7 Factors of Communication Skills
As we know factors of communication skills means exchanging ideas, emotions, and feelings either in written or spoken form (verbal or non-verbal form). It is a process of articulation through which communication is done in a very organized way by a speaker, writer, teacher, or moderator etc. Effective communication has a key role in business as well as in personal life.
In business, effective communication decides your profit or loss, even failure and success are measured based on effective communication skills in business. If you want to join the education department for teaching, you need building powerful communication skills.
Effective communication is a core demand for teaching. The more you have communication skills the more you outstandingly teach your students.
In interviews, the panelists also judge and analyze your communication skills, and the person
who demonstrates effective communication can conquer the field. An effective communicator builds a good rapport. He should take care of his authority and respect the feelings and emotions of others.
Among different things affecting the process of effective communication, some factors of communication also play a very significant role. Keeping these factors of communication skills, you can excel in your relevant field to a considerable extent.
Following are the 7 factors of effective Communication skills that are titled in different
ways. These factors have a vital role in the communication cycle. Without these factors, the
communication process is incomplete and even baseless. These 7 factors are:
Sender in the communication process
Whenever we use the word sender, it means the person who carries something and sends it to the other person at another place. It is one of the most important factors among the 7 factors of communication. In the communication process, the sender sends his message to the receiver. In this stage, a person uses his mind and conveys his message for a particular communicative function to fulfill his needs.
This is a one-way process in which only one person shares his ideas and feelings. The best possible way to convey a message through this process is to send the content he has in his mind. In this process, if a sender has a great ability to convey his message, the message will be effective and understandable to the receivers.
The sender is also known as the source or transmitter of information in the communication cycle. He faces a lot of problems at this stage because he, sometimes, encounters poor feedback that he does not want.
Encoding of information
Describing the 7 factors of communication skills in communication cycle, encoding is the second one that has an immense role in the process of effective communication. It is a step that consists of encoding symbols, characters, quotes, images, postures, etc. Slangs and jargons of some specific field may also convert this process into an understandable way.
description and statements of department are being converted into communication in an organized way at this stage. It can be in the form of either verbal or non-verbal. For example, if a professor wants to teach Linguistics or another subject he encodes the information in a systematic way that is comprehensible to the students easily otherwise it will difficult for him to teach his students. When he encodes information, he should take care of the different types of barriers that make his message unclear.
Medium of communication
As we talk about the medium of communication it comes in the third number in 7 factors of
communication skills. The way uses the writer, speaker, and other communicators to convey the meaning of his message. A huge range of mediums are used to transfer ideas to target audiences. These can be either in virtual or physical but the most frequently use five mediums are verbal, non-verbal, written, listening, and visual.
Some other kinds of the mediums can also be included into communication process such as phone calls, text messages, email, video, and social media. These mediums enable a sender to connect individually or in a group. These mediums are now available in updated forms and working efficiently throughout globe.
Receiver in the communication process
Understanding the whole cycle of communication, receiver is the fourth one among 7 factors of communication. It involves a listener, observer, or may be a reader. This stage is performed either at the group or individual level.
The main responsibility of the receiver is to understand the message of the sender carefully. Though it is a hard task, it is not impossible. It is a hand-to-hand process in which the receiver holds the data from the sender. It is a stage that starts when a sender conveys his message to his receptors. This requires a lot of practice and hard work.
Decoding the message
Decoding has a vital role in the communication process. It is as significant as the other factors of communication. In other words, it is the essence of the communication process. It includes translating and interpreting the data that is written in symbols, images, letters, pictures, and some graphical representation.
It is a difficult but interesting task for a receiver. The receiver may face a lot of difficulties while interpreting the contents of the languages such as in German, Spanish or Sanskrit; it might be difficult to crack the codes and scripts. This step demands a lot of effort, dictionary skills, and proficiency in the languages. If a receiver knows two or more languages, he will decode the message easily and respond immediately to the sender.
Context of communication
Context refers to the situation in which communication takes place. It is a core factor in the list of 7 factors of communication. It is such an influential factor of communication that mostly decides the meanings of a message; it depends on the experiences of people occurred in any situation. Context of information can be categorized into two parts.
External stimuli
In external stimuli, our senses are involved in the context. It is a type of stimuli that urges an encoder to send a message. Letters, memos, notes, emails, fax and telephone calls are the examples of external stimuli.
Internal stimuli
It is the second category of context in communication process that involves the influence of an encoder and interpreter. In this step, when an encoder creates a message to send for the receiver, his attitude, opinions, emotions, personal experiences, qualification, job and status are the influencing factors of communication that can modify the context of communication to lesser or greater extent.
Moreover, style and language of communication also vary on an encoder while sending message.
Responding process of receiver
Responding is the stage of analyzing, observing and critically judging the message of sender. Wherein the receiver gives the feedback by verbal process and gets a response from them by nodding and eye contact called non-verbal communication.
The speaker always expects listeners that they understand the message that he wants to say. The speaker addresses the listeners by calling their names to draw their attention. A friendly environment will be created between the speakers and the listeners by using this factor among factor of communication.
Responding is a two-way process. It can be done by both sides. The Listener’s response makes the speaker enthusiastic and energetic. It empowers strength to the speaker to participate actively. Its process becomes complete with the response of the listeners also. The Listeners ask a question where they don’t get a point. It makes the listeners cheer on participation. Responding to the listener’s question makes the speaker happy. It will be fruitful for both.
Conclusion (Factors of Communication)
To sum up the whole discussion, these 7 factors of communication are the essence of communication process. It is not possible for a person to communicate by neglecting these factor of communication. By keeping these factors in mind, anyone can communicate effectively.
