What is one way communication in communication?

Two-way and one-way communication skills are relatively simple to develop. The theory is easy, but it requires practice.

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The Elements of the Two-Way Communication Model

It starts with an assumption that we have both the sender and a receiver. The sender decides to choose a medium to communicate a message. Typically this medium is either verbal, written, or some type of electronic medium. And of course, the receiver decodes that message.

The Sender

Communication begins with a source, which is a person, group, or organization that has a meaning it attempts to share.  Encoding occurs on the sender side. It’s an invisible process in which a message is turned from thought to language. 

The Receiver

A receiver is the individual, group, or organization that decodes the message. This is the role that causes you to go into when you listen. On the receiver side, there’s a similar invisible process known as decoding. Decoding is the conversion of language into thought or meaning. 

Encoding and Decoding

To transmit meaning, a source must place this meaning into a series of symbols that represent concepts. In the decoding process, symbols are converted into concepts and ideas that mean something to the receiver.

Characteristics of the Medium

A sender must also select and use some type of communication medium. The three classic communication transmission channels are: written, verbal and electronic.

Interference (or Noise)

Sometimes referred to as noise, these really are problems with the process or the environment that prevent listening or hearing.

Feedback

This is the receiver’s response to a message. In two-way communication, there is feedback to the sender. In one-way communication, feedback is missing.

One-way communication is essentially a flawed communication model when compared to the two-way approach. Essentially, what makes this a problem is the reduced availability of feedback, likely leading to misunderstanding. Sometimes this occurs face to face. But it also occurs in written and electronic communication. 

2 Problems With Its Use

Writing is Often Misunderstand

Anything on paper or email is one-way since all types of written communication either have no feedback or delayed feedback. For example, when sending an e-mail to one of your friends, unless you happen to ask him about it later, you really don’t know if it was read, opened, or remembered.

For those of you who have never heard of “scholar English” it is a unique form of the language used by professors who write in scholarly journals. Reading articles like this have been known to cure insomnia and are particularly obtuse.

Electronic Media Is Confusing

Today, people tend to interact with electronic tools such as social networks that give limited audience feedback. Oh sure, you can post a comment to your Facebook page which goes out to 300 of your best “friends.” But what does it really mean if five of them indicate they like it and one of them actually comments? Perhaps it means that 295 people did not like it and 299 of them thought was stupid but were too polite to say so.

Might be a little better in terms of understanding; but, it still lacks simultaneous feedback. Still, you can verify that the message was understood if you get a callback.

Why Two-Way Communication is Better

To possess effective two-way communication skills, we must process both verbal and nonverbal information flows at the same time. 

How Senders Should React — The Full-Duplex Mode 

Full-Duplex is a term borrowed from communication technology. It basically means that as a sender, you are sending and receiving at the same time. So when you are a speaker, your goal should be to pay attention to both the receiver’s words and their nonverbal signals. 

The reason we do this is to get more meaning from the other’s nonverbals. For example, doing so allows you to determine whether the other person understands you or not.

If I tell you to, “Meet me at the Hollis,” would you know what I meant? Most of us would say no. However, as a sender with great interpersonal communication skills, you would pay attention to nonverbal’s, and be able to see that the other person was confused over the word “Hollis” and then take steps to clarify.

If you can read face, you have an advantage over those that can’t.  I used to routinely do this every morning with my bosses since I wanted to know what mood they were in. I happened to have very good bosses, but every once in a while, they could bite the neck off an alligator. Should such a rare event occurred, it was best to say hello, beat a hasty retreat, and hide somewhere.

How Receivers Should React — Active Listening

Active listening means being actively engaged in the conversation. One can show active engagement by nodding, making eye contact, and most importantly, asking questions.

Mediums Useful in Two-Way Communication

The Telephone

A telephone conversation between two people has a fundamental disadvantage since visual nonverbal feedback is lost. This limitation is likely to be less of a problem in the future due to cameras on computers and mobiles.

Face To Face Communication

This is the gold standard for two-way communication. It’s face-to-face that is preferred if one has to engage in sensitive conversations.

Situations Requiring Two-Way Communication Skills

There are several situations in the workplace where it makes sense to fully practice interpersonal skills.

Interviewing

If one can pull information from the interviewer’s face and gestures, it is much more likely that you will answer the question in a way that the interviewer feels make sense.

Conversations with the Boss

Another really critical situation is that daily conversation with the boss, whether the one at home or the one at work. Of course, when engaging in small talk you do not need to monitor the nonverbals that closely. However, if you’re in their office to pitch an idea, you better pay attention to the nonverbals.

Coaching

These techniques are obviously useful when you’re coaching or counseling. In fact, when you have to build new skills, is very important that one monitor the nonverbal’s for confusion.

Communication Barriers

You will find that one of the major differences between great communicators and average ones concerns how they process nonverbal and verbal communication. Average communicators pay almost no attention to nonverbal communication cues. In fact, they engage in a particularly weird type of one-way communication called verbal self-talk.

The Ability To Pay Attention

The Internal Dialog  — Self-Talk

When someone self-talks, they basically carry on a conversation with themselves. It’s a particularly insidious disease, striking primarily at the intelligentsia, individuals like professors or technologists such as engineers. And of course, don’t forget the doctors. 

Ignoring Nonverbal Communication Signals

Another reason this is important is that meaning is not always conveyed solely in the words. In fact, a great deal of meaning is communicated either in the situational context or in the nonverbal elements associated with the body.

For example, let’s say you are having a meeting with someone for the very first time. As you walk into the conference room, you notice that the person has chosen the head of the table. Contrast this with another person who chooses a chair at the side of the table and indicates that you should talk to them from that position. You should pick up that one person is indicating a conversation of equals, while the other person, is setting up a situation where they clearly want to be the dominant party.

Conclusion

One cannot be a great communicator unless one can process both nonverbal and verbal communication at the same time. However, this is a very difficult thing to do if you have been ignoring nonverbal information for years, reading an article like this one is unlikely to cause one to change. For if one practices something for hundreds of hours wrong, it’s very hard to change it too with the right.

References

Moss, Stewart, and Tubbs, Sylvia (2006). Human Communication, Principles and Contexts, 11th Edition. New York: Prentice-Hall.

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