A Reflective Essay On Communication Skills: Analysis And Action Plan

Diagnostic Tools Used to Assess Communication Skills

This is a reflective essay which contains a detailed analysis of my communication skills with the help of five diagnostic tools. These tools are Self-Perceived Communication Competence Scale, Nonverbal Immediacy Scale Self Report, Personal Report of Intercultural Communication Apprehension, and Talkaholic scale and Tolerance for Disagreement scale. The two issues identified in this paper are tolerance for disagreement and the intercultural communication apprehension. Moreover, this paper will discuss these issues in detail with the help of literature review. Furthermore, the paper will also review an action plan which comprises of a detailed timeline and activities used to overcome these issues.    

To assess the effectiveness of my communication skills in different situations, I have used five diagnostic tools. The first tool used is the Self-Perceived Communication Competence Scale, which indicates the self-perception of communication skills of a person. This scale comprises a series of questions to assess the communicative competence of an individual in various situations. According to this scale, communication competence varies from person to person and from situation to situation. The second tool used by me is Nonverbal Immediacy Scale Self Report. Nonverbal immediacy is defined as the behavior which generates positive feelings towards another person. This includes behaviors like eye contact, physical gestures, body positioning and facial expressions etc. The third tool was Personal Report of Intercultural Communication Apprehension. This scale measures the communication apprehension of a person while communicating with people from other culture.  Intercultural comprehension is considered as a part of communication apprehension. The fourth tool was Talkaholic scale, which measures the communication compulsiveness of a person. According to this scale, some people are unable to remain quiet in some situations. The fifth tool was the scale of Tolerance for Disagreement, which is used to measure the extent to which a person can tolerate disagreement with another person.   

These tools have helped me to understand the strengths and weaknesses of my communication skills in various situations and across an array of receivers. I am able to understand my communication preferences with the help of these tools. In the scale of Self-Perceived Communication Competence Scale, 0 is the score given to complete incompetence and 100 is given for complete competence.  I have scored myself a 70 on the competence of talking to strangers.  I am most comfortable while talking to a friend.  I think that I get nervous while communicating with strangers in a meeting.  I am moderately comfortable while speaking with acquaintances or a group of acquaintances.  For this reason, I have given myself a sub-score of 76 in the communication context of meeting and 98 in friend context. My total score SPCC score is 82 which can be defined as moderate competence score.  I feel nervous while talking to strangers especially in a large meeting. The results of this scale are accurate and I agree with the results. I think I need to improve my communication skills in order to improve my professional career within an organization. I think I need to improve my communication skills so that I can express my opinions clearly in front of a large group of strangers.  

Analysis of Communication Skills with the Help of Diagnostic Tools

The nonverbal immediacy of a person includes behaviors like gestures, body language, facial expression and other nonverbal communication skills. These behaviors play a significant role in signaling positive emotions towards a person. Nonverbal immediacy scale measures how a person behaves while talking to others.  According to this scale, I use my hands and arms to gesture while talking to other people.  I am able to maintain eye contact and a relaxed body position while talking to others. I try to avoid using a monotonous voice while speaking to them. However, I am not able to display any facial expression while communicating with people. In some occasions, I have a tendency to become stiff while communicating with other people. I also have a tendency to frown at people while speaking to them.  I also avoid touching people while communicating with them. I also have a tendency to move away when others touch me while communicating with me. In some cases, I tend to move towards the people while communicating with them. In order to create a positive vibe, I occasionally smile while talking to people. The total score I got from this scale is 84, which means I have a moderate level of nonverbal immediacy.

The third tool used by me to evaluate apprehension in my communication skills is Personal Report of Intercultural Communication or PRICA. It is designed to measure communication apprehension of a person while communicating with people from other culture. I do not have any problem while speaking with people from other culture. According to the results of this scale, occasionally I become very nervous and while conversing with people from different culture. However, I like to get involved in group discussions with people from culture. Sometimes I feel nervous while talking to people from different culture. Agreeing with the results, I think I need to work on my interpersonal communication skills.  I have gained the score of 38, which means I have moderate intercultural communication apprehension. Agreeing with the results I think I need to improve my communication skills so that I can interact with people from different cultures.  I think it will help me to advance my professional career within the organization.  I perceive myself in need of developing my communication skills and overcome my nervousness while speaking with people from different culture.  

