Many people hide behind sarcasm, witticisms, cleverness and the like. These often mask a feeling of disrespect or inferiority, and this slows down the communication process as it builds an atmosphere of distrust.
Impatience, distraction or minimizing others and their contributions is a direct result of disrespect, and if more people understood how these come across, especially in the corporate environment, they would stop.
Finally, according to Kohn & Kohn, effective communication must include a fourth and final step, which is communicating the next step. At the end of every meeting, everyone should have a clear understanding of deadlines, assignments and the like. .
Aside from these four rules, which in and of themselves are not the complete rules of communication, but certainly lay a foundation for making sure that you are attempting to communicate effectively, many people have problems with communication that fall outside of these rules. Many people misinterpret body language and hand gestures. To many people, especially those who are not visually oriented some movements that come naturally to most people, are a distraction to the communication process. "While words account for only 7 percent of our communication, they are nonetheless the content of our communication." (Genton, 2003). By paying attention to the words that people use, divorced of gestures and the like, you will miss out on part of the communication, but it is the words, the content of the communication that build rapport, which in turn builds the influence of the matter in which you are communicating.
This a-synchronicity is the hub of miscommunication. Conflict is bound to arise in any communication effort, how you deal with that conflict is the measure of your skills as a communicator, manager or team-member. In order to resolve the conflict, negotiation is your best tool for resolution. Once the conflict has occurred, negotiation will almost always be needed in order to ascertain the conflict and decide on the resolution best needed to fit the time schedule and problem at hand.
