 I'm always very suspicious when I see anything that's labeled as one size fits all, whether it's clothing, whether it's an opportunity, anything at all, labeled one size fits all because in my experience, one size does not fit all, especially once they've seen me. One size does not fit all. In fact, one size usually fits none or fits one person and that's it because we're all so different in every way that one size of anything is not going to fit us. When we think about communication, we tend to think, well, when I come into a situation, there's one of two paths or a very limited number of things that I can do here, but the truth is when we enter any communication scenario, we need to be thinking that there are a multitude of options and choices before us and that one size does not fit all in any communication scenario either or in any situation. One style or one type of communication is not going to fit every situation. Every situation is unique. One size fits none in communication. So we don't really measure communication then in terms of right or wrong, necessarily, or did you do the right thing or the wrong thing in this situation, but in such a binary sense, we measure communication in terms of communication competence. So communication competence, it's not a matter of as simple as right or wrong in a binary sense. It's are you a competent communicator in whatever situation that you're in. So let's define this a little bit and get into what we mean by communication competence then. So what is communication competence? Essentially communication competence is just engaging in communication with others that is both effective and appropriate within a given context. Now that last part there's really critical to within a given context, meaning these are variables. As much as I'm not a math person, I oftentimes compare communication to algebra in the sense that they both involve variables. In algebra, you have letters or other symbols that substitute for a potential number that would work or could work in that situation. But that can change. That's why it's variable. Communication is much the same. When you affect any variable in a communication situation, whether it's you as the communicator, whether it's the person you're speaking to as the other communicator, whether it's the environment that you're in, whether you're in the supermarket or at a concert or at work or at home or whatever, those are all variables. And what's your relationship with that person? Those are all variables as well. So when you when you change any of those variables, it affects the entire situation and we have to approach it differently, right? So every situation is in essence completely unique. So that context is completely unique. So then are we able to then communicate effectively and appropriately within that context and change and adapt and adjust our communication to the needs of that particular situation? That's what we're talking about when we when we talk about communication competence. Can we engage both effectively and appropriately with others in that given context? So let's take a look at those components then of communication competence a little a little closer. First, effectiveness. What do we mean by effectiveness? Well, effectiveness is not again, not a binary type situation. It's not you can if you're enough you can't just say I'm an effective communicator and have that apply to everything. Because most of us have blind spots as communicators. We may be more effective in some areas than others or in some contexts than others. So effectiveness is a matter of degree. You may have a great deal of proficiency in in one situation, but may be deficient in another situation. So for example, I'm comfortable speaking in front of groups. As a public speaker, that's something I'm I've grown comfortable with. It's not always been the case, but I've grown comfortable with that because I've put in the time and effort to learning how to do so effectively and I have the experience in doing so. I'm by and large proficient in public speaking situations. But you know and I'm proficient I guess in one-on-one as well communication. I do pretty well when I'm just one-on-one with somebody. But if you drop me off in the middle of a cocktail party or you know just some gathering and get together at a function with a bunch of people that I don't know that well or don't know at all. I'm absolutely deficient. I have zero social skills. I have a fair amount of social anxiety when it comes to those types of situations. So I'm by far deficient in those situations. That's an area where I can improve and have been trying to improve over time. And then there are you know a certain context in which I'm not proficient either because I don't know that area well or that I you know I'm so strongly opinionated about something that I have trouble discussing it in a in a reasonable way. For example if we were to talk about is Taylor Swift completely devoid of talent? My opinion is absolutely yes. And most people disagree with me or many people disagree with me. But I can't hear that. I just don't understand how people are drawn to that drawn to her as a musician when she clearly cannot sing past a couple of notes. And so in those kinds of conversations I'm really my competence goes way down because I get so wrapped up in my own opinion that I can't communicate that effectively. So we we we vary in from person to person and situation to situation on our degree of effectiveness whether we are proficient or deficient in those situations. So we need to keep that in mind in terms of effectiveness. Also effectiveness implies a we not me orientation. In other words it's not completely effective if the only person who's successful in that communication is us. If we're the only person who comes away from that that experience thinking oh that was a really good communication experience I you know we handled that well and I did well and but the other person comes away confused or not really understanding or not not having the same that's not really an effective communication experience then right. It has to be a we type thing. We need to be concerned with the other person and what their goals are and whether or not they're finding this to be fulfilling and and so forth. So we need to think of it in terms of we not me right. So those are some things we need to consider when we when we think about the effectiveness of a communication competence and in a given situation or given context right. So the other aspect of this is then of course the appropriateness you know we want to be effective in that