P2-Explain the principles of effective communication

There are a variety of different ways to communicate with people. Communication with people is a very important part of working for a business or company. There are three different types of categories of different communication skills. General skills, written communication skills and interpersonal skills.

General skills

Cultural difference 
One general skill for communication when working for a company or business is different peoples cultural difference. This is because if you’re speaking to someone with a different race, language or even in most possible cases accents, it is vital that you understand the person or people you are talking to. For example when talking to someone with a different accent it is very important to understand that people will say things in a different tone or dialect. For example a person from Liverpool will talk in a completely different accent to someone from Newcastle. This can also be very important because when you are talking to someone of a different race because the things you say could either be offending or they might not understand you.

Adapting content and style to suited audiences needs 

Another general skill to work with a company or a business is adapting to the content and style and suits the audience’s needs. This is a good skill to have because this means that the people within the company meet the specific needs of the audience and that if they don’t meet the criteria set the first time over a period of time they have to adapt to the different styles of ways to communicate with people. This links in well with cultural differences because for example if someone moved from London to Manchester, the person from London would have to adapt to the way people in Manchester talk and the different tone and dialect used when talking.

Techniques for engaging with audience 

The last most important general skill to have when working is techniques for engaging with the audience. This is good technique to have because if someone doesn't understand you then you can use hand gestures to emphasis a point and make the point that you’re trying to make clear to the audience. Also when someone isn't paying attention you could raise your voice to make sure that everyone is engaged with what you are saying. For example when in a classroom if everyone is talking you would raise your voice to get your point across to the students.

Interpersonal skills

Barriers 

One important interpersonal skill is that when trying to communicate with someone there could be a sound barrier; this damages the communication because if something important is said the person / people you are talking to might not be able to hear you properly so they might miss some highly important information. It would make it a lot easier if the communication was done in a quiet place so everyone involved in that conversation can take in the key points needed and that everybody understands.

Positive and negative language 

Another important interpersonal skill is positive and negative language. This is a good skill to have because when communicating with someone you need to make sure that the language used is in the right tone when giving positive or negative language. A good example of negative language is when someone isn’t paying attention to what you are saying, this is where you would raise your voice to get their attention.

Understanding of the question being asked 

The final interpersonal skill needed is the understanding of the types of questions being asked for example, this is because people will not be able to communicate because there lack of understanding of what is being asked of them to do. For example if someone within the company asked someone outside of the company they would have to think of a different way to approach them and ask them something because the person / people outside the company might not have an understanding or they might have a completely different understanding of the question being asked. Another understanding of the question being asked is that the question needs to be delivered and asked in a good given context.

Written communication skills

Uses of smiley's and emoticons 

A very important written communication skill is the use of smiley's or emoticons, this is a skill that people need to be very careful of what they say because if they are sending a professional email to someone it’s not very good to see an emoticon on an email because the email might be confidential and seeing and emoticon somewhere within the email makes it look less professional and looks like you are not serious about what you are talking about. The suitable time to use these is when talking to your friends but a disadvantage of this is that if you use them all the time you could put an emoticon in your work somewhere.

Understanding of the question being asked 

Another important written communication skill is he understanding of what question you have been asked. This is because if someone asks you to give your point of view, you need to make  clear statement and not try to go of topic because none of the information you say will be valid to the question that you have been asked. Also if you’re working for a business and someone asks you to do something highly complicated you would have to make sure that you have the skills required to do the task needed.

The last important written communication technique needed is reviewing and editing your work. This is because if you do not proof read and review your work it could make sense to you but I might not make any sense to the person / people who will be reading it. This technique enables the reader to have a clear / clearer understanding of what is being talked about and also that it makes some sort or a lot of sense. If the work didn’t make sense this would be very hard to communicate with people because they would not have a very clear understanding of what they are reading or being asked to do.