What is your style of communication?

In communication between people there are often misunderstandings that can't be explained. Why don't you understand me? I asked you politely? Am I not clear to you? If people understand each other depends on their way of communication, also known as "communication styles". If people communicate to each other on different levels, misunderstandings occur.

Snavely and McNeill (2008) created a model to explain these misunderstandings. The model is called the "transactional style model". The authors examined the relationships between communicator style and social style with the goal of integrating both concepts into one model. They factor-analytically confirmed the social style dimensions and some of the communicator style dimensions and reduced the resulting components to three dimensions: emotive, assertive and relaxed. Research on communication style in cross-cultural communication has yielded a two-level model that integrates first-order and second-order dimensions. The model was not tested by Snavely and McNeill, but the University of Groningen took the chance and the testing of the model showed significant results.

The different communication styles each have their pitfalls. But changing a communication style is not easy, because it's shaped by the enviroment your grew up in, your friends, the way your parents communicated with each other, the shows you watched on tv, etc. These factors learned you unconsciously what "normal" communication is. Research of Schrodt showed that if parents are not able to communication sufficiently, their children will not be able to as well. Besides these aspects also the "downing effect" is of influence. This phenomenon explains how people overestimate themselves by for example thinking that their IQ is higher than it actually is, or that they think of themselves that they are more friendly, honest and patient that the "average" person. Statistically this is impossible and will decrease the need of urgency to change ones communication style.

Given that it is hard to change your communication style, meta-communication (communicating about the communication) helps in understanding each other when communicating on different levels. Questions can be asked such as: I have the feeling that we do not understand each other? Do you feel the same? You stress the situation and therefore are able to find a solution. Providing insight in your communication style and invest in styles that are not your own, will benefit you in your ability to communicate effectively with other people. Practice makes perfect!

What would the president say?

It may seem like they do, but often CEO's, presidents and prime ministers do not write their speeches themselves. Mostly, a team of speechwriters is able to "translate" complex economic and policy issues into a clear message for the general public.

Writing a speech involves several steps. A speechwriter has to meet with the executive and the executive's senior staff to find out the broad framework of points or messages that the executive wants to cover and put forward in the speech. Then, the speechwriter does his or her own research on the topic, to flesh out this framework with anecdotes, news and examples. The speechwriter will also consider the audience for the speech, which can range from a town-hall meeting of community leaders to an international leaders' forum. Then the speechwriter blends the points, themes, positions, and messages with his or her own research to create an "informative, original and authentic speech" for the executive.

The speechwriter then presents a draft version of the speech to the executive (or the executive's staff) and makes notes on any revisions or changes that are requested. If the speechwriter is familiar with the topic and the positions and style of the executive, only small changes may be needed. In other cases, the executive may feel that the speech does not have the right tone or flow, and the entire speech may have to re-drafted (speechwriter - federal government job profile).

We know that Obama is famous for his speeches. Curious who writes them? Click here to view the profile of one of the best speechwriters at this moment.

PR Professional: Journalists complain about PR

I found a very interesting article about the scepticism between PR professionals and journalists:

"The companion complaint to PR people putting out too much information is that they are silent. Journalists and the public should be grateful that most PR professionals are counseling management to be transparent and accountable in their public communication. A little honesty from journalists on that point would be an improvement over perpetuating the negative stereotype of the profession."

Click here to read the whole article!

Social media @work improves productivity (and much more!)

Feeling guilty when visiting Twitter or Facebook at work? Don't be! Research of the University of Cophenhagen (2011) showed that the usage of social media at work has a positive effect on concentration and productivity. Tip for managers: Don't block the internet, but replace coffee breaks for internet breaks, where employees can surf on the web during working hours.

There are more reasons why stimulating the use of social media at work can benefit business:

1. Younger employees, the so called Y-Generation, values social media as one of the most important technologies of today. Therefore, they expect their employers to have the same vision and they will choose an employer who does have that vision. Valuing this vision, will make the workplace more attractive for new generations.
2. Social media is used by employees to contact their co-workers. This will improve internal communications and an improvement of decisiveness.
3. The use of personal social media channels at work for the execution of work related tasks, leads to a higher commitment of the employee in relation to work and organization.

Change: Punish of Reward?

