Interpersonal Communication

Interpersonal communication occurs when two (or a few) people talk face to face. Conversations,
dialogues, and small group discussions are interpersonal exchanges. Each person also operates
interpersonally during the exchange. Thus, an exchange with just two people involves at least three
communication elements – the unique thinking done by each person and the overriding process created by the interpersonal exchange.
For example, imagine that you accidentally met your friend after a long time. You had a brief chat with
him. But you think of meeting him again next evening. Your friend at the same time too thinks of having
another meeting with you, in the afternoon, as he is leaving by the evening flight. After some discussion
you agree to meet at the breakfast time as you have a busy schedule the whole afternoon. Behavior and Interpersonal Communication In its simplest form, interpersonal relations are the interactions between two or more persons. We keep coming in contact with other people for personal, professional, social or business reasons. Whatever the context, there is an interaction between personalities in all these situations. Our perception about each other is based on the displayed behavior. The environment in which personal interaction takes place is largely determined by the behavior of the parties involved. All behaviors are motivated. The motives however, may be known or unknown, clear or unclear,controlled or uncontrolled. The net result is the variety in behaviors. Behaviors determine the quality of interpersonal relationships by directly influencing every transaction in interaction. In the organizational context, interpersonal relations become extremely important for smooth functioning of the system, greater
coherence, and convergence of effort and minimization of conflict. To communicate well, we need to know our frames of reference and ourselves and to be able to assess other people. Only then can we hope to find the best ways in which to communicate effectively with them, both to pass information and build relationships. Some of the reasons we do not assess other people well are given below:
• We assume that people would behave the same way in every situation.
• We try too hard to put everyone into consistent categories.
• We are too influenced by first impressions.
• We are positively influenced where we have common characteristics with other people, e.g. same school, same function.
• We are too influenced by apparent negative points, e.g. if someone is not very good at short-term decision making, we might assume that he/she is not going to be good at long-term planning either.
• We make constant errors because of our own limited frames of reference and self-concept.

Interpersonal Needs
Finally, we engage in interpersonal communication because we need to express and receive interpersonal
needs. The three identified needs are:
1. Inclusion: the need to establish identity with others.
2. Control: the need to exercise leadership and prove one's abilities. Groups provide outlets for this
need. Some individuals do not want to be a leader. For them, groups provide the necessary control over aspects of their lives.
3. Affection: the need to develop relationships with people. Groups are an excellent way to make
friends and establish relationships.

Intrapersonal Communication

When you think, you use intrapersonal communication. You initiate, receive, and process messages
within yourself. You are playing both the roles of: sending & receiving. Human growth depends on this
internal communication. Through it you know yourself and develop your self-concept, self determination, and self-motivation.
For example, each morning you decide how to dress, what to eat, where to go, etc. This kind of internal
communication forms the foundation for the other four levels of communication. The word - "Intrapersonal" - means within the person. Intrapersonal communication processes happen inside of you. Some people equate these processes with thinking. Although thinking is part of the process, intrapersonal communication includes more than what we think. More importantly intrapersonal processes include the way we think and the way we communicate with ourselves. Intrapersonal communication affects the way we receive messages from others and affects the way we send messages to others.

Normally successful communication requires having an independent sender and receiver, who sens messages back and forth between them. This definition is currently challenged, there are some people who consider intrapersonal communication too useful to be discounted.
Whether or not intrapersonal communication is a valid form of communication, the following actions are considered intrapersonal communication:

• Dreaming (especially daydreaming and lucid dreaming)
• Talking to oneself. This action is normal, since often saying and hearing again helps a person retain information. It becomes abnormal when a person talks to oneself in socially inappropriate situations.
• Your internal monologue, any thoughts you have about what is happening around you.
• Gesturing while you think. 

Levels of Communication

There are five levels of communication:
1. Intrapersonal Communication
2. Interpersonal Communication
3. Mediated Communication
4. Person-to-Group Communication
5. Mass Communication
In Next Coming slides We discuss one by one Levels

The Communication Process or Cycle

 Many of the problems that occur in an organization are the direct result of people failing to communicate. Faulty communication causes the most problems. It leads to confusion and can cause a good plan to fail. Communication is the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another. It involves a sender transmitting an idea to a receiver. And effective communication occurs only if the receiver understands the exact information or idea that the sender intends to transmit. Studying the communication process is important because you coach, coordinate, counsel, evaluate, and supervise through this process. It is the chain of understanding that integrates the members of an organization from top to bottom, bottom to top, and side-to-side. Let us look into the details and see: 