The fourth tool was the Talkaholic Scale, which measures the compulsiveness of a person to communicate in various situations.  I perceive myself as not a talker, I have a tendency to rarely communicate in favorable situations. According to the scores of this scale, I am not a talkaholic. However, I have a tendency to talk in some situations where it will be best to remain quiet.  I do not have a tendency to talk more than what is necessary.  I have obtained the score of 19 in this scale, which means I am not a compulsive talker. Sometimes, I find myself unable to remain quiet in some situations, even if it is for my own benefit. Due to this reason, the effectiveness of my communication skills gets hampered.  The fifth tool which I have used to evaluate the effectiveness of my communication skills is Tolerance for Disagreement Scale. This scale measures the degree up to which a person can tolerate another person disagreeing with their personal beliefs and opinions.  I agree that I do not like to be in situations where there is a lot of disagreement.  However, I think disagreement plays a significant role in stimulating a conversation.

Identification of Issues

I also concur that disagreement allows me to communicate with others in a much effective way. I am undecided about whether I like to prefer to work individually or in a group. I do not tend to create disagreement in a group.  I have gained a score of 43 which is determined to be a moderate score for tolerance for disagreement.  Agreeing with the results of these questions, I think I need to improve my level of tolerance from moderate to high. I perceive that increasing my tolerance for disagreement will allow me to develop my professional career and it will also help me in my personal life as well. With the help of these diagnostic tools, I have identified the two issues in my communication skills. These issues are moderate tolerance for disagreement and intercultural apprehension. I feel very nervous while talking to people from other cultures. I think I need to work on my interpersonal communication skills to overcome this issue. I do not perceive myself as a person stimulating a disagreement with another person.  I have a tendency to change the topic of the conversation whenever there is a disagreement. I think I need to improve my communication skills and improve my tolerance for disagreement. I understand that it is not possible for every person to agree to the same notion of a person.

I think it will be beneficial for me to increase the effectiveness of my business communication skills. A person has to interact with people from different cultures within an organization on a daily basis. So in order to increase my credibility within the business organization, I need to work on my communication apprehension. I should be able to work with people from different cultures without any nervousness. While working in a group, it is not possible for every member to agree to the same idea or topic. Some of them will disagree with the idea of a person.  Conflicts will arise within the team if I am not able to tolerate the disagreement of other people. However, I think disagreement within a business organization is inevitable in every aspect of a business organization, especially in decision-making process of the organization. In order to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of a business organization, the members of the organization must find a suitable communication channel. It is also needed to avoid conflict within the organization. By developing my communication skills, I will be able to manage conflicts within the organization as well. In order to increase my efficiency as a business professional, I need to understand how to manage conflicts within the organization. Proper management of conflict will help the organization to maintain their efficiency and effectiveness of the organization. I think I need to improve these issues so that I can build credibility within the organization.  It will also allow me to increase my professional efficiency as I will be able to present my views to people from various cultures as well.    

Literature Review

I would like to reflect on the issue of cultural apprehension with the help of a particular example. I have encountered intercultural communication apprehension while working at Australian IT firm six months ago. I was working as a team leader in the organization, and our team has to develop a project for an international client. During that time, I was unable to present my idea to the client who is from a different culture.  I was unable to communicate effectively with them due to my intercultural communication apprehension. I was prepared to give the presentation and express my ideas to them, but I was unable to do so. I would like to present another example which is related to the issue of tolerance for disagreement. Nearly, eight months ago, while working at the same firm, I have encountered this issue.  I have some disagreements regarding the project idea with my team members within the organization.  However, I was not able to tolerate their disagreements for a long time, thus, it has led to conflict between myself and my team. Due to my inability to tolerate disagreement and handle conflict effectively, the performance of my team suffered to a great extent.

According to McCroskey, (2015), communication apprehension is defined as the fear or anxiety associated with the activity of communicating with another person. Mainly, there are four types of communication apprehension, trait anxiety, context anxiety, audience anxiety and situation anxiety (Linvill et al., 2016). In trait anxiety, a person will feel nervous regardless of the audience, situation or context. In the words of Mottet et al., (2015), context anxiety is defined when a person feels anxious due to some particular context. Audience anxiety is defined as the situation in which a person feels anxious to communicate with a particular group of an audience (Guffey & Loewy, 2015). As per Neuliep, (2017), situational anxiety is defined as a situation in which a person may feel nervous to communicate in a particular situation irrespective of the audience or the context. The two issues which have been identified by me are a moderate level of intercultural communication apprehension and tolerance of disagreement. In the words of Shi et al., (2015), intercultural communication apprehension is considered to be a sub-category of overall communication apprehension. It is defined as the fear associated with communicating with people from different cultures (MacIntyre, 2017). In the opinions of Petry, (2016), an individual can experience anxiety while communicating with people from another cultural group. This anxiety may develop within a person from the fear of being rejected or embarrassed within the workplace (Certo, 2018).  Due to increase in the intercultural communication apprehension a person may not want to interact with people from another group. These individuals may want to leave the place to avoid any incidents of discomfort.     

