Interpersonal Communication Skills

Working in the industry of IT, people communicating across the globe is something that is highly likely, recognising other people’s backgrounds and their culture is important to do. Having different religious beliefs require some people to leave during the work hours to practice. This is a cultural difference and can therefore affect communication between some people, hence why businesses and individuals need to recognise this. While time away is necessary companies will need to be able to find a way of communication. When communicating with people from different backgrounds people need to consider how audiences reacts to the way a person speaks. Signs or words may have different meanings in some cultures. Being aware of the issues has to be done by the person that is attempting to communicate as something may be said or done that could be misunderstood and thus the audience could find it offensive. The addresser is allowed to change gestures or words to make it more suitable for the audience by knowing the words or symbols that are banned by the audience’s culture.

Adapting

It is important being able to understand the audience’s background because it permits the addresser to adapt to be able to suit the audience that they are addressing. The audience is dependent on the way a person communicates – whether their cultural background differs, their age or what job they have. The way that the person chooses to communicate is affected by these factors. The addresser could use a microphone, moderate or increase their vocal sound for some audiences in order to capture the interest of the audience. The addresser considers the needs and backgrounds of the audience by using the voice to speak clearly and therefore makes communication clearer between two people. Being selective in terminology is another way that addresser can adapt their communication with audiences. This way makes everyone understand messages the addresser is communicating – people that are from different sections of a company that are in the audience, the audience may not understanding certain terminology. The people within IT require to be able to familiarise the terminology so that understanding their message can be understood by people outside IT. If people in a team that use comparable terminology that communicate, key technical terms and acronym would need to be used by the addresser in order to get the message across for the team to understand. After the communication is used to adapt, the information that is being communicated needs to be accurate by the speaker. A good communicator and a liar can be differentiated by accurate information. Far-fetched statements or emotive statements some people like to use and this can leave the audience in doubt whether the addresser is trustworthy enough or isn’t. Losing credibility and the audience trust is done by speakers that use false statements when communicating. The person is shown as a trustworthy source and can differentiate fact and opinion by providing information that is accurate in communication.

Engaging Audience

Engaging the audience in communication is what needs to be done by a person, putting aside the style of communication that they use. To keep audiences engaged there are different techniques that are used for written and spoken communication. Being able to use your voice and generate interesting forms of communication for the audience verbally can be done by spoken communication. Modulating their voice and have music played, change pitch or to be using visual presentations and props can engage the audience. Changing intonation is a technique that can be used and so is using props because this will stop people losing their interests and the speaker has all their focus. Written communication can use similar techniques. When long presentations or documents are being read, becoming bored is what usually happens to the reader. Bullet points or varied sentence lengths is techniques in presentations that can be used, also including pictures and diagrams , attention of the reader is less likely to be lost by the writer. Including images to make writing seem more interesting should be done by the writer, the audience’s attention could be drawn away from the message and therefore the amount of multimedia that is used needs to be controlled Communication has been made more manageable and engaging by the use of technology in this century. Face-to-face communication is harder than before because of companies expanding overseas, but with video conferencing software for example: skype, communicating is easier and manageable when communicating with different parties. Email has taken over phones when companies are communicating. Email has become more popular through recent technology as information is communicated efficiently and doesn’t require taking notes from the audience. Communication is more interactive and engaging because the audience is more directly involved by using technology.

Question and Answers

The final way that the speaker establishes the message in order to gather opinions from everyone is through question and answer (q and a) sessions. When using oral or face-to-face presentations to communicate, the audience feeling involved is important. Allowing the audience to ask questions can be done through having question and answer sessions if the speaker’s points were vague – as well as feedback being given to improve it can also benefit the speaker for their next presentation. In some cases, audiences are required to submit questions so the speaker is able to be prepared before the talk, broadcast presentations are an example of this. The audience asking questions after the talk is done with face-to-face communication. Change of intonation is a technique that is used in IT and this is important when the members of a project team and trying to get motivated and engaged. When lowing the tone of voice is done by someone, listening is more likely by the people surrounded because the tone of voice is intriguing. Getting the message across is helped by this and it is also easier because people are listening. After IT talks it is required for there to be question and answer sessions because opinions can be voiced by technical and non-technical voice, this the audience will feel valuable contribution towards the project was made.

Methods

Allowing communication to be done by colleagues in a workplace is done by different methods. The most common communication method between co-workers is verbal exchange. Being confident is what relies on having verbal exchange that is good and be able to share information when approaching people. Being clear and having verbal communication that is good is required by the speaker when the audience is spoken to so that they can comprehend and be sure what the message is. In a workplace, employees may be dead and therefore they cannot use verbal exchange when communicating. This means lip reading and signing are methods which are required to be used when there is a deaf audience being communicated to. The method that is most common communicating with hearing injuries is signing. Teaching sign language is a course that some people may partake in which means that they can effectively communicate with deaf co-workers. Signing words and finger spellings is usually taught by these courses. Deaf workmate is an example of an app which signing can be done with phones. A communication skill which is important is lip reading deaf people tend to use this when communicating. If understanding colleagues by lip reading is done by someone with a hearing impairment, slowing down speech is and option the speaker may choose to do to allow the deaf person to follow the speech.

Works Cited

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