Communicate Effectively - Motivate!

People at a party have to listen attentively to another person speaking if they want to hear and understand what they are trying to communicate if lots of other people are speaking at the same time. Selective attention means we attend to certain stimuli while blocking out others. We all have a threshold at which we detect signals determined by stimulus variables. It is the minimum level of stimulus required for us to pay attention. These thresholds depend on many factors including our own motivation and our level and state of arousal. Effective listening firstly requires hearing, and also understanding and remembering.

A supportive climate is one of the most important factors in communication and creating the right psychological atmosphere can help break down defensiveness. Destroying defensiveness does not serve the purpose of learning. As Harrison says, it only increases the anxiety that effective systems that help cope with the world will be lost. It is important to establish and build interpersonal trust.

Communication in social interaction is enhanced by confirmation. Communication normally involves more than a mere exchange of information. Each person usually communicates something of how they perceive the relationship. Confirmation is a most satisfying interpersonal response we can hope to receive in communication. Tangential responses are very disconfirming, like shifting responses and changing the subject. Impersonal and impervious responses and irrelevant and incoherent responses serve no useful purpose in a workplace. The best responses are direct acknowledgement, expressions of positive feeling, agreement, clarification, and supportive gestures of any kind. Confirmation leads to the other person valuing themself more and disconfirmation has the opposite effect, leaving the other person feeling less valued. It may be that all of our responses to people will not be confirming. Occasionally we may want to reject communication from others. Even then we should always retain a confirmatory response style.

Long term planning and achieving objectives in the business context mean that the right climate for lasting relationships is important. The process of encouragment, motivation and affirmation should be ongoing. People have to keep listening to each other and building on the confidence they have already.