Why is it so difficult to change? It's not that people do not want or like to change, but they do not like to lose. A potential loss hits 2,5 times harder than an opportunity.

What is it that an organization does when their employees do not want to change? They "punish" their people in various ways, because the organization is afraid to lose something valuable to them. Research showed that punishment is not effective in the long term. Employees will not work harder or give that extra bit when it's necessary. Besides this, punishment encourages people to change only for a short period of time when they feel threatened. Furthermore, punishement results in disturbed relationships. People will not relate punishments to their own behaviour but they will associate it to the person who is giving the punishments.

Rewarding is better. People automatically link a reward to behavior. This will result in a natural tendency to behave in a certain way. Research shows that rewarding people is positively associated with appropriate behavior. As we stop good behavior when the punishment is "gone", we will continue our good behavior when rewarded for it.

Two-step flow and your communication strategy

According to the two-step flow the direct influence of the media is limited. The effect that media has on the public, flows via interpersonal communication. The interpersonal communication takes place between opinion leaders and followers. In these conversations the opinion leaders influence the followers. The opinion leaders are capable of distributing the announcements of the mass media to the "normal" public. The two-step flow basically presumes that the influence of the mass media goes in two steps. First, the media influences the opinion leaders. Second, the opinion leaders influence the followers.

Who are those opinion leaders? Opinion leaders are people in our society that are capable of having more influence than others on the opinions of people in their surroundings. Personality, competenties and knowledge, and the position of someone in a social network are the three most important dimensions that determine if someone is a opinion leader or not. Besides this, they have their own area of expertise.

The media landscape is changing and opinion leaders have more power to influence others nowadays because of social media. It is easier to reach a lot of people. If we look for example at opinion and review websites such as Zoover, Cheqqer and TripAdvisor, we can see that it is relatively easy to find the opinion of others about their experience with a destination/hotel/touroperator, etc. Research showed that people value the opinion of others on the internet more than the information that touroperators, hotels and travel agency's are giving to them. One opinion leader can easily spread the word. Organizations should be aware of this change and adapt their media strategy on that. It can go both ways; opinion leaders can make your company and give your communication strategy a boost if they believe in your message, because of the coverage social media has, but it can also break communication strategy by ensuring it will have no effect at all.

(De Boer, C. & Brenneke, S. (2006). Media en Publiek)

Most inspiring travel quotes of all time

I have a passion for communication and tourism! The best of both worlds would be the ideal combination for me. Therefore, I'd like to share with you the 50 most inspiring travel quotes of all time...

1. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” – Mark Twain

2. “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

3. “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

4. “The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” – Samuel Johnson

5. “All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.” – Paul Fussell

6. “Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac

7. “He who does not travel does not know the value of men.” – Moorish Proverb

8. “People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” – Dagobert D. Runes

9. “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” – John Steinbeck

10. “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” – Lin Yutang

11. “Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.” – Aldous Huxley

12. “All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.” – Samuel Johnson

13. “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

14. “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

15. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

16. ″A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.” – Moslih Eddin Saadi

17. “When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.” – D. H. Lawrence

18. “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark

19. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

20. “Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard

21. “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber

22. “We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” – Jawaharial Nehru

23. “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” – Paul Theroux

24. “To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” – Bill Bryson

25. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

26. “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by.” – Robert Frost

27. “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

28. “There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.” – Charles Dudley Warner

29. “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu

30. “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” – James Michener

31. “The journey not the arrival matters.” – T. S. Eliot

32. “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill

33. “I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” – Mark Twain

34. “Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quiestest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” – Pat Conroy

35. “Not all those who wander are lost.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

36. “Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.” – Benjamin Disraeli

37. “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” – Maya Angelou

38. “Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation.” – Elizabeth Drew

39. “Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe” - Anatole France

40. “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca

41. “What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” – William Least Heat Moon

42. “I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.” – Lillian Smith

43. “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” – Aldous Huxley

44. “Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.” – Freya Stark

45. “The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” – Rudyard Kipling

46. “Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.” – Paul Theroux

47. “The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” – G. K. Chesterton

48. “When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” –Clifton Fadiman

49. “A wise traveler never despises his own country.” – Carlo Goldoni

50. “Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

Thanks to BraveNewTraveller