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12 Communication Skills

Sandra Buerger

Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Boston University, College of General Studies, Boston, MA, USA

12.1 Introduction

Communication extends to both your personal life and the workplace. The aim of this chapter is to examine workplace and academic interactions; however, many of these topics will overlap into both realms of life. The main aspects of effective communication to be discussed briefly here include:

1 Emotional intelligence

2 Open‐mindedness/tolerance

3 Objectivity/awareness

4 Consistency/honesty

5 Confidence/assertiveness

6 Flexibility

7 Clarity

First, we must define communication. Communication is described by Pfeiffer (1998) as the ability to make thoughts, feelings, and needs known to another and the reception of that information from the other person. However simple that may sound, there are many factors that influence how those messages are sent and received. It is the aim of this section to give an overview of some of these factors and help you become aware of how they affect communication. The sections below will take the seven factors listed above into account when discussing what constitutes effective communication.

12.2 Effective Communication

Emotional intelligence (EI) is defined as the ability to understand the motivations of the self and of others that you interact with. Emotional intelligence also includes the ability to express empathy and understanding to those around you (Salovey and Mayer 1990). The cultivation of emotional intelligence and the use of emotional intelligence in your interactions with peers and colleagues is a theme that runs through the other tenets of communication listed above. You can also refer back to Chapter 11 where the topic of emotional intelligence was covered in more detail.

When communicating with others, it is important to keep an open mind and listen to what others have to say. This brings us back to the idea of emotional intelligence. Listening to others speak has been shown to relate to a higher level of emotional intelligence and more effective communication. Studies have shown that deliberate attention to listening and modeling of conscious listening have been effective tools in increasing effective communication (Ioannidou and Konstantikaki 2008).

In fact, there is much interest in the idea of active listening and tolerance of the viewpoint of the other person and how that influences effective communication. When people act aggressively or insult each other, the predictable outcome is a hostile situation in which the two speakers perceive each other as adversaries. This results in a shutdown of communication. One possible way around this situation is to avoid insulting people when expressing your viewpoint, look for common ground, and resist the urge to define a difference of opinion as an insurmountable obstacle to effective communication (Waugh 2014).

One particularly good demonstration of effective communication that involves tolerance and open‐mindedness is the relationship between the teacher and the student. Thomas Gordon (2003) describes effective communication between teachers and students. Although his work focuses on the teacher−student relationship, we can apply many of the lessons to other situations. Gordon discusses the need for awareness of the other person's needs in the conversation and how to ensure you are sending messages that will result in effective communication with the other person. He describes a number of phrases that can shut down communication by sending messages of lack of acceptance, inadequacies, and faults. Some of these include ordering or commanding, moralizing, judging, stereotyping, and labeling. These types of messages, along with others, shut down communication and don't result in an effective exchange (Gordon 2003).

The solution is to engage in active listening. Verbalizing what the other person is saying can be helpful in promoting an understanding between people. This involves mirroring or restating what the other person has said. This helps in two major ways. One, the person hears back what they are trying to communicate and can revise their statement if what they hear is not what they were trying to say. Two, it sends the message that you are truly listening to what the other person is saying and shows concern and interest (Gordon 2003).

In addition to listening, you must also put aside your personal biases to interpret the message. Here, again, we see the importance of tolerance of a different viewpoint. Once you feel you have understood what the other person is saying and looked at it from that person's viewpoint, you can respond. Your response should be careful and thought out and avoid insults. The idea is to avoid hostile negativity, such as defining an idea as “stupid,” but to still express your own thoughts (Gordon 2003; Waugh 2014).

Active listening and tolerance of others' viewpoints is a skill that should be practiced and demonstrated to others (Ioannidou and Konstantikaki 2008). Active listening, along with thoughtful responses that avoid hostility, will promote objectivity in the response. All of these strategies will help reduce conversations that are charged with emotion or characterize the speaker based on past experiences or stereotypes without hearing the message that is being expressed.

In addition to the interpretation part of communication, you must also be able to effectively express your own ideas. A number of factors can help your ideas come across clearly and advance communication. These verbal skills are vital to effective communication (Pfeiffer 1998; Mikoluk 2014).

Consistency and honestly in the expression of your thoughts is vital. Consistency refers to the ability to stay on point. Avoid going off on tangents that will cause the other person in the exchange to lose interest or become confused. This is also directly related to the idea of clarity. Use words and terms that the listener will be familiar with and avoid the use of jargon (Mikoluk 2014). Be aware of your audience and their background. You do not want to communicate complex technical ideas to first‐year undergraduates and, at the same time, you do not want to explain basic concepts to experts in the field. In order to keep the listener's attention, you must tailor your communication to your audience.

