Interpersonal Aspects of Communication - Importance and Strategies

Running head: INTERPERSONAL ASPECTS OF COMMUNICATION
SOUTHERN CROSS UNIVERSITY
Signed Signed : T. Ritesh
Date: Date : 09/06/18
Student Name: Ritesh Raj Tagarampudi Student ID NO:
22921727 Unit Name : Management
Communication Unit Code : MNG81001
Tutor’s name:Stuart Danvers Assignment
No. 4Assignment Due date:09/06/18
Date submitted:09/06/18
Interpersonal aspects of communication
Declaration: I have read and understand the Rules Relating to Awards (Rule 3
Section 18 – Academic Misconduct Including Plagiarism) as contained in the SCU
Policy Library. I understand the penalties that apply for plagiarism and agree to
be bound by these rules. The work I am submitting electronically is entirely my
own work.

INTERPERSONAL ASPECTS OF COMMUNICATION
Executive summary
The main purpose of the report was to provide an understanding of interpersonal
communication and its importance. The report chiefly aimed at answering as to why managers
should give priority to effective communication. In doing so, the report gave a thorough
definition of interpersonal communication (IC) and explained its effects in the workplace.
Further, the report also explained the impact of persuasion, which is also a part of IC and
detailed its importance as well.
Also, in this report the communication gap of the managers was measured in accordance
with the importance of effective communication of the managers of ABC Company and the
reason for of making communication active and effective was recommended. The
communication gap within the organization and the leadership style was assessed and addressed.
The strategies were recommended and assigned accordingly with the needs of the organization.
The recommendations were done accordingly with the respective with the current
communication issues within the organization. The report concluded with an overall summary of
the paper and suggested the need for having IC and persuasion as important tools for managers.
1

INTERPERSONAL ASPECTS OF COMMUNICATION
Table of Contents
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Defining Interpersonal communication...........................................................................................3
Importance of interpersonal communication...............................................................................5
Effects in the workplace..................................................................................................................5
Defining persuasion.........................................................................................................................6
Importance of persuasion.............................................................................................................6
Practicing the art of persuasion....................................................................................................7
Findings...........................................................................................................................................8
Effective communication.............................................................................................................8
Communication problems............................................................................................................8
Barrier in effective communication process................................................................................8
Communication channels.............................................................................................................9
Analysis...........................................................................................................................................9
Importance of interpersonal communication and aspects............................................................9
Recommendations..........................................................................................................................11
Advantages of workplace communication.....................................................................................11
Communication problems as formal and whole as organization communication channels..........12
a.) Formal channel of communication:................................................................................12
Informal channel of communication/ grapevine........................................................................13
Downward communication........................................................................................................14
Upward communication.............................................................................................................15
Horizontal communication.........................................................................................................16
The challenge of effective business communication.....................................................................16
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................21
References......................................................................................................................................22
Bibliography..................................................................................................................................26
2

INTERPERSONAL ASPECTS OF COMMUNICATION
Introduction
Communication holds the key towards attaining success in any organization and thus
receives the most attention from managers especially in today’s global business environment
(Park, Reber and Chon 2016). The failure to communicate effectively leads to poor performance
and undesirable outcomes. Managers therefore, must realize the correct way to communicate and
train their employees properly as well. Even governments of most countries have realized the
importance of communication to flourish business and ultimately the country’s economy (Park
and Ghauri 2015). The businesses that fail to communicate their business goals and policies to
the customers clearly often fall behind in the race to dominate the market.
In this report, the importance of interpersonal communication (IC) and its role in
persuading others shall be discussed. The report will begin with a clear explanation of
interpersonal communication followed by its importance. Then, a discussion on the effects of
interpersonal communication will be done, which will precede the description and importance of
persuasion.
It has been seen that Effective communication in any workplace is essential to establish
the organizational structure in order to avoid communicational problem. Continue establishments
of good communication can be effective for the organizational problem to investigate the priority
of the effective communication. Good communication in workplace to turn to the office for
workplace communication to realize the inclusion can be included as bunch of advantages after
the transmission of various ways such as emails, voicemails, text, messages et cetera. In this
report, ABC Company is suffering from some communicational errors in order to achieve the
communication channel to develop the formal networking channel in the organization. I have
asked to prepare the report including the communication priority to expect the issues.
Defining Interpersonal communication
Communication is categorized into different types that include intrapersonal,
interpersonal, group and mass communication (Overall and McNulty 2017). This paper will
focus on interpersonal communication as it has a significant role to play in modern
3

