Indian Journal of Business Management & Technology, ISSN 2319-5797, Volume 8, Number 1/2 (2021): 1 - 8
© Arya PG College (College with Potential for Excellence Status by UGC) & Business Press India Publication, Delhi
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Role of Skills in Modern Corporate Communication

Jaswinder Kour , Baljeet Singh2 and Sanjeev Seth
1Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce
2Assistant Professor, Department of Public Administration
Guru Nanak Khalsa College, Yamunanagar (Haryana), India
3CEO, Business Press India Delhi, India
⃰ Email: jaswinderk12@gmail.com

Abstract

The interpersonal communication process is complex and changing which directly affected by many interrelated factors. To systematically understand and investigate social encounters, some kind of interpretive framework is often used. In fact, many alternative frameworks have been developed for this purpose. This paper focuses on investigating the nature of skills, especially the view that interpersonal communication can be considered a form of skills.

Keywords: Conceptualized, Communication Process, Templates.

Introduction

To evaluate complexity of interpersonal process, it is necessary to directly link the history of interpersonal skills research with the study of motor skills, because the concept of communication as a skill eventually arises from the latter sources. Interpersonal communication is conceptualized as: the form of joint economic activity or social exchange in which both parties seek returns and minimize costs, can be in the form of money, services, goods, status or affection and transactional events, during which the individual plays a role similar to that of a parent, adult, or child, and responds to others on one of these three levels. A type of dramatic representation composed of main scenes, in which everyone plays the expected role. Some roles are more prominent than others. The performance of the actors on the "front stage" and "behind the scenes" is different. These are just methods that are developed as templates to explain interpersonal communication. Also, another method of this type will be offensive, that is, social behavior can be conceptualized as a vision of the expression of skills, so it makes sense to compare social skills behavior with the motor skills behavior.
Motor Skills
The study of perceptual-motor skill has a long and rich tradition within psychology. Such skills, which involve coordinated physical movements of the body, are widely employed in human performance, and these include, for example, eating, dressing, walking, writing, riding a bicycle,
and playing golf. The three main characteristics of motor skills are:
• These consist of an organized, coordinated activity in relation to an object or a situation and, therefore, involve a whole chain of sensory, central, and motor mechanisms, which underlie performance.
• These are learnt, in that the understanding of the event or performance is built up gradually with repeated experience.
• These are serial in nature, involving the ordering and coordination of many different processes or actions in sequence. Thus, the skill of driving involves a pre-set repertoire of behaviours, which must be carried out in temporal sequence (put gear into neutral, switch on ignition, and so on).
Interpersonal Skills
Indeed, the terms ‘communication skill’, ‘social skill’, and ‘interpersonal skill’ have entered the lexicon of everyday use. For example, many job advertisements stipulate that applicants should have high levels of social, or communication skill. In this global sense, social skills can be defined as the skills employed when communicating at an interpersonal level with other people.
A person is socially skilled according to ‘the extent to which he or she can communicate with others, in a manner that fulfils one’s rights, requirements, satisfactions, or obligations to a reasonable degree without damaging the other person’s similar rights, satisfactions or obligations, and hopefully shares these rights, etc. with others in free and open exchange’.
These are the abilities to interact with others in a given social context in specific ways that are socially acceptable or valued and at the same time personally beneficial, mutually beneficial, or beneficial primarily to others. To perform skillfully, the individual must be able to identify the emotions or intent expressed by the other person and make sophisticated judgments about the form and timing of the appropriate response. Thus, the skilled individual needs to take cognisance of the others involved in the encounter. This involves perceptual acumen and perspective-taking ability, together with a capacity to mesh one’s responses meaningfully, and at apposite moments, with those of others.
One problem here is that any detailed study of higher-order skill will involve a long process. There is a well established ‘10-year rule’ in relation to the learning of complex skill routines, in that the highest level of performance in any field is only attained after 10 years of concerted practice and training.
Top chess players, Olympic athletes, international soccer players, celebrated musicians, etc., will all have engaged in at least a decade of intensive practice. It is very probable that the 10-year rule also applies to complex social skills (negotiating, teaching, counselling, etc.). This makes analysis and synthesis problematic.