situation and accomplish our goals so to speak but we also want to be appropriate for that particular context as we kind of touched on before. As we know any situation is going to have rules right think about any game that you played and or still play when you're growing up there are rules right if you play monopoly what are the rules and and so and monopoly is a great example because there are rules of course to monopoly right there are rules about how much a property costs and and when you can buy and sell things and and when it's your turn to go and and those types of things but then there are also other rules right there are rules that are variable in a sense when you go to somebody else's house they may play where where free parking means you get some money that's in the middle of the of the board right other people say no it's just a safe space to land you don't get anything for landing there other you know so i mean there are different rules about how do you go to jail when you get out of jail what can you do to get out of jail uh in my house sometimes we would have rules where if you didn't have money and you want to get out of jail you could do a stupid trick or something you could do you know somebody but it's almost like uh true they're a type thing but somebody would dare you to do something within reason and you could do that to get out of jail right you could eat a you know mouthful of uh something sour or something and and and then you could get out of jail but so there are rules that that apply to the universally to the game but then there are rules that change within each context of playing that game right the same is true for communication there are rules that apply broadly right generally speaking rules of society say you don't punch another person in the nose right that's that's considered that's usually frowned upon of people do it but but it's typically frowned upon right but then there are other rules that the change from situation to situation there are rules for example rules for communicating at work that are probably different from your rules from communicating at home that are probably slightly different from your rules with communicating with your group of friends and close friends and maybe a different set for when you're at church so to speak you know those types of rules apply for different contexts there are also different rules for each person I know growing especially as a as a guy growing up I think this is a guy thing we we we were hard on you we made fun of each other a lot my group of friends did right and especially when we were younger we had you know sometimes kind of me nicknames for each other but it's just part of growing up in that environment and you know and you expected it and it was part of the rules but if somebody else were to say something nasty to your friend like that boy that would be time that you know you're you're throwing you're dropping your gloves and getting into it with somebody then nobody it's kind of that rule nobody picks on my little brother but me that is certainly true in my household my brother's picked on me mercilessly right but they also didn't allow others to do so because the rules were different for each of those relationships so we need to understand what those rules are for a given culture for a given relationship for a given context we need to understand that those rules are different and what's appropriate in one setting may not be appropriate in another we need to adjust and adapt accordingly if you're going to have rules if there are rules then you know that there are sometimes rule violations and then what happens then has a consequence of those violations that's like another question for appropriateness what do we do when there's a violation of those rules is it intentional or unintentional you know if you're in a culture that you don't know then then then you may be excused and somebody may just need to educate you a little bit on that right but if it's if it's an intentional rules violation then there may be some some further consequences or some harsher consequences in that regard so we need to be aware that that if there are rules then there are rules violations and we need to be aware that that we may when we violate those rules there may be consequences as a result we also need to understand that rules change over times not only are rules different from situation to situation and culture to culture but they change over time right i mentioned when i was younger my group friends and i would spend a lot of time making fun of each other and calling each other names and nicknames and things and it was just all part of that group as we got older as we you know got married and started having kids and and my families and just have matured in general that's not as much a part of our of our exchanges now you know we still you know give each other hard time once for a while but it's not nearly as as rough as it was not nearly as you know as harsh as it was when we were younger these rules change over time based on different circumstances and they change from again from situation to situation the rules are not going to be the same in every context in every relationship and and so we need to understand that that those rules may well change over time and we need to adapt and adjust to maintain appropriateness as those rules evolve and change one thing i've kind of touched on this a little bit but one thing in particular we need to be aware of is that there are also intercultural challenges when we when we're engaging with somebody from a different culture and and that and that's a broader discussion what do we mean by intercultural well we tend to think of intercultural as you know different countries and people from different parts of the world and that's true there are different cultures there but there are also different cultures within the united states within our communities within you know within our friend groups there are different cultures and so we need to understand what those are it could just be that those people have a different interest than us and they may speak a different language as a result for example our oldest son and one of our nephews is are both engineers and so they both live in that engineering world and speak that same language and and they're in that culture and when we get together at family events and those two are together they kind of it's hard to understand them sometimes when they're talking they're using this language and because they're part of this engineering culture that's different and so when we're communicating with them