Action Plan to Overcome the Issues

This apprehension can affect the behavior of a person in a negative way, as the people experiencing this anxiety will leave the place to avoid any emotional discomfort. A certain level of uncertainty is always associated with intercultural communication apprehension (Jandt, 2017). It plays a significant role in developing a certain level of anxiety within some individuals while communicating with people from another intercultural background. However, this uncertainty can be reduced by following some proper steps within the organization (Piller, 2017). These steps includes initial communication with the person and understanding their personal values and beliefs. According to Oommen, (2014), both uncertainty and apprehension plays a significant role in increasing the effectiveness of the communication.  In the words of Hargie, (2016), if the level of both these factors are either too high or low, effective communication cannot occur. As per Berger, (2014), high level of apprehension will prompt the person not to engage in this type of communication within the workplace. It will increase the level of avoidance among the employees of an organization. In the opinions of Fussell & Kreuz, (2014), where avoidance will not be possible, it would lead to disinterested communication within the workplace. As per Braithwaite & Schrodt, (2014), however, lower level of intercultural communication apprehension can fail to motivate people to engage in this type of conversation in the first place. This type of communication apprehension have a significant effect on the performance level of the organization. It affects the job satisfaction of the employees in a negative way (Sorrells, 2015). People with high level of intercultural communication apprehension will not be able to find satisfaction in their job.

According to Ang & Van Dyne, (2015), intercultural communication apprehension will create a negative effect on the employee commitment towards the achievement of organizational goals. Another communication issue identified by me is the issue of tolerance for disagreement. It is defined as the measure to which a person is willing to communicate with people having different opinions about a particular idea. In the words of Wood, (2015), it is also characterized by the degree to which a person is willing to communicate with another person without getting emotional. The concept is similar to the concept of argumentativeness or conflict between groups of people. In the words of, people with high argumentativeness is more likely to face conflicts than others.  As per Koester & Lustig, (2015), conflict can be considered to be an integral component of interpersonal communication and it is directly associated with the level of tolerance for disagreement between people. Disagreements between people are most likely to occur in an organizational setting, as it is impossible for everyone to agree to the same point of view. As per Martin & Nakayama, (2015), disagreement can occur either face to face or via online modes of communication.  In the opinions of Lane, (2016), nature of disagreement can vary depending on the participants, place and the use of communication style between them.  

Conflicts between people can arise due to a variety of reasons, such as verbal and nonverbal communication, emotional communication and the style of communication used by a person. In the opinions of Keyton, (2015), several factors can have a significant effect on the efficiency of business communication skills. These factors are the expression, precision, aggression, and support while communicating with a person within a business organization. These factors also play a significant role in the perception of employees about their leaders. Any change in the perception can result in conflict between them and their leaders. They may not agree with their leaders about a particular concept, which may lead to the occurrence of a clash between them. As per Martin, (2015), as a result of this conflict, the team efficiency of the organization will be affected. In the words of (Kealey, 2015), low level of tolerance for disagreement will ultimately play a negative effect on the job satisfaction and commitment of the organization.  However, the nature of this type of conflict can be reduced within an organizational setting.  The leaders within an organization can effectively manage this conflict by employing right communication channels. By increasing the listening skills of a person, tolerance for disagreement can be developed. In the words of (Collier, 2015), it will, in turn, decrease the occurrence of conflict in the workplace. Listening to what other people have to say about a particular topic will allow the managers to avoid any conflict within the organization in the first place.                        

After identifying the issues in my communication skills, I have developed an action plan in order to overcome these issues in six months. I am maintaining a journal to keep a track of my success over these six months.  It will help me reflect on my progress and it will also help to determine my future planning. It will help me to keep a track of any other issues which may arise in the future. Thus it will help me to develop all my future plan and actions. At the end of the time, this journal will enable me to figure out if I need to work further on any other issues in my communication skills. I have also started reading some motivational books to overcome these communication issues. These books include “Tolerance among the Virtues” by John R. Bowlin and “Communication Skills: A Practical Guide to Improving Your Social Intelligence, Presentation, Persuasion and Public Speaking” by Ian Tohovsky. These books will allow me to overcome these issues. Reading these books have encouraged me to improve my communication skills and decrease the level of communication apprehension. I have also decided to join some communication courses to develop my communication skills.

