Managing rewarding relationships
Understanding the process of how people send, receive, and understand messages provides a powerful tool for building skills that cultivate positive and productive relationships. The person who is aware of the communication cycle can enhance communication effectiveness by doing the following:
- Fine-tune communication to match the unique needs of the situation
- More easily recognize issues that can threaten relationships
- Identify opportunities to strengthen relationships through effective conflict management
- Better anticipate and respond to mutual needs and concerns
- Take a proactive approach to solving problems
In short, by effectively managing the communications cycle, you will be able to develop conversations that can evolve into more lasting and successful relationships.
Using effective communication to manage conflict
Understanding the communication cycle is especially important for helping to deal with the conflict that usually emerges when people work together to accomplish goals. Poor communication, lack of openness, and failure to address the needs of individuals in the group can seriously hinder individual and group performance (Robbins, 2003). Group conflict emerges from many sources, including the following:
- Limited access to the resources necessary to accomplish team goals
- Conflicting values and interests among the team members
- Lazy team members
- Personality conflicts among team members, and
- Power imbalances
How a group handles the conflict will influence group success or failure. Traditional perspectives see conflict as a negative force that must always be discouraged or eliminated. However, organizational theorists and social psychologists are increasingly recognizing that conflict is a natural part of human relationships that can positively contribute to individual and group development. Some behavioral scientists argue that conflict is positive and necessary for a group to perform effectively (Robbins, 2003).
