Reflective Essay On Communication

The two key topics in class in the last weeks, for me.
Two of the most relevant topics developed in the last weeks were: non-verbal communication and the barriers to communication.

Everytime we communicate with another person or group of people, we have to take into account some factors other than what we are actually saying that can affect how the message is going to be received: body language, tone, intonation, facial expressions, and others; this is what we understand for non-verbal communication. As we saw in class “55% of communication is body language, 38% is the tone of voice, and 7% is the actual words spoken.”, this showcases the great importance of understanding this topic in order to have a clear communication process, since these can distort the meaning of the message. Although non-verbal expressions are present in every culture, their individual meanings and relevance are going to change from one to another, this is why it is important to not only recognize the overall value of this topic, but to study the different patterns of nonverbal communication from different cultures as well.

Since we are studying to become international negotiators we have to be prepared to work in a multicultural environment, since it is very likely we will be working with people from other parts of the world. Understanding how others communicate and how we do it too and not to take everything at face value is primordial for us, since this will help us to minimize