Effective Communication in Business: Tools for Self-Assessment and Intercultural Competence

Running head: EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION IN BUSINESS
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION IN BUSINESS
Name of the student;
Name of the university:
Author note:

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EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION IN BUSINESS
The first tool that I have used to assess my communication skill is the Self Perceived
communication competence scale that is also called SPCC. Often it is seen that the
communication abilities of a particular person may vary in different situation and with the
different kinds of people, they talk (McCroskey & McCorskey 1988). In many cases, it is found
that when one person may be more competent in talking with one category of people, they may
not be similarly competent with another person of another category. Therefore, this tool helps us
to realize the particular type of person I am comfortable in speaking and the type of person
makes me nervous. After using this tool, I got the scores that helped me to identify my
communication competence when speaking with different people. I realized that I have moderate
scores in this tool. It showed me that I have moderate competence in speaking in public, meeting,
group, dyad, stranger, acquaintance and friends. I developed the knowledge that I have more
scopes of development in my competence skills. In my professional life as well as in my
personal lives, I will come across different strenuous situations where I need to communicate
with all types of people in order to complete the responsibilities or reach the goals. Therefore,
effective communication with each types of member in lives is important and hence I will be
working more on my competence skill of communication. This would help me to establish
successful relationships with different types of members both in personal and professional lives
and would help me immensely when I will be participating in teamwork (Muller et al., 2018).
The second form of tool is called the nonverbal immediacy scale self report or the NIS.
This tool mainly helps to give an idea about how the individuals are practicing behavioral or
signaling cues that help in providing positive feelings towards another person during the time of
communication ((McCroskey & Richmond 1993). After using the tool, I found out that I had
achieved a score of about 80. This tool has separate set of categories for each type of genders and

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therefore I needed to analyze my skills with the score value for the male category. I realized that
my score belonged to the moderate category of the males where marks above 104 indicated high
level of non-verbal immediacy and marks below 83 shows low level. However, my marks are
more towards the lower level limit and therefore, I need to work on my non-verbal
communication skills as well. I need to be very careful about the nonverbal gestures that I
undertake while interacting as that have the capability of either developing relationships and
leading to success of business or may also lead to loss of business, conflicts, ineffective
teamwork, power struggles and many others (Haslam et al., 2014). Therefore, I need to work on
these skills of communication so that I can communicate effectively with others showing respect
and maintaining dignity of others.
The third tool that I have used is the Personal Report of intercultural communication
apprehension or the PRICA. This tool mainly helps to measure the communication apprehension
in the intercultural domain. This tool is mainly seen to help an individual to understand how well
he has developed his cultural competency in the aspect of communication with people from other
cultures (McCroskey & Richmond 1995). This tool is mainly seen to contain 5 important scales
which needed to be used in completing 14 important questions in the analysis of cultural
competency. Here, I have achieved a score of about 34 that feel in the category of low cultural
competency in communication. Marks below 32 shows low intercultural apprehension and marks
above 52 indicated high cultural apprehension. Therefore, I realized that I need to develop
intercultural communication skills, as this has become one of the most important aspects in the
present day business. In the present era, globalization has become one of the most interesting
concepts that are bringing every organization huge scope of making profits and circuiting their
fame all over the world (Stitch et al., 2018). Hence, it has become important for every employee

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to be culturally aware and competent to communicate with people from different cultures.
Hence, my low intercultural apprehension may become a barrier in my path of success.
Therefore, I need to work on this skill so that I can emerge as exceptional professional in the
coming generation.
The fourth tool that I also used is called the talkaholic scale. This scale mainly helps to
provide information of about the measure of compulsive communication conducted by the
individuals. There are many people who are seen to be verbal and they face difficulty in being
quiet. However these people are not those individual who talk unnecessarily when not needed or
those who speak offensive words that are not wanted to be heard by people (Neuliep &
McCrsokey 1997). Rather researchers have determined that more a person talks and expresses
himself and are communicative with others, they are more positively perceived by others.
Individuals who are highly talkaholic are seen to be as an effective leader or being more
competent as a member. I have scored here 27 and I fall into the category of low talkaholic scale.
The marks less than 30 are called low-level talkaholics and that above 39 are high-level
talkaholics or compulsive communicators. This is one of the most negative aspects of my
communication, as I cannot express my ideas properly. I fail to provide effective feedback and
cannot justify my point stating and sudden from lack of confidence. As I am quite introvert in
nature, I usually do not talk much with others and try to avoid any unnecessary talks on the floor.
This is indeed one of the negative aspects as effective feedback providing skills is one of the
most important traits of leadership. Moreover, as I am introvert, I cannot express my view on a
team and for this, I will not be able to express my concern and ideas. These may result in
negative situations where others may perceive me incorrectly or may think that I am not
approachable or I that would not help them with effective suggestions (Kahar et al., 2016).