When speaking, you should communicate with confidence in your ideas. You should be assertive, but not aggressive. This will reduce hostility in the response from your audience. Exhibit flexibility in your ideas and your method of communication.

Our final consideration in this overview of effective communication is environmental. People often underestimate the affect that the surrounding environment has on communication. Feeling uncomfortable due to temperature, location, and surrounding noise can all have a negative influence on effective communication. If you can, control the environment in which the communication takes place. If you cannot, take into account these factors (Pfeiffer 1998).

Effective communication will reduce frustration in the workplace and help you advance your career. Effective communication skills can and should be learned and practiced. We have seen here some general points. We will discuss some more specific examples in the section below.

12.3 Communication in the Scientific and Medical Community

In the previous section, we discussed general principles of effective communication. We focused on communication between two or more people engaged in a conversation. However, these lessons can apply beyond simple conversations to written communications or various sorts of group communication. In this final section, we will examine some situations that are especially relevant to those in the scientific and/or medical community.

12.3.1 Written Communications

One of the major forms of communication in the scientific community is through publications. You will likely communicate via formal written communication − papers and posters, for example − throughout your career. In order to communicate effectively, you must apply the tenets of effective communication above to your writing. This includes clarity, honesty, and brevity in preparing scientific papers. You must ensure that your papers effectively communicate the message without overstating your findings. A number of chapters deal with the specifics of how to achieve these goals in the various parts of the formal scientific paper.

Other important written communications are less formal. Among the most common are email and text message communications. You will likely communicate daily with colleagues through email. Again, you can refer to the general description of effective communication above. There are, however, a few points that relate specifically to email communication. When writing an email or text, you must consider the context and the status of the person you are writing to. For example, while informal greetings and words may be appropriate when communicating with peers at the same level, communication with a supervisor or with the head of a department (or any time you do not know the person well) should be more formal. For those communications, it is important to make sure you have used correct grammar and spelling and an appropriate title (e.g. Dr. Smith versus Joe). You should also avoid greetings such as “Hey” or “Hi” unless the person is a close peer. Finally, you should avoid abbreviations of words such as “u” for “you” or “2” for “to” in these more formal email communications. Once again, in these types of communication you must consider the audience and your relationship to them.

Email communication is instant and thus allows us more interaction with people than ever before. General guidelines for response times include 24–48 hours during the business week. On weekends or during holidays, you should be understanding if a response takes longer.

12.3.2 Informal Meetings

During the course of your career, you will often attend informal meetings. These may be lab meetings, for example, that gather members of the wider research team to present data and discuss issues in their research. The goal of these meetings is to practice effective communication of ideas and to suggest alternative strategies to achieve goals. However, these meetings can often be the scenes of hostile interactions. It is important to practice active listening and tolerance of others' viewpoints in these meetings. Respect for the other person's hard work will prevent feelings of defensiveness. On the other hand, if you are the target of criticism, you should attempt to listen to the critique of your work without becoming overly emotional and defensive. Consider the person's thoughts and ideas. If you still disagree with their analysis, express this idea assertively, but without the use of insults or speech that can escalate the situation.

Setting a positive tone is important to prevent the development of an idea that a meeting that takes place on a weekly basis is not useful. If that happens, people will come to the meeting with an idea that this is a waste of their time, already setting the stage for ineffective communication. If you are in the position as head of a lab, keeping the meeting to a scheduled time, making sure everyone has the opportunity to talk and express their ideas, and intervening in situations where conversations become too heated will ensure that a negative feeling is not associated with these meetings.

Finally, we also saw that physical conditions can influence how effective communication is. If you are able, try to schedule meetings in a comfortable place and monitor the overall temperature and other controllable physical conditions in the room where the meeting is taking place.

References

1 Gordon, T. (2003). Teacher Effectiveness Training. First Revised Edition. New York: Three Rivers Press.

2 Ioannidou, F. and Konstantikaki, V. (2008). Empathy and emotional intelligence: what is it really about? International Journal of Caring Sciences 1 (3): 118–123.

3 Mikoluk K (2014) Principles of Communication: 7 Pillars of Business Communication. Udemy https://blog.udemy.com/principles-of-communication/.

4 Pfeiffer JW (1998) Conditions that Hinder Effective Communication.

5 Salovey, P. and Mayer, J. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality 9 (3): 185–211.

6 Waugh, J. (2014). Real Dialogue Require Tolerance: Hostility Is the Antithesis of Effective Communication. The Daily of the University of Washington.