What is involved in the communication process?
The steps involved in this process are:
1. Idea: Information exists in the mind of the sender (who is the source). This can be a concept, idea, information, or feelings.
2. Encoding: The source initiates a message by encoding the idea (or a thought) in words or symbols and
sends it to a receiver. The message is the actual physical product from the source encoding. When we speak, the speech is the message. When we write, the writing is the message. When we gesture, the movements of our arms and the expressions of our faces are the message.
3. The Channel: The channel in the communication process is the medium that the sender uses to transmit the message to the receiver. Care needs to be exercised in selecting the most effective channel for each message. Even though both an oral and a written medium may be appropriate to transmit a particular message, one medium may be more effective than the other. To illustrate, let’s assume that an individual desires an immediate reply to a question. Although the message could be in either an oral or a written form, the oral medium most likely will be more effective because of the immediacy, if required.
In selecting an appropriate channel, the sender must assess the following factors, as the situation
demands:
-need for immediate transmission of message, (Fax instead of letter)
-need for immediate feedback, (Phone instead of fax)
-need for permanent record of the message, (Written rather than oral)
-degree of negotiation and persuasion required, (Personal meeting – face-to face)
-the destination of the message, and (Far flung area – letter only)
-the nature of the content of the message. (Has to be a contract –written)
In addition, the sender should take into consideration his/her skill in using each of the alternative channels, as well as the receiver’s skill in using each of the channels. Communication rarely takes place over only one channel; two or three even four channels are normally used simultaneously.
Example: in face-to-face interactions, we speak and listen but we also gesture and receive these signals
visually.
4. Decoding: It is the act of understanding messages (words or symbols). This is known as Decoding.
When the sound waves are translated into ideas, we are taking them out of the code they are in, hence
decoding. Thus, listeners and readers are often regarded as Decoders. During the transmitting of the message, two processes will be received by the receiver. Content and
Context.
Content is the actual words or symbols of the message which is known as language – i.e. spoken and
written words combined into phrases that make grammatical and semantic (meaning) sense. We all useand interpret the meanings of words differently, so even simple messages can be misunderstood (Are you going to give me or not?). And many words have different meanings to confuse the issue even more (You are smart.).
Context is the way the message is delivered and is known as Paralanguage - tone of voice, the look in
the sender's eye's, body language, hand gestures, state of emotion (anger, fear, uncertainty, confidence,
etc.). Paralanguage causes messages to be misunderstood as we believe what we see more than what we
hear; we trust the accuracy of nonverbal behaviors more than verbal behaviors. Many managers think they have communicated once they told someone to do something, "I don't know why was not the work done?...I told my Secretary to do it." As a matter of fact, the secretary misunderstood the message. Remember: A message is never communicated unless it is understood by the receiver. Question arises then, how do you know a message has been properly received?
5. Feedback: By two-way communication or feedback. This feedback will tell the sender that the receiver understood the message, its level of importance, and what must be done with it. So the feedback loop is the final link in the communication process. Feedback is the check on how successful we have been, in transferring our messages as originally intended. It determines whether understanding has been achieved or not. The purpose of feedback is to change and alter messages so the intention of the original communicator is understood by the second communicator. It includes verbal and nonverbal responses to another person's message. There are five main categories of feedback. They are listed in the order in which they occur most frequently in daily conversations. 

1. Evaluation: Making a judgment about the worth, goodness, or appropriateness of the sender's statement.
2. Interpretation: Paraphrasing - attempting to explain what the sender's statement means.

3. Support: Attempting to assist or support the sender.
4. Probing: Attempting to gain additional information, continue the discussion, or clarify a point. 

5. Understanding: Attempting to discover completely what the sender means by his/her statement.
Noise: The presence of noise can result in fairly significant problems in the communication process.
Unfortunately, communication is effected by noise, which is anything – whether in the sender, the transmission, on the receiver – that hinders communication.
For example:
o A noisy environment may hinder the development of a clear thought.
o Encoding may be faulty because of the use of ambiguous symbols.
o Transmission may be interrupted by noise in the channel, such as a poor telephone
connection, misprinted text, or maybe a typographical mistake.
o Inaccurate reception may be caused by inattention.

What is Communication

Communication is derived from the Latin word ‘Communico’ which means “to share”. Hence the
word “communication” means: the process of sharing. One may ask, sharing what? Obviously – sharing
information, which could be facts, ideas, thoughts, feelings, needs, etc. This sharing takes place from one
person to another so that it is understood. This process involves systematic and continuous process of
speaking, listening, and understanding. Therefore, Communication is a process, which involves sharing of information between people through a continuous activity of speaking, listening, and understanding.
Why is Communication Important? Communication is a learned skill. Most people are born with the physical ability to talk. But in order to speak well and communicate effectively you have to learn the art and improve upon your ability to talk. Speaking, listening, and our ability to understand verbal and nonverbal meanings are the skills we develop in various ways. We learn basic communication skills by observing other people and changing our behaviors based on what we see. We also learn communication skills directly through education, practice and constant evaluation of the responses we get from people around us. Importance of communication has always been realized in all times because it is the most vital
means by which people are connected together in the society. However, today communication plays a
crucial role in almost all aspects of life. Work in business, government or organizations are impossible
without communication. People have to communicate with each other, exchange information, make
decisions, talk about new ideas, plans, proposals etc. They also have to communicate externally with
foreigners and people of other races and languages. For a moment, turn your eyes inward and see how much of your waking hours you spend in communication. Nearly 70% – writing, reading, speaking, & listening. As a college student, 69 percent of your communication time is spent on speaking and listening. You spend 17 percent of your communication time on reading and 14 percent writing.
Don’t forget, therefore, that communication is inevitable in one’s life. Today, in this age & world, a
successful person is the one - who can communicate effectively. Pick up any newspaper and scan the jobs wanted advertisements. You will find that communication skills are one of the essential prerequisites in most of the occupations. Be it engineers, business managers, sales officers, operators, etc. Any vocation you choose- oral communication skills are identified as valuable for
both obtaining employment and successful job performance. Big corporations and multinational
organizations need better communication skills in their employees so that they are able to work in teams
and with people from diverse backgrounds.Remember we are living in a communications revolution; we are living in an age of increasing talk. When we have to talk, we might as well talk well, and talk wise.