How to Overcome the Barriers to Communication?

The barriers to communication exist all around us. Sometimes your message is misinterpreted by team members during meetings. We generalize information in every conversation and yet think that we clearly understand what others are saying and why they are saying it.

There are many ways through which we interpret the information given to us, and these cause us to have a misunderstanding. So how can we overcome the barriers that effectively blind us to meaning and comprehension? 

Following are the five ways to overcome communication barriers: 

1. Understand how your way of seeing things is different from others: Try to predict the feelings and attitude of the receiver. What will be their expectation? What prejudices might they have? What about their state of mind when you are communicating? If you know these things before communicating, then you can reduce the risk of misinterpretation.

2. Feedback from receiver: Don't ask the receiver, ‘Do you Understand?’.  This is because they will most often say ‘yes’ as they see things in the way they want to understand it. Instead, ask what is their understanding of the message?

3. Speak Face to Face: This will allow for questions and, also allow you to see the body language of the receiver, which will convey much more meaning than over the phone or through email.

4. Use the Right Communication Channel: Use email for its proper purpose. It means that don't send an email if it's quicker to pick up the phone or go and talk to the person. We are rapidly losing the art of conversation, so don't add to that by using the wrong channel.

5. Make it easy for others to listen to you: Develop your communication style that one of a conversationalist who is able to make a point quickly. If your key message is lost in the morass of a thousand words, then people will wonder what you mean and what the purpose is. Brevity and Clarity are the watchwords.

Using the above points, you will be able to certainly reduce the risk of barriers interrupting the key messages you want to make. If you know any other way to overcome the communication barriers, then share with us below in the comment section.

Collaboration Tools That are Awesome for Students in Task Management

If you are looking for tools that can help you in managing different kind of tasks, then following collaboration tools will definitely help you with any need. These collaboration tools are helpful for keeping both the individual and an entire class on track so that no assignment or task gets left behind.

Tools For Task Management

1. Google Calendar: Google Calendar is a great shareable calendar that a whole class can use to stay on task with tests, assignments, and more.

2. CollegeRuled: College students can create schedules, share or print them on Facebook, and can participate in class message boards.

3. MyNoteit: This collaboration tool is just for college students. It allows students to organize and share notes, to-do lists, assignments, calendar and different tasks.

4. Remember the Milk: This tool is a popular to-do list that keeps tasks organized. Some features of Remember the Milk include reminders, iPhone compatibility, integration with Google Calendar and the ability to share with others.

5. MeetWithApproval:  Students who are working together can plan a study group, meeting or other event with this tool.

6. GradeMate: Both students and teachers will enjoy the benefits of this collaboration tool that is made for managing grades and organizing and sharing assignments, files, notes, discussions and more.

7. Toodledo: Another to-do list, this tool offers a feature that organizes and analyzes your priorities, dates, and time estimates to create a time management schedule that will keep any teacher, student or group on task.

So, these were the seven collaboration tools that students can use to manage their different tasks. If you are using any other useful tool that we may have skipped, please share with us in the comments section below.

Collaboration | Why Collaboration Is Important In Today's Business?

Today, collaboration is something that has become an important factor for business success. The rise of cloud computing and faster Internet connections have enabled collaboration more than ever and so, it is important that a business should collaborate effectively for its excellent growth.

Here is why collaboration is important for the growth of your business:

Self-awareness: Collaborating challenges you to articulate and find out what you are good at, and what you do poorly. This honesty about your strengths and weaknesses can force you to ask for help when necessary and be confident about how you can help others.

Creative Abrasion: The term 'Abrasion' stands for the process of wearing down through friction. Though we associate friction with something negative, but actually it is a kind of energy. So why not convert that energy that comes from working with people who are different from you, to something positive? Just leverage the differences and work to identify what can be complementary about them.

Collaboration

Take the Long view: Sometimes things don't work out well when you collaborate with others. But does that mean you never attempt again to work with that organization? No. Take the long view about perceived failures and try them again.

Learn, Learn and Learn: Collaboration propels your firm to become a learning organization. Each time your firm collaborates with others you optimize the capacity of your associates to extend beyond their comfort zone, and that in turn, stretch the boundaries of the organization.

Therefore, considering the above points we can say that collaboration is important for the growth of your business. Although, it is not necessarily easy, but it can get your firm in a much more interesting position to innovate.

Re-valuate Workplace Collaboration to Get Your Work Done Anytime Anywhere

The work from home movement has been rapidly increasing day by day, but lately we have been seeing more employers allowing employees to work across multiple Internet-connected areas located on-premise for e.g. conference room, thus removing the ball and chain feeling that comes with the cubicle.

There are many benefits of having employees working together in office, from increased team morale to immediate communication. However, for those employers that are not yet comfortable letting their employees working from home, this approach allows them to strike the perfect balance of productivity, work agility and IT security.

Some professionals said that some employees may want to work in-office but don’t want to be tethered to a desk for hours. Moreover, the communication tools that are now at their disposal, for example mobile phones, integrated solutions like social and chat applications make it more than possible for them to work anywhere and anytime.

“I know I don’t want data and documents to only be accessible on a Windows machine that lives in office,” said Esna CEO and CTO Nezarati. “When you go to Google’s offices, sometimes employees are working from their desks but they may also be working from a desk chair outside getting some fresh air or in a meeting room all this happen with collaboration of Network. Today, it’s all about taking your work with you on any device, anywhere.”

Near about 60 percent of full-time workers recently surveyed said that they partake in some form of bring your own device (BYOD). But 80 percent said that they believe the constant connectivity afforded by work applications empowers them to do their jobs better. But also, the work environment depends on the age of the employees. Those older in age, wants to work from home because they have families.

Overall, the short answer is that the cubicle setting will never disappear completely. But things are changing, specially in leading brands like Google and Facebook that will continue to blaze the trail for employers who are more seriously considering the benefits of unconventional and creative workspaces.
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