Letter of advice to co-workers
ShaLes Barkley Com200: Interpersonal Communication
Michael Gavino
April 10, 2016

Letter of advice to co-workers To my fellow current and new co-workers who is reading this letter. I gather at the fact that you are wondering how do you become a better communicator in the work place. Well hopefully this letter of advice will help you gain the confidence and understanding in communicating in the work place.
This advice is also good for those in relationships as well. So hopefully what I write about will help you out as much as possible. No matter how old you are or what you think you know it is always good to get advice on communicating not only with your coworkers but your friends and family. There are various barriers that can cause a person to cram up and not be a good communicator. Always remember that you are not alone when it comes to communication situations that you fear you will not do well in. Not everyone is a good communicator. It is always good to get some advice or hear so good advice to even better yourself as a person. To be a successful employee in any company, you need to first understand that there are some barriers and principles to becoming a great communicator in today’s workplace. Once you are able to understand that there is some principles and barriers you will grow as a great individual who learned new ways to communicate better with other people that they will be working with from here on out.
Trust this will not be easy, you will have your downfalls when it comes to things but when it’s all said and done, you will hopefully be a great communicator in today’s work place and you will be able to understand yourself and others as well.

Principles of and barriers to effective interpersonal communications
In our book it speaks that we communicate to accomplish any number of mutual goals and to relate to one another. Specifically, intrapersonal communication is a social process, and we usually communicate for one of three primary purposes:
(1) To meet personal needs
(2) To learn about ourselves, other people and the world;
(3) To build and maintain relationships with others. (Bevan & Sole, 2014)
Understand that there is many principals and barriers in becoming a better communicator within yourself and others. Understanding these barriers and principles, will help you learn more about yourself as well as becoming a better communicator within anything that you do in life. Also it will help others understand what you mean regardless of race, sex, color, creed, and religion.
Role of communication in developing and maintaining one’s self-concept, self-image, and self-esteem To be a great and understanding employee, you need to develop your own ways of maintaining your self-esteem, self-concept, and your self-image as well. Self-concept defined as the idea that you have about the kind of person you are or mental image a person has about oneself. I have to say that my self-concept is very high due to the fact that I know and feel that I am a good person as well as very open minded individual. These I feel are qualities that everyone should have within their self.

Self-image, is defined as the way you think about yourself i.e.: abilities and or appearance. A person’s conception of oneself and their role. (Dictionary.com) Your self-image helps a lot in communicating with others around you. The way you dress tells a person that you are very professional and can handle business the way that you need to handle.
They always say “Dress to impress” and I can say that that statement is true to its words especially if you’re in the real estate business, nobody wants to buy a house from someone that looks or dresses like a bum. In a sense that may give off the impression that you do not know what you are doing in this type of career field.
Self-esteem, is defined as a feeling of having respect for yourself and your abilities. (Dictionary.com) A confidence and satisfaction in oneself. Self-esteem as well plays an important role in my life because dealing with a disability I use to think that I could not accomplish my goals in life that and I was at that point where I felt I was no good to anyone. But that all changed when I chose to build my self-esteem up more.
I can say that my self-esteem has grown a lot since I was younger and before I got into the workforce. Having to much self-esteem will make people look at you and think to themselves that you have a crappy attitude that makes a person not want to speak to you at all and that can be a very bad thing when it comes to very high self-esteem.
Understanding and maintaining all three of these self-responsibilities in life will help you become a better person within yourself and talking to others. Not everything is easy when you have very low self-esteem, self-concept, and self-image.

Appropriate levels of self-disclosure and emotional intelligence in various relationships
Self-disclosure has many levels and can be defined many ways in different relationship rather it be on the job or in a personal relationship. Self-disclosure is defined as the intentional act of sharing private aspects of you with other people. Self-disclosure specifies the type of information that is cataloged under self-disclosure. Self-disclosure refers to information that is private and would likely not be revealed by anyone other than you. (Wheeless, 1978)
With self-disclosure that on the other hand is something that you need to pay attention to when you are communicating with others. I say this because so many people over look self-disclosure. People tend to give away too much personal information when they are speaking to people and that has the tendency to turn people off about you and not want to talk to you or be bothered with you at all.
Emotional Intelligence has many levels and can be as well defined in many ways in different relationships rather it be on the job or in a personal relationship Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. It is generally said to include 3 skills: (Psychology.com)
1. Emotional awareness, including the ability to identify your own emotions and those of others; 2. The ability to harness emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problems solving;
3. The ability to manage emotions, including the ability to regulate your own emotions, and the ability to cheer up or calm down another person.

Understanding these two things will bring you a long way in life it will help you to understand people better than what you understood them as before. To be emotionally aware of things and different situations will help you to understand others and the way that they work or communicate with others around them. Because at times you will come across that one shy person who does not know how to communicate well but using the advice that I have given will help you actually help those who do have communication problems. Strategies for using communication techniques to resolve interpersonal conflicts
There are many different strategies for using different techniques when you are communicating with others around you. With myself understanding others have taught me a lot. I have grown as a woman and an individual and with what I know now I will continue to grow and learning how to bite my tongue or just brush things off I have managed to keep myself from being fired as well or suspended from my jobs.
Knowing how to deal with conflicts and understanding that you do not have to be a tough guy to get your point across and you will come to realize that some things you just need to walk away from before it causes more serious problems that you do not need in the work place. Also it makes you in return look like the better person that shows the effort to walk away then to make the problem worse then what it already is.

Impact of gender and culture on interpersonal communications
Understanding the different cultures in today’s society as well as the gender roles will help make you a better communicator as well. With the gender roles once you understand the meaning behind culture you will be able to learn how to talk and understand others regardless of them being male or female. Culture is defined as a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period. The behaviors and beliefs characteristics of a particular social, ethnic or age group. (Dictionary.com)
Some people come into the workplace not knowing where to begin and they tend to look lost because due to their culture some are not allowed to work so that person starting a new job would surely understand or try to understand what I am speaking in reference to. So again being able to understand culture, you will understand that person as well.
In a book I used in class, culture is also defined as a relatively specialized set of traditions, beliefs values and norms or standards of behavior that have been passed down from generation to generation by the way of communication. Often described as "the way we learn to do things." (Belvan & Sole, 2014) You will be able to master this form of communication to be able to understand how to grow as a person and an individual.
I say that culture plays a very important role in communicating with others because if you are a very open minded individual, you will go very far because you as a person can interact with others who most people would probably not interact with. Some people show a kind of fear where when they speak to people of other cultures they rarely make eye contact, shake hands or show acknowledgement that they are being recognized with others.
Basically in the end guys I truly believe that the things that I have mentioned in my letter of advice to my fellow old and new co-workers, should help you to become a better communicator so you too can grow in a way or better than I have grown in life.
This advice is also good for those in relationships as well. So hopefully what I write about will help you out as much as possible. No matter how old you are or what you think you know it is always good to get advice on communicating not only with your coworkers but your friends and family. There are various barriers that can cause a person to cram up and not be a good communicator. Always remember that you are not alone when it comes to communication situations that you fear you will not do well in. Not everyone is a good communicator. It is always good to get some advice or hear so good advice to even better yourself as a person.

Good luck guys on your new self and becoming a better communicator as well.

References
Ashford Textbook (Online edition):
Bevan, J. L., & Sole, K. (2014). Making connections: Understanding interpersonal communication (2nd ed.) [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/
Dictionary.com
http://www.dictionary.com
Psychology.com
http://www.psychology.com