Effective Communicators

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Leadership and Human Resources - Miscellaneous, grade: 75%, University of Leeds, course: MSc International Marketing, language: English, abstract: Why are the companies seeking 'effective communication'? According to the BT Forum Report Communication (cited in Cameron, 2000)1'good communicators lead happier lives [...]; making the effort to communicate is the key to happy relationships with people [...]; the best way to resolve a disagreement between two people is to get them talking [...] and many arguments would be resolved if people communicated better.' Despite these clear positive effects in an organisation, the definition of the concept of communication appears to be less obvious. According to Cameron (2000)2 this concept is ''Verbal', 'vocal' and 'visual'. 'Verbal' means the actual words; 'vocal' means is linguists' terms, prosodic and paralinguistic features; and 'visual' means gaze, postured and other aspects of body language.' A priori, an effective communication may appear to be only depending on the good will of each member of the organisation to communicate with others. However, this analysis will examine four major factors influencing the quality of communication. The first variable is the personality and perception of individuals, which is closely linked with the knowledge and judgment that people have about their congeners. The second variable is the particular skills of individuals that allow them to reduce communication's barriers and noises in order to improve the quality of the communication. Finally the two last variables are the level of motivation that an individual needs in order to transmit a message to the audience, and the impact of the respective cultural background of the interlocutors. 1 Cameron, D. (2000) Good to Talk? London, SAGE Publications Ltd, pp. 149 2 Cameron, D. (2000) Good to Talk? London, SAGE Publications Ltd, pp. 40