These courses include both short-term courses and undergraduate courses. With the help of these courses, I am able to rectify the issues in my communication skills. These courses will allow me to improve my intercultural communication apprehension and increase my level of tolerance for disagreement. The short-term and undergraduate courses will help me to increase my confidence while speaking with people from other cultures. With the help of these courses, I will be able to express my opinions across people from a different cultural background. These courses will also help me to increase my level of tolerance and increase my effective listening skills. With the help of these courses, I will be able to address these issues at the end of six months.  Communicating with people from a different culture is considered to be an important part of the business communication process. By decreasing my cultural apprehension I will be able to express my opinions among people from different culture. It will enable me to increase my credibility and reputation in the organization. I will able to listen to the concepts of my colleagues in the organization, thus increasing my level of tolerance for disagreement in the workplace.

I have developed this reflective essay with the help of the results obtained from the five diagnostic tools. These diagnostic tools are designed for the purpose to measure the competence of a person across various situations and different array of receivers.  I have identified the issues with my communication skills, which are a moderate level of tolerance for disagreement and a moderate level of intercultural communication apprehension.  Moreover, this reflective paper also includes a literature review which focuses on these two issues. Furthermore, this reflective paper also contains an action plan which has detailed information about the activities done by me top overcome these issues.

References 

Ang, S., & Van Dyne, L. (2015). Conceptualization of cultural intelligence: Definition, distinctiveness, and nomological network. In Handbook of cultural intelligence (pp. 21-33). Routledge.

Berger, J. (2014). Word of mouth and interpersonal communication: A review and directions for future research. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 24(4), 586-607.

Braithwaite, D. O., & Schrodt, P. (Eds.). (2014). Engaging theories in interpersonal communication: Multiple perspectives. Sage Publications.

Certo, S. C. (2018). Supervision: Concepts and skill-building. McGraw-Hill Education.

Collier, M. J. (2015). Intercultural communication competence: Continuing challenges and critical directions. International journal of intercultural relations, 48, 9-11.

Fussell, S. R., & Kreuz, R. J. (2014). Social and cognitive approaches to interpersonal communication. Psychology Press.

Guffey, M. E., & Loewy, D. (2015). Essentials of business communication. Nelson Education.

Hargie, O. (2016). Skilled interpersonal communication: Research, theory, and practice. Routledge.

Jandt, F. E. (2017). An introduction to intercultural communication: Identities in a global community. Sage Publications.

Kealey, D. J. (2015). Some strengths and weaknesses of 25 years of Research on Intercultural Communication Competence: Personal Reflections. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 48, 14-16.

Keyton, J. (2015). Outcomes and the criterion problem in communication competence research. Communication competence, 585-604.

Koester, J., & Lustig, M. W. (2015). Intercultural communication competence: Theory, measurement, and application. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 48, 20-21.

Lane, S. D. (2016). Interpersonal communication: Competence and contexts. Routledge.

Linvill, D. L., Mazer, J. P., & Boatwright, B. C. (2016). Need for cognition as a mediating variable between aggressive communication traits and tolerance for disagreement. Communication Research Reports, 33(4), 363-369.

MacIntyre, P. D. (2017). An overview of language anxiety research and trends in its development. New insights into language anxiety: Theory, research and educational implications, 11-30.

Martin, J. N. (2015). Revisiting intercultural communication competence: Where to go from here. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 48, 6-8.

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2015). Reconsidering intercultural (communication) competence in the workplace: A dialectical approach. Language and Intercultural Communication, 15(1), 13-28.

McCroskey, J. C. (2015). Introduction to rhetorical communication. Routledge.

Mottet, T., Richmond, V. P., & McCroskey, J. C. (2015). Handbook of instructional communication: Rhetorical and relational perspectives. Routledge.

Neuliep, J. W. (2017). Intercultural Communication Apprehension. The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication.

Oommen, D. (2014). The relationships among perceptions of social support, Intercultural Communication Apprehension (ICA), and conflict management preferences in the context of cultural adaptation. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 43(3), 215-237.

Petry, A. C. (2016). Communication apprehension affects performance.

Piller, I. (2017). Intercultural communication: A critical introduction. Edinburgh University Press.

Shi, X., Brinthaupt, T. M., & McCree, M. (2015). The relationship of self-talk frequency to communication apprehension and public speaking anxiety. Personality and Individual Differences, 75, 125-129.

Sorrells, K. (2015). Intercultural communication: Globalization and social justice. Sage publications.

Wood, J. T. (2015). Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters. Nelson Education.

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