in that context or they're communicating with us they have to remember we don't speak that language right and so i mean that can create a different culture even within our own family so we need to be aware that these are different challenges and again require adaptation require us to understand and to make the time and take the time to to grow into those understandings and and adapt then accordingly to what is both effective and appropriate so what can we do then yeah how can we achieve competence in these situations how can we go from being a novice to being a master or somewhere in between there which of course will take time and and take energy and effort and things but there are a few things we can do to achieve competence first of all we can grow in our knowledge knowledge of communication we can broaden our our skill set we can grow in what is an effective communicator and what what does that mean what is that culture what is this relationship we can grow in our knowledge of all of these things and just remember that we are constantly growing as communicators and we always have more to learn we can add to our skill set as i talk a lot about when we talk about communication competence you want as many tools in your tool belt as you can get you can't build a house with just a hammer now a hammer is a vital tool for building a house and doing all that but it's not the only thing you need you need a lot of tools in your tool belt to build a house just like you need a lot of tools in your tool belt to be an effective communicator you need to be able to draw on different things so we need to spend time expanding our skills learning new skills developing these skills practicing these skills until we get to mastery so that we can employ them effectively and appropriately we need to increase our sensitivity we can't just come in like a bowl in a china shop and and expect everybody to adapt us and our communication style and just you know expect everything to go well sometimes i think of this like when i play video games especially with our kids or or my nephews and nieces and things when we play video games that you know they're kind of shoot them up type things halo and stuff like that i'm constantly the kids are referring to me as a tank in terms of playing video games because i'm just somebody who i got a gun so i'm just running right in the middle of the crowd of bad guys and doing what i can and and i and i die on a regular basis doing that but i'm a tank right i just wait right and i don't look at the situation or consider other options i just wait in and start shooting right so i'm a tank that's not great for video games it's also not great as a communicator we have to be sensitive to these things we have to adapt we have to adjust we can't just you know rush into these things and do our thing and expect everybody else to adapt and adjust to us we need to be sensitive to to the other person to their needs to the culture that they're from to the you know to the context that we're in and all of these things we need to develop greater sensitivity we have to have a commitment achieving communication competence requires a commitment in to a variety of things first of all requires a commitment to developing as a communicator understanding that we don't know at all we haven't got it all figured out we do have room to grow and committing ourselves to developing those skills and increasing our sensitivity and growing in our knowledge so our commitment to being a more effective communicator it also requires a commitment to other people and to that relationship to our desire to grow that relationship and expand that relationship or to grow in our knowledge of that culture and be able to communicate more effectively in that culture in that context so it really just requires a commitment in a lot of ways for us to achieve this kind of competence then finally it requires us to develop ethics and to employ ethics so what do we mean when we say ethics well we're talking about things like honesty, respect, fairness, choice, responsibility these are all components of ethics and communication that you that again when you develop your knowledge in your commitment and developing your skills and your sensitivity you should you should work specifically on these items as well becoming more committed to honesty being respectful of others being fair to others being providing others with the choice and not not constantly trying to manipulate or or push somebody into to our point of view necessarily doesn't mean we can't try and persuade people but but understanding that other people have a choice as well and then responsibility taking responsibility for our words for our actions for our communication behaviors even for things like our emotions sometimes we like to think of emotion as well that's something somebody else did to me and the truth is we experience these emotions but then we start making choices about that how are we going to respond to this what are we going to say as a result how are we going to let this emotion handle us or are we going to manage the emotion effectively and we have to take responsibility for that responsibility for our own emotions using i statements and not u statements right so we have to employ greater ethics and commit to learning these ethics and and and employing them vigorously as a communicator so communication competence again all about effectiveness and appropriateness and being a more effective and appropriate communicator in whatever situation you're in whether it's hanging out with a group of friends whether it's at work whether it's a church or home or dealing with your parents or whatever it is we want to be more effective and appropriate in all of those situations which we have to again realize are completely unique and so developing the skill will involve being prepared to employ effective communication skills effectively and appropriately in any given context if you have questions about communication competence or about anything else related to this area please feel free to email me i'd love to hear from you and chat with you about that there in the meantime i hope that you will continue to and and as you have in just by watching this video you've started to develop your communication competence with a new understanding of what that means hopefully and i hope that you'll continue to work toward those skills that we talked about towards your knowledge and your skills and your your commitment and and ethics and so forth to become a more effective and appropriate communicator in any context to the best of your ability