by Elicia Flom

Created on: April 28, 2009

Patience is a core component for effective communication. Patience is a "facilitator" in the communication process. Whether in the board room, classroom, or family room, the people who exercise patience while communicating are the people with a better chance of "getting it right" whether giving a sales presentation, teaching class or finding a television program to watch.

In business, people working together come from different backgrounds, speak different languages and hold varying opinions on how to persuade customers to purchase their products or services. When a diverse group is in the midst of preparing a sales presentation, having patience to truly listen to suggestions encourages people with competing points of view to contribute. Patience weighs in heavily when giving presentations, particularly when sharing presentations with people from different cultures. Patience lays the foundation for tolerance, and when something communicated is misunderstood or misrepresented, people with patience seek to understand the differences, find the "common ground" and provide solutions.

Teaching, whether in a traditional classroom or an online/internet classroom, requires patience from both the teacher and student. In the traditional classroom, teachers should be patient with students making an effort to participate and students should be patient with teachers who are well-prepared. Students who "tune-out" teachers sharing information may miss critical information. Likewise, teachers who encourage participation should be patient with their students as they share their views since some students may not be comfortable communicating in front of other students.

In an online classroom, patience when communicating is pushed to entirely new levels as people grapple with their computers while muddling through web conferencing tools. Teachers and students must exercise patience while discovering which combination of phone, microphone and internet service supports the kind of communication used to deliver the material. Discussion points are repeated for confirmation, sound levels are adjusted for background noise and various accents are learned to understand each person only when patience is present during communication.

Communicating with family members frequently demands the most patience even when it seems the least patience should be needed. After all, our families should understand each family member's perspective, recognize different moods and value every word spoken, right?

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