Mastering the Elements of Effective Communication

The Elements of Communication

Understanding the Communication Process

By the process, we mean that steps have to be taken in a particular or set order to achieve the desired result or goal.

Key Concepts in Communication

• Survival mechanism: Your brain decides from the information it has whether you are trustworthy, competent, or possess other traits.
• Feedback: It is important as it determines whether or not the decoder grasped the intended meaning and whether communication was successful.
• Information: The information is given without feedback. It has just one way; this means one direction. Example: TV advertisement.
• Communication: It is a relationship between two or more people. In communication, people exchange information, and this means that it is interpersonal. Example: An interview between a seller and his customer.

Essential Elements of the Communication Process

• Sender: The person sending the message (Who).
• Receiver: The person to whom the message is destined (To whom).
• Message: The content of the message transmitted (What).
• Channel: The channel is responsible for the delivery of the chosen message form.
• Medium/Code: This is the immediate form taken by the message. They are a group of signs and rules used in order to transmit the message properly, so that it is understandable for both the seller and the buyer.
• Encoding: The seller encodes the message. As soon as we talk, we encode our messages even though we do not always realize it.
• Decoding: The receiver decodes the message.
• Context: The environment where the message takes place when being produced by the sender and interpreted by the receiver. It is the situation, the circumstances, the space, or the specific time.

Noise and Interference in Communication

Noise/Interference: This is any factor that inhibits the conveyance of a message. That is, anything that gets in the way of the message being accurately received, interpreted, and responded to. They can be internal or external.

Three Different Kinds of Interferences

• Physical: These can be found in the sender, in the channel, or in the receiver.
• Psychological: What the sender and encoder think of themselves; what the sender thinks of the receiver; what the receiver thinks of the sender; the sender's behavior towards the message; and the receiver's behavior towards the message.
• Semantic: Semantic communication barriers are related to the knowledge and the meaning we have about them.