There are many components of these skills. Skilled performance is not a unitary activity. There is a large variety of different types of skills, some of which involve basic activities that are simple to execute, while others incorporate a range of intricate sub elements, making them much more complicated to master. It is hardly surprising therefore that differing definitions of what constitutes social skill have proliferated within the literature. Any definition must, of necessity, be a simplification of what is an intricate, multifarious, and multifaceted process. The six main elements as being central to the concept of social skills are:
• Learned
• Composed of specific verbal and nonverbal behaviours
• Entail appropriate initiations and responses
• Maximize available rewards from others
• Require appropriate timing and control of specific behaviours
• Influenced by prevailing contextual factors
Process of Interaction
While behaviour is a key aspect of skill, it is in turn shaped by a range of other features.
As such, motoric behaviour represents the overt part of an overall process in which the individual pursues goals, devises implementation plans and strategies, continually monitors the environment, considers the position of others involved in the encounter, responds appropriately in that situation, estimates the likelihood of goal success, and adjusts future behaviour accordingly In this way, interaction is a transactional process in which each person’s response is guided and shaped by the responses of others.
In fact, a common analogy is made between interacting and dancing. Both are carried out for a wide variety of reasons, some of which overlap. Thus, one may dance or interact to express oneself, to impress others, to help to develop a relationship, to pass the time, and so on. Interacting, like dancing a tango or waltz, depends on the coordinated intermeshing of learned repertoires between the two parties. Both are forms of performance wherein certain ‘moves’ are expected and anticipated, and the people involved complement one another in a fluid pattern of co-responding. If one partner is unskilled, the encounter becomes much more difficult. One of the process dimensions to have attracted considerable attention within the interpersonal communication literature is the notion of competence. Competence is an issue both perennial and fundamental to the study of communication. Social competence can thus be regarded as the manifestation of the various social skills a person possesses. It is the ability to choose a strategy, then select among skills appropriate to that context and employ these skills. Competence can be viewed as an evaluative judgment of the quality of a skill. There are three qualities associated with competence:
• Knowledge: This relates to the information that is necessary for the person to be able to communicate in a way that is perceived to be competent e.g. what one should say in this situation, how others might feel about this, what the alternative responses are.
• Motivation: This concerns the desire of the person to behave in ways that will be judged as competent.
• Skill: This refers to the individual’s ability to act in such a way as to promote the perception of competence.
However, it is also possible to argue that skill subsumes competence. The dictionary defines skill as ‘aptitudes and competencies appropriate for a particular job’. In this way, skilled soccer players or skilled negotiators would be regarded as highly competent in many separate facets of the process in which they are engaged.
Likewise, it makes sense to describe someone as ‘competent but not highly skilled’ at performing a particular action.
Goals of Social Interaction
Social interaction is now widely recognized as goal-directed activity. Communication skill refers to an individual’s ability to achieve communicative goals. Skilled behaviour is selected by the individual to achieve a desired outcome, and as such are purposeful as opposed to chance or unintentional. An unskilled person may have ambitious goals, but without carefully related action plans, nothing is likely to be achieved. The execution of plans depends on a range of resources, such as money, access to relevant others, interpersonal skills, and cognitive ability.
Four main theories for explaining and predicting goal-directed intentions and behaviour has been proposed:
• The theory of reasoned action purports that behaviour is determined directly by one’s intentions to carry it out, and these are influenced by one’s attitudes positive or negative toward the behaviour and by perceived social pressure to perform it.
• The theory of planned behaviour extends this by adding the notion of perceived behavoural control as an important predictor of intention and action. Perceived behavoural control refers both to the presence of facilitating situational conditions and to feelings of self-efficacy (personal confidence in one’s ability to execute the behaviour successfully).
• The theory of self-regulation emphasises the centrality of motivational commitment, or desire, to act.
• Finally the theory of trying interprets goal-directed behaviour within three domains – trying and succeeding, trying but failing, and the process of striving. This theory emphasizes the importance of personal attitudes to success and failure as predictors of intentions and actions, as well as attitudes to the process involved en route to the goal. For example, one may decide not to try to lose weight because of a personal belief that one would fail anyway, or because the process of dieting and exercising is not viewed as desirable. The frequency and recency of past behaviour is also seen as important. Although the processes of goal setting, goal implementation, and goal abandonment are affected by a range of variables, in essence the decision to pursue particular goals seems to be determined by two overarching factors:
