Individual and Group Skills Assessment: Communication Breakdown

This essay examines the concept of communication breakdown, focusing on the transactional model and individual and group skills assessment. It begins by defining effective communication as a two-way process where the message sent is understood by the receiver, highlighting the importance of communication models in simplifying complex interactions. The essay then discusses the transactional model, emphasizing the importance of feedback and its relation to social and relational contexts. A personal experience of communication breakdown in an organizational setting is provided, illustrating how lack of feedback and chaotic communication can hinder effectiveness. The essay also addresses various barriers to effective communication, including perceptual differences, language barriers, information overload, inattentiveness, and organizational hierarchy. It concludes by emphasizing the need for cooperation between sender and receiver, the role of the transactional model in ensuring successful communication, and the importance of addressing distractions and emotional states to overcome communication barriers. References to key communication theories and models support the analysis.

Running head: INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP SKILLS ASSESSMENT
Individual and group skills assessment
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP SKILLS ASSESSMENT
Introduction
Effective communication is a two way communication sharing process, where the verbal
speech that contains information reaches the receiver. Effective communication works when
the message sent by the sender is understood by the receiver, and the purpose of the
communication is fulfilled (Hussain, 2013). Communication also helps to operate effectively.
The fundamentals of communication include a set of communicative skills that act as the
foundation of the advanced communicative skills of an individual. The communication
includes models which are the representations of the process of communication and helps to
break the communication from a complex process to a simpler one. The communication
model of transactional model encourages traditional thinking and helps to stereotype major
aspects of human communication.
Discussion
According to Oetzel (2017), the process of communication is said to be effective only
if the fundamental process of communication is followed. The sender needs to send the
message or the information across, encoding a message with the help of a channel of
communication. It is then the responsibility of the receiver to decode the message from the
sender. The communication process is said to be complete only if the feedback mechanism is
followed, where the receiver then takes up the role of the sender and sends the feedback,
which the sender needs to decode. As stated by Barnlund (2017), the transactional model of
communication relates this communication procedure with the social reality and the relational
context. The feedback that is considered in this mode of communication involves verbal as
well as non-verbal methods, like gestures and body languages.

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I had a personal experience of the breakdown of the transactional mode of
communication. It was an organisational meeting where I being the manager of the company
was on one end and was having a discussion with the other employees. I needed to transfer
the information from my end to them along with the question as to what can be improved in
the workplace so that the productivity can be increased. I needed a feedback from the
employees. However, there was no proper communication because that instant feedback that
was received was from all of them, and there was utter chaos to which no effective solution
that was expected was received.
According to Da Hills, (2013), if there is a communication breakdown among the
sender and the receiver, the transactional mode of communication can be introduced because
it would help to receive simultaneous and instant feedback from the end of the receiver. Also
it involves no discrimination between the sender and receiver. There is an interchange of
roles among them and if a linear communication fails, this mode of communication can be
used as an interpersonal communication.
The flow of communication among the people and in an organisation gets affected by
different barriers. The communication can be interrupted by perpetual as well as language
differences. Every individual have different perceptions to situations, and the linguistic
differences also result in the communication breakdown. Often there is an overload of
information from the managerial end this leads to the misinterpretation of the communicative
behaviour. At times the inattentive nature as well as the time pressures from the sender results
in the ineffectiveness of the communication from the receiving end. Communication is also
affected by the noise distractions as well as the emotional state of the person at that point of
time when the communication takes place. Also the greater hierarchy in the organisational
structure may destroy the chances of communication (Jureddi and Brahmaiah, 2016).

3INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP SKILLS ASSESSMENT
Conclusion:
Thus from the above discussion it can be said that effective communication is
possible only if there is proper cooperation from both the ends of the sender as well as the
receiver. The communication process can be disrupted and made ineffective by several
barriers, but the main features of communication include effective sending of message from
the sender and so that the receiver receives the message with properly decoding it. The
transactional model of communication helps to ensure the communication process is
successful by having instant feedbacks. The communication breakdown occurs is the
feedback is not received and it can be ensured if the distractions, the emotional state of the
receiver as well as the organisational structure is taken into consideration along with the
linguistic barriers.

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References:
Barnlund, D.C., 2017. A transactional model of communication. In Communication
theory (pp. 47-57). Routledge.
Da HiLLs, L., 2013. Overcoming the ten most common barriers to effective team
communication.
Husain, Z., 2013. Effective communication brings successful organizational change. The
Business & Management Review, 3(2), p.43.
Jureddi, D.N. and Brahmaiah, N., 2016. Barriers to effective communication. Journal of
English Language and Literature, 3(2), pp.114-115.
Oetzel, J.G., 2017. Effective intercultural workgroup communication theory. The
International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication, pp.1-5.