Transcription
Communication Competence is being effective and appropriate for the situation and knowing when to adapt accordingly. That's the definition from the readings and also from Spitzburg and Cupach.
Competence doesn't necessarily mean "good." Good is a very relative term, and competence is really a perception. What I mean by a perception, is that I might perceive someone as a very competent communicator and the person sitting next to me may say, "I don't perceive them as a competent communicator at all." That's what I mean by it's a perception.
So, think about someone that you think is a very "good" communicator. Again, I know I said good is not exactly competent, but to put this in some perspective for you, think about the things that they do that make them a very good communicator, and some things generally come to mind. I hear a lot of students will say, they make really good eye contact, they listen well, they express themselves well... and these are the things that we're gonna actually talk about here. Some of the most common characteristics of a competent communicator as put forth by Spitzberg and Cupach.
So the first one of these kind of a big overarching one is the concept of Effectiveness. What makes a communicator effective, and that's something we saw in the definition of Competence is effective, so that's how you know this is really a key keyword. So an effective communicator will always have a goal on a message, right? Communication is a goal driven driven activity, so an effective communicator hits that goal every time. If my goal is to get you to understand Communication Competence and after I give you this presentation you understand Communication Competence, I was effective in my communication.
Effectiveness is really difficult to achieve many times, because as you can imagine there's a lot of things that come between me providing this message to you and you accurately receiving the message. So there's some parts on the receiver too. There's only so much I can do as the sender of the message to make it as effective as I possibly can, but it takes effort on your part too, and that's a little bit beyond our control as speakers. So the key to being effective is to really be able to craft a message that can appeal to a mass audience, or knowing your audience and being able to craft a message specific to them, being able to watch and monitor feedback and adapt on the spot, being able to engage your audience. Those are the best ways to be an effective communicator and really all these other ones that I'm about to talk about are all things that are related to helping to become a more effective communicator, thus, a competent communicator.
So Self-Monitoring. Self-Monitoring is the ability to really notice what we're doing in different situations. If I'm a high self monitor, I noticed that I need to adapt in this situation. I need to adapt my appropriateness in this situation. I'm gonna act differently in different situations based on what we need. If you're a low self monitor that means you're kind of just who you are no matter what the situation, and let me point out one of these is not necessarily better than the other. In general higher self monitors are going to be considered more competent because they are able to adapt and recognize when they need to adapt. That's really the key with self monitoring is recognizing it, but that doesn't necessarily mean if someone is a low self monitor that they're not a good communicator. Maybe they're just so good in all situations that they don't even really need the self monitor and some people are just who they are. You may know like really authentic people, right? So, the person they're just, they're just who they are. They don't take time to try to impress anybody. They're who they are across all situations. In that case that person may be a lower self monitor, but that's okay. You may also know people that really change who they are based on that situation, and you almost might feel like they're putting on some sort of show to try to impress everybody depending on their situation. They may be a high self monitor and sometimes that can come off that way, as you're putting on a show - you're acting. So again, neither one of these extremes - one is not necessarily better than the other at all times.
Being Adaptable - being able to adapt your communication to different situations. One key with adapting communication is being able to adapt to different audiences. So you're going to speak very differently to a group of children than you're going to speak to a group of adults. You're going to speak very differently to your co-workers than you do to your friends. So how this differs from self monitoring - self monitoring is monitoring yourself and knowing when to adapt. Adapting is actually doing the adaptations - making those adaptations accordingly. So a competent communicator is able to adapt to these different situations that they're put in. This goes really hand in hand with Appropriateness as well - being able to adapt to be appropriate to this situation. So we know that we don't necessarily use a lot of slang or perhaps a lot of profanities at work unless it's somebody we're really comfortable with. Or, in a job interview you probably don't want to come off that way, but we know where when we're at the bar Friday night with our friends that might be a little bit more acceptable.
Empathy - being able to put yourself in the shoes of someone else, and this isn't necessarily that you need to always give somebody a shoulder to cry on or that you necessarily need to be able to you know be someone's counselor when they need it, but having a little bit of empathy - being able to put different things in perspective and think about how someone else might be feeling. Those of you with kids with Daniel Tiger - the song is going through your head right now. Perhaps maybe you don't know what I'm talking about - Google "YouTube Daniel Tiger Empathy." There's a whole episode about it if you want more information about empathetic communication.
Cognitive Complexity - this one I think is very interesting. It's being able to take a look at different situations, being able to think about them in a lot of different ways. So an effective communicator can look at a particular situation and think about it from multiple perspectives, see it from different ways. That way, to be effective, they can express it then in different ways. So, it's kind of like seeing the bigger picture or seeing all sides of it, or you might also think about it as thinking outside the box.
Ethics is a big one as well. When ethical in a situation we obviously followed social norms, ethics, or don't try to deceive others. We don't try to hurt others in our communication. We're not trying to, you know, get something out of them. We don't have ulterior motives. Competent communicators are ethical when they speak.
Conversational Involvement - so Conversational Involvement is just like it sounds. How involved are you in the conversation? Are you nodding? Are you saying mm-hmm? Are you making eye contact? Are you asking questions to follow up the conversation? How involved are you? Do you look like you're involved, or are you just kind of standing there like this - You know, looking around? People like that... People don't love to talk to people that don't look like they're interested in what you're saying.
Which brings me to Conversational Management, which is being able to further the conversation. So if you're like me, I'm very awkward at small talk. I can do the, "Hi! How are you?" Beyond that I always struggle with how to go on with the conversation. That's Conversational Management. If you get me talking about something I really like or that I'm really fascinated in, it's a lot different. Then I can continue the conversation, but a lot of times small talk, the weather, I just I struggle with that. So Conversational Management is being able to move the conversation along, and again, this is where like the asking questions comes in except instead of the involvement purpose this time we're looking to help manage the conversation. Another part that goes with this is things like interrupting - conversational management. Someone who is a competent conversational manager won't interrupt. They'll take time and let the other person finish what they're saying before they move on and jump in themselves.
One last skill to mention is listening skills, and I'm not going to go too much into this because obviously we'll be talking about this at another point during this semester, but when it comes to listening skills, those that are competent communicators are very competent listeners, meaning they really they don't just hear what someone said, they've internalized it. They could technically repeat it back to you. They could paraphrase it back to you. They are being an active listener, they're really creating meaning from what you're saying and taking it, and like I said then they're able to help more manage the conversation, be more involved in the conversation, become more effective because when you listen to what someone's saying and you listen to their needs then you're able to help craft a message based on their needs. This is important in something like sales. Sales is not so much talking as it is listening - you need to listen to the needs of the person of your customer and then tailor your message to persuade them around those needs.
So that's an overview of what it means to be a Competent Communicator.