Strategies for Personal Development

So far we have considered, in relation to influences on personal development in adulthood, some specific strategies for improving communication effectiveness. It is now time to review in broad terms practical ways to refine our competence in communication management. By becoming more competent in managing their communication with others, people can contribute significantly to their personal development and growth in adulthood.
Since communication, like breathing, is an inevitable part of being alive, the first step in developing a strategy for effective personal development is to ensure that any human activity involving one’s self and its relationship to others is conceptualized from an adult communication management perspective. This applied theoretical perspective is a synthesis of the constructivist, the people-in-systems, and the competence contributing perspective (Kaye, 1994). Some of the key question to ask at any significant point in one’s life, to assess the effectiveness of one’s communication, are: ’Am I understanding others in the ways they intend me to understand them?’, ’Am I being understood by others in the ways I intend them to understand me?’ and ’Are these the appropriate ways for me to communication with and relate to others in these kinds of specific situations?’
In some respects, these three questions subsume other, more specific, question people might ask themselves when appraising their effectiveness as communicators. One such specific question might be: ‘If I am not as handling my present crisis too well, is it affecting my communication and relationship with significant people in my life?’ Assuming the answer is ‘yes’, we could then ask: ‘ What can I do to restore the good communication I had with those who are important to me?’
One of the great stumbling-blocks to effective personal development as an adult communication manager is the tendency for those with considerable professional responsibilities to become workaholics. These people become excessively task-oriented, often to the cost of their development as integrated human beings. Sometimes becoming a workaholic is due to being poorly organized, especially with time management; such workaholics have to work long hours to meet deadlines. In any event, the neglect of their personal development is usually evident in the deterioration of their physical fitness, emotional stability, and growth in spiritually. There is, instead, an intense concentration on mental activity or time-consuming routine work.
Integrated people have balance lives; their spiritual, mental and physical selves are in harmony. This harmony and balance is reflected in integrated, balanced communication. In other words, the communication of integrated people is a balanced blend of thinking, feeling, action and awareness; they can communicate emotionally, rationally, or nonverbally, and are less likely to have frequent emotional outburst or operate in a seemingly unfeeling fashion. Balance people can operate with feelings, reasoning or action as the occasion requires.
What are some practical ways of maintaining balance communication? One thing which people can do before communicating with others is to ask themselves: ‘How will my future communication and relationship with this person be affected if I proceed to communicated as I intend to now?’ This question could be simplified: ‘Think before you speak’ or ’ Look before you leap’. People communicate, however, not only through speech but through action. In general terms, therefore, people should not commit themselves to any speech or action that could damage relationship without first weighing up the consequences.
A second practical suggestion is to learn from one’s mistake in communicating with another, and thus avoid repeating them. It is important to think back on how well or how poorly we managed communication with someone else. Ineffective communicators not only blunder in ways they later regret but continue to blunder because they have not learned from experience to control themselves and their social environments.
Personal effectiveness in communicating is not developed only from our own efforts and resources. Sensitive and perspective people can learn a good deal by observing highly competent role models. Such observation reinforces and complements what we can learn from reading about ways of communicating effectively with others.
The final practical suggestion concerns attitudes people should cultivate to refine their expertise in communication. Personally effective communicators always leave room to learn more, and never assume that there is nothing else for them to know or demonstrate. Since learning is a lifelong process, keeping open to new ideas and being willing to built upon existing strengths goes a long way toward helping people grow in their ability to be effective adult communication managers. Lifelong learners of this kind eventually become role models of good communication practice.

Summary

In this chapter we have considered how people can become more proficient in their communication and relationship with others. Such proficiency requires us to understand which factors, within and beyond ourselves, can profoundly affect our action and communication management. These factors include the nature of culture that permeates different kinds of human systems, the ‘personal culture’ of individuals, and the social values that influence organizational culture and communication practices.
Attention has also been given internal factors such as psychosocial crises in human development and the developmental tasks confronting adults at critical point in their lives. It was suggested that addressing these tasks successfully would enable adults to experience self actualization, thus providing a basis for further growth and development. Finally, the chapter offered practical suggestions for refining our ability in adult communication management.
The next and final chapter looks to the future, and tries to balance a vision of what men and women of the next decade will be like as communicators, with a vision of some of the changes that are taking place and will occur in the next few years. It emphasizes the need to understand, manage and forecast change. It concludes that constant striving to develop competence in adult communication management is something our society should strongly support. This effort will acquire greater depth and meaning once we acknowledge that the tip of the information incorrect reveals very little about the people with whom we want to communicate