excellent listening skills also involve trying to establish the intention of the person who is speaking. At the same time, excellent listening skills means accepting what others are telling us. Although we may differ with the message that we are getting from the other parties, it is essential to present our differences in a suitable way. Interpreting what other people informed us by trying to put the message, in other words, makes us understand the message better. At the same time, we can seek clarification where the news is not definite.

Through proper listening, it is easy for employees to understand the messages that the management and other employees are passing to them. The administration can perform the primary function of performance evaluation if they use practical listening skills. As a professional, I can communicate my needs and those of my area of work to my seniors. At the same time, effective communication makes me understand the messages that they pass. The ability to listen effectively, which I learned through communication class is also beneficial in my professional life.

Written communication can also be more productive. To achieve effectiveness in written communication, we need to make the message very clear. When using emails and letters in an organization, the management should be apparent since it may not be easy to clarify the messages (Meikle, 2012). Additionally, knowing the outcome of the written communication that we use would make it more useful to send messages. Managers should, therefore, possess the crucial skill of predicting the effect that the message will have.

Another secret to effective internal communication is making written communication accessible for the reader to read and understand. Therefore, the management should not use memos with a lot of words as it may not be easy for the employees to read. Similarly, when the employees are sending emails to the management, they should avoid wordy messages.

Actions that I Will Take to Improve Communication Skills

To enhance my profession and academics, I will ensure that I make my communication skills the best. I will ensure that I listen keenly to my lecturers without interrupting them to make me succeed in my academics. Paying adequate attention to whatever my lecturers teach me will make me communicate the required exams.

To understand the messages that people pass to me, I will interpret them by paraphrasing their words. I will also make sure that I take other people's messages positively and express my differences in a polite way. The skill of receiving the messages of others would eliminate the barrier of emotional responses from the people I will communicate with. Positive communication skills would make me grow professionally by making it easy for me to work cooperatively with other employees. My ability to understand instructions that the management would give to me will make me perform my tasks with high efficiency.

I will also embrace face-to-face communication since I have learned that it is one of the most effective means of communication. The means will allow me to improve my ability to pass messages by using face-to-face communication effectively. I will, therefore, be able to give my views to the top management and other employees. I would apply verbal communication cues like pitch, suitable volume, quality of the voice, correct pronunciations, and emphasizing some points.

For more effective use of written communication, I have learned that it is essential to make the message clear and easy to understand. Therefore, I will make sure that whenever I write my exams, I use a clear language to improve my academic performance. For professional growth, I would ensure that while communicating with fellow employees and my seniors, I will use clear, written language. For instance, when using a text message, I will always ensure that I avoid using words that are too hard for the recipient to understand. Communicating with my seniors will also be easy because I will be using simple language.

Effective communication is essential and involves making both verbal and written communication easy to understand. Both professional and academic development rely on the communication skills that one learns and applies. Verbal face-to-face communication is the most effective means of communication and helps to send messages to various audiences. However, the audio-facial interface usually gets better when we use both verbal and non-verbal cues. Written communication also can become better if the parties who are discussing apply the right mechanism.

References

Chmielecki, M. (2015). Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Internal Communication. Management and Business Administration, Central Europe, 23(2), 24–38. https://doi.org/10.7206/mba.ce.2084-3356.139

Guffey, M., & LOEWY, D. (2016). Essentials of business communication (Vol. 11). Cengage Learning-Australia.

Meikle, G. (2012). How To Make Your Written Communication More Effective. Fresh Business Thinking. https://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/how-to-make-your-written-communication-more-effective/.