Piva 1 Keegan Piva Art Kanehara Comm 1010 sec 54 22 February 2014 Communication In Action Every day in life

people are forced to communicate with one another in order to get things accomplished. To many people communication is an everyday thing and just another part of life. There are actually many different advantages and disadvantages to different types of communication. Sometimes when a person thinks they are not communicating they actually are. I have heard at many different places that, Not to make a decision, is to make a decision. This can be the same with communicating. In this paper I will discuss a few different terms in communication that I have had some experience with and learned new techniques. The first concept I am going to discuss is synchronous communication (pg. 11) in the channel of face to face communication. According to the text synchronous communication is, communication that occurs without a time lag between sending and receiving a message (Adler pg. 425). The key advantage to this type of communication is that both participants in the conversation must be actively participating because there is no lag. This gives a more genuine response that someone did not have time to perfect such as in an email or text message. This type of communication can be key for many situations. Some examples could be a complex idea that takes a lot of explaining for people to understand or an urgent message that needs an immediate answer. One example that I have had experience with is interviewing with people at a potential job. I wanted to have a face to face communication with this potential employer because both the employer and I would have immediate responses. I pondered at the idea of just

Piva 2 sending emails to get my answers but I wanted to have that response of my potential employer. This was a huge advantage because I knew my answers immediately and I knew now how well organized and proficient my potential employer is. I also had the advantage of giving a face to the name and introducing myself into that field so I would be remembered instead of just an email. This could be considered the richness of communication but I wont discuss that here. The next concept that I will talk about is power distance. According to the text power distance means, a measure (high or low) of how comfortable a culture is with differences in distribution of authority (Alder pg 424). A high power distance means that employees accept the fact that power is distributed unequally (Alder pg 45) Meaning that they know that the boss is the one in charge and they respect that he makes the decisions and dont argue. This can be seen in countries like Malaysia, Philippines, and Mexico. A low power distance means that the employees are more comfortable with the boss and will challenge their authority and decisions. This is more common in the United States. This power distance could become a problem with business and even the safety of businesses. One example that I can think of is the difference in the cockpits of United States airlines and Asian airlines. In the United States we are taught to speak up as copilots and tell the Captain there is something wrong or even that he is doing it wrong. In the Asian culture it is considered rude to disagree with the captain or tell him something is wrong. This is one possible reason they believe to be a factor in the Asiana crash in San Francisco a while back. This power distance can have a huge impact on businesses and especially in the aviation industry. The next term I am going to talk about is generational differences. As it says in the text, the historical period in which people live can affect their values, expectations, and as a result, their communication (Alder pg35). This can deal with many different topics a couple being

Piva 3 punishment and electronics. In the older generations it was ok for someone to spank their kids if they did something wrong it was almost expected. But today timeout is seen more as an appropriate way to punish someone. The difference between these two different punishment types can cause a communication problem between different generations. My parents believed in spanking but some people now think time outs are better and this could cause a big argument in to which one is better and could cause problems in a marriage or just in communication. The other that is seen even more today is the way that the different generations deal with electronics. Most Baby boomers (1945-1964) are not very good with advancing electronics where as some Gen Xers (1965-1980) and Millennials (1980-2000) are a lot better with electronics. As a Millennial I have grown up understanding how to use electronics and how to deal with problems as they arise. My Mom on the other hand is right at the beginning of Gen X and is horrible at electronics. This is because when my Mom was growing up she did not have any of these fancy gadgets and never really wanted to learn how to use them. This problem gets even worse with baby boomers because they did not have any of this stuff. So now personally my siblings and I always get asked by our Mom or even our grandparents to help them with technology. When I lived in South Africa for six months I used Skype a lot to call home and talk to my Mom. Well it seemed like every time I called there was something wrong with her computer and she had to get my little sister to come and help. This is one way that generational differences can affect the way that we communicate. The last one I want to talk about is task oriented listening. According to the text task oriented listening is, a listening style concerned with understanding information that will facilitate accomplishing the task at hand (Alder 425). This style of listening can be both positive and negative. If a person is a task oriented listener they want to get the details for the job that is

Piva 4 supposed to be done and then get it done. They are always trying to get stuff done efficiently and will not listen to other random conversations on the job site. Task oriented listeners are often impatient (Alder pg 66). That is because they dont want to hear their boss or job organizer talk about other things they just want to get the task done and move onto the next task. I have a couple examples that fit into this. In school being a task oriented listener can be hard during things such as test reviews. For a task oriented listener they want to hear what the teacher has for a review and they dont want to have people repeat things. So when another person asks to repeat something the task oriented listener will get impatient and even annoyed. Another example is during the summer I work on a forest fire fighting crew. When we get our briefings I usually excel because I am a task oriented listener and am ready to get the job done most efficiently. I am there to put the fire out and want instructions from the boss to do that and then get it done. There are many examples of this type of listening and those are a few of mine. Overall communication can be a very be a very difficult subject even though it takes place every single day. Some of the terms that I went over are some that I never realized I was doing until I started studying communications. Face to face communication helps a ton when some looking to get a direct response from the person they are talking to. Power distance can be something that is very challenging in the communication world. A lot of times people wont tell their boss that they did something wrong and this could lead to bad communication in the work environment and also could pose a huge safety risk. Generational differences can cause different age groups to respond to things differently and have different values than each other. Last the way that someone listens can really determine the way that they work or how efficient they will get the job done. If someone is a task oriented listener they will listen to the instructions and not want anything more and so if they do get something extra than they will become impatient.

Piva 5 Overall communication can be a very difficult subject but a lot of things we do subconsciously without even knowing.

Piva 6 Works Cited Adler, Ronald B., Jeanne Marquardt. Elmhorst, and Kristen Lucas. Communicating at Work: Strategies for Success in Business and the Professions. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Print.