Communicating Effectively

Receiving and disseminating information is part of our everyday lives, whether we know it or not, we are constantly engaged in some form of communication whether it is formal or informal. From listening to the morning newscast to listening to the radio on the way to work, the way the message is presented makes us either tune in or channel surf.

Email

When I first saw the email, it was standard bold text, but nothing stood out in the message to signify that it was of high importance. Jane acknowledges that Mark is busy, but when asking for an ETA on the missing report, she did not provide a deadline but instead left it up to Mark to “think” of a date and time to send the report.

Voicemail

Listening to the caller, I could tell by her tone that a task needed to be completed right away. As I continued to listen to the message I could hear the genuine concern and stress in her voice.

Face-to-face

As I watched the video for the face-to-face message, it was portrayed as a friendly reminder rather than a task that is needed to be done right away. For the content of the message, the actress was too lax in her delivery letting the receiver of the message think that they can still submit the e-mail on their own time.

Based on the context of the message, my contribution of the project is needed right way, the factors that influenced how I perceived this message would be based on tone, expressions used and the manner in which the message is written. Regardless of the medium use, the message must evoke authority while still being inviting to the recipient. A project manager cannot have a lax attitude of an important subject manager, yet they cannot be stern throughout the project as it can be a deterrent participants’ contributions to the project.

Surprisingly, the form of communication that best conveyed the true meaning and intent of the message was the voicemail. Before viewing the three modalities, I made the assumption that I would gravitate towards the face-to-face communication because that is my most preferred modality. However, as the voicemail began to play, the tone and pitches in the actor’s voice conveyed the urgency in which the task needs to be completed. Throughout the message, you can tell from the various stresses and pitches in the voice that if you did not forward the necessary documents, there will be dire consequences. 

After viewing this exercise, it drives home the point of how effective communication can either deter or encourage individuals to continuing participating in a project. Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, and Kramer (2008), has stressed that for a project to be successful, one of the important keys for any project manager to have is effective communication. Knowing when, how and why communication is needed is necessary as it can be deciding factor on how well other participants respond to the cues you are providing during the project. If the face-to-face interaction was the only communication I had from this exercise, I would not have taken that assignment seriously as the manner of the actor was more relaxed and did not convey that the assignment was urgent. These exercises demonstrated that tone, writing style and attitude determine how the recipient perceives the message. As Stolovitch (n.d.) discussed, communication is not only words, we must seek to the best modality based on the content to ensure the intended message is received well.

References:

Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). Communicating with stakeholders [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., and Kramer, B. E. (2008). Communicating and documenting project progress: Reporting on and meeting about project status. In Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects (pp. 303). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.