¶ … Communication: Workplace Reflective Practice Reflective practice entails constant monitoring of one's own performance in a given role while making adjustments where necessary. For any profession, reflective practice is essential since not two cases will ever be the same thus, it is critical to always remain reactive and reflective. Several studies have ascertained that reflective practice is beneficial when it comes to the delivery of client-centered services, and assist an individual assess their learning needs. Reflective practice is regarded as one of the most important elements of learning and as such, it is essential that managers as well as employees familiarize themselves with reflective practice methods such as the Gibbs reflection model. In addition, reflective practice allows learners to make connections to what they have learned, set goals, and reflect upon their learning process; reflective practice is also used for assessing learning which monitoring the individual's progress toward mastery of the learning targets in their log entries. Learning logs are major aspects of reflective practice which help a person stay abreast with changes in the social environment as far as the learnt concepts are concerned. In this regard, there are theories and approaches that can be used for critical reflective practice among individuals and if correctly incorporated into each person's repertoire, result in great benefits. However, such approaches are not automatic success routes and for this, it is necessary for a person to be selective and to be able to match new developments to their own skills. In occasions whereby the person is able to do this, new developments in work theory are able to dramatically improve the worker's ability to absorb changes to the profession and constructively improve personal and professional performance in a dynamic way. The need for reflection on personal performance and practice is strongly linked to the need to be able to develop skills for self-criticism and an individual gradually develops self-constructive criticism. Constructive criticism assists individuals address personal and professional problems while finding ways to deal with them. Since it is widely known that no person is entirely perfect, constructive criticism can be used to identify weaknesses and deal with them and besides, this also helps the person identify personal strengths. Despite the notion among most individuals that constructive criticism is dispiriting, this type of criticism should be taken as an opportunity to improve rather than attack on the person's professionalism and skills. As a form of critical theory, reflective practice is one of the most important parts of modern work requirements and is the primary means by which any worker can improve their overall performance. Reflective practice can not only make work more relevant to the particular needs of each client, it can also genuinely improve the worker's understanding of theory and how to apply that theory to practical situations. The benefits of reflective practice include increased learning from an experience for situation, promotion of deep learning and identification of personal and professional strengths and areas for improvement. In addition, the other benefits include identification of educational needs, acquisition of new knowledge and skills as well as further understanding of own beliefs, attitudes and values. The limitations of reflective practice include not all practitioners understand the reflective process and it is time consuming. Besides, becomes confusing regarding the situations and experiences to reflect upon and moreover, it may not be adequate to resolve work-related problems.

Importance of Communication

Communication is the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another; it involves a sender transmitting an idea, information, or feeling to a receiver. Effective communication occurs only if the receiver understands the exact information or idea that the sender intended to transmit (Blogg, 1996). Many of the problems that occur in an organization are the either the direct result of people failing to communicate or processes, which leads to confusion and can cause good plans to fail. The benefits of effective communication are many and obvious as they enhance all aspects of our personal and professional lives. Ineffective communications in our personal lives may give rise to problems or embarrassment but in our professional lives the results of misunderstandings may have much more serious results.

Effective communication occurs when a desired effect is the result of intentional or unintentional information sharing, which is interpreted between multiple entities and acted on in a desired way. This effect also ensures the message is not distorted during the communication process. Effective communication should generate the desired effect and maintain...

Therefore, effective communication serves the purpose for which it was planned or designed. Possible purposes might be to elicit change, generate action, create understanding, inform or communicate a certain idea or point-of-view. When the desired effect is not achieved, factors such as barriers to communication are explored, with the intention being to discover how the communication has been ineffective.
Effective Communication is significant for managers in the organizations so as to perform the basic management functions including planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Communication helps managers to perform their jobs and responsibilities and besides, it serves as a foundation for planning (Ferris & Mehrabian, 1967). All the essential information must be communicated to the managers who in-turn must communicate the plans so as to implement them. Organizing also requires effective communication with others about their job task. Similarly leaders as managers must communicate effectively with their subordinates so as to achieve the team goals. Controlling is not possible without written and oral communication. Managers devote a great part of their time in communication. They generally devote approximately 6 hours per day in communicating. They spend great time on face-to-face or telephonic communication with their superiors, subordinates, colleagues, customers or suppliers. Managers also use written communication in form of letters, reports and memos wherever oral communication is not feasible. Thus, it is acceptable that effective communication is a building block of successful organizations.

Effective communication is the pillar of success in any business organization both within and outside the organization. Nonetheless, due to the large organizational sizes and tall organizational structures it is difficult to get any message across; a factor that hinders effective communication. As a result, this leads to the creation of boundaries in the organization, internally in terms of various departments and externally in terms of customers. Therefore, to overcome this dilemma, it is necessary that employees send messages that stick and emphasize on making the point stick rather than just getting the message across.

It has been constantly argued that there are six elements that are vital in achieving success in organizational messages. If these elements are used effectively, organizations can get their points across and make them stick, thereby attaining overall business success. The elements essential to incorporate in messages are thus; simplicity, lack of surprise, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories that stick. Firstly, the message should be simple as it is easier to remember and because of our limited brain capacity, ideas have to be simple in order to make them stick. The second principle of making a message effective is making it unexpected. There should always be a surprise in the message as people tend to remember events that are unexpected.

The next crucial point is concreteness. In case of most organizations, when stories are passed from generation to generation only the concrete part remains; this idea should be used while making a message so that the important material sticks. Credentials are also an extremely vital component of an effective message. People usually believe in a message when there is some sort of validity in it and the credentials should be testable. The final part of a message that sticks is the emotional element (Schramm, 1954). Organizations should think deeply, broaden vision, and accept challenges. The emotional aspect of any message is the most essential aspect. This is due to the fact that people are more prone to something that touches their emotions, positively or negatively. These messages are imprinted in peoples' hearts and the mind just cannot erase them, hence the message sticks. The final point is of the curse of knowledge. This is considered an obstacle in creating a message that sticks. Once people have some knowledge or information it becomes difficult for them to pass on that knowledge, as they cannot imagine any longer how it feels like prior to knowing that information.

When I first started taking projects required of me in my current workplace, I passed through a typical period of poking around and looking at all the details for various projects. I was even reading the comments from workers to employers and vice versa, in their online resumes. From the resumes, I learnt that many people were evaluating others by their communication skills. Being a worker for many years I always believed that I must be judged by the final outcome of the project; I ultimately discovered that this is true. A great implementation of a project will make the employer accept the project fully but if the…