INTERPERSONAL ASPECTS OF COMMUNICATION
organizations. In order to answer the query as to the reason why managers should prioritize
effective communication, it is important to explain interpersonal communication clearly.
Interpersonal communication refers to the two-way communication involving two
individuals. The sender and the receiver in interpersonal communication communicate via face-
to-face communication (Carr and Hayes 2015). It could be either verbal that is spoken or non-
verbal that is through gestures and signs. Messages conveyed through interpersonal
communication do not possess the same meaning as the words spoken. In cases where the
individuals involved in interpersonal communication hail from different linguistic or cultural
backgrounds, the messages conveyed sometimes become blurred or confusing.
This happens because of the noise, the linguistic and cultural barrier. People from
separate cultures might interpret different meanings of the messages conveyed. One good
example of this noise in interpersonal communication could be of an individual from Asian and a
Western nationality. To the Western individual, kissing on the hand to greet someone is a part of
his or her culture but the same is considered unwelcomed for the Asian.
It has been seen that Employee welfare is a term including various services, benefits and
facilities offered. This study is to investigate the importance of communication and addressing its
barriers among managers. The quality of work life of employees and employers depend upon
various factors. One of the most important factors of that is effective communication. The
effective communication leads to transparency and the attitude of employees towards work or
towards a job.
Communication means transmitting and interpreting information within organization.
The managerial behaviour can greatly hamper the communication and information clarity. The
effective and transparency of communication of employees and managers are highly required for
better productivity and less conflicting situations in the organization. The purpose of present
study is to find out the effective communication in higher management of any organization and
the need of that. Also how aspects of communication can be related to sustainability, how
communication of sustainability can affect the achievements.
4

INTERPERSONAL ASPECTS OF COMMUNICATION
Importance of interpersonal communication
It is of no doubt that, interpersonal communication, however vague or chaotic it could be,
has undeniable importance in all spheres of life. In business particularly, interpersonal
communication is at use in every stage and thus holds utmost importance. Interpersonal
communication is used to resolve conflicts, manage crisis, build strong teams, and become a
great leader amongst other things. Thus, one can see the level of importance interpersonal
communication has in the field of management or business. Conflicts in organizations occur due
to the lack of proper and effective communication, which then leads to poor performance and
outcome. In order to resolve the conflict, managers have to listen to and provide suggestions or
instructions to both conflicting parties.
As Sarapaivanich and Patterson (2015) opine, budding managers or entrepreneurs often
show a deficiency of interpersonal skills when they enter the real world of business. This restricts
them from acquiring the skills to manage conflicts. The manager, the author further states, has
the most important role in an organization because she or he has to communicate interpersonally
with subordinates, clients, guests, peers and superiors to prevent and manage conflicts. Effective
management of conflict demonstrates strong leadership along with the ability to motivate. An
able leader is thus the one who has refined interpersonal skills that he or she utilizes to manage
crisis.
Effects in the workplace
In the workplace, interpersonal communication is the most dominant form of
communication because it is inevitable that two individuals would communicate with each other
at any point of time for any reason. When two people communicate in a workplace whether for
work purpose or just causally, it is bound to produce some result wither positive or negative.
Fluker and Murray (2017) highlight the effects of IC in the workplace by referring to the
productive interchange of ideas. The author stresses on the positive effects of IC and states that
transformational leadership is a result of effective interpersonal communication. Goby,
Nickerson and David (2015) on the other hand focuses on the ways that colleagues from
multicultural backgrounds interact with each other and the effect it has on the organization. At
the workplace, it is inevitable that people from different cultural and social backgrounds would
5