• Desirability (the attractiveness of goal attainment).
• Feasibility (the strength of belief that the goal can be achieved).
There is difference between learning goals and performance goals. Those who see themselves as pursuing learning goals (e.g. to learn how to be a better salesperson) view setbacks as opportunities for learning and future development. On the other hand, those who are guided by performance goals (to sell ‘x’ number of products today) are more negatively affected by failure. Learning goals therefore lead to better achievements than performance goals. The principles of goal achievement are:
• People working toward a specific goal outperform than those working with no explicit goal.
• Performance level increases with goal difficulty (providing the person is committed to the goal).
• Giving people specific goals produces better results than vague goals (such as ‘do your best’).
A distinction needs to be made between long-term and short-term goals. In order to achieve a long-term goal, a number of related short-term ones must be devised and executed. Our moment-by-moment behaviour is guided by the latter, since if these are not successfully implemented, the long-term goal will not be achieved. In this way, skilled behaviour is hierarchically organised with larger goal-related tasks comprising smaller component subunits. For example, a long-term goal may be to appoint an appropriate person for a job vacancy. In order to do so, there is a range of subgoals which must be achieved – advertising the position, drawing up a short-list of candidates, interviewing each one, and so on. These subgoals can be further subdivided. At the interview stage, the chief goal is to assess the suitability of the candidate, and this, in turn, involves subgoals such as welcoming the candidate, making introductions, and asking relevant questions. In this way, the short-term, behavioural goals provide a route to the achievement of the long-term, strategic goal. Another aspect of skilled action is that goals are usually subconscious during performance. The skilled soccer player is not consciously aware of objectives when running with the ball, but these nevertheless govern behaviour. Those involved in the process of successful learning of new skills progress through the following four sequential stages:
• Unconscious Incompetence
At this stage, we are blissfully unaware of the fact that we are acting in an unskilled way.
• Conscious Incompetence
Here we know how we should be performing but also know that we are not able to produce the level of performance required.
• Conscious Competence
At the early stage of skill acquisition, we are aware of behaving in a skilled manner as we act.
• Unconscious Competence
Once a skill has been fully assimilated, we successfully execute it without having to think about it.
Interrelated Behaviour
Social skills are defined in terms of identifiable units of behaviour, and actual performance is in many ways the acid test of effectiveness. Judgments about skill are directly related to behavioural performance. We do not judge soccer players on their ability to discuss the game or analyse their own performance, but rather we regard them as skilful or not based upon what they do on the field of play.
Similarly, we make judgments about social skill based upon the behaviour of the individual during social encounters. Therefore, a key aspect of skilled performance is the ability to implement a smooth, integrated, behavioural repertoire. In a sense, all that is ever really known about others during social interaction is how they actually behave. All kinds of judgements (boring, humorous, warm, shy, and so on) are inferred about people from such behaviour. As mentioned earlier, skilled behaviour is hierarchical in nature, small elements such as changing gear or asking questions combining to form larger skill areas such as driving or interviewing, respectively.
This viewpoint has guided training in social skills, whereby the emphasis is upon encouraging the trainee to acquire separately smaller units of behaviour before integrating them to form the larger response elements – a technique that has long been employed in the learning of motor skills. Socially skilled behaviour is interrelated in that is synchronised and employed in order to achieve a common goal.
However, to be skilled, the individual must combine appropriate elements of these as required, so as to respond appropriately in a particular interaction. In social interaction, different practices and systems of practices are brought together. This is similar to the tennis player who in order to improve performance, focuses on separate aspects of the game (serve, volley, lob, backhand, etc.) during training, but, to be skilled, must combine these during actual matches. In this sense, while our understanding is informed by a microanalysis of particular elements. For a fuller appreciation of skilled performance, the complete picture must also be taken into consideration.
One example of this is that an analysis of aspects of the channels of verbal and non-verbal behaviour combined has been found to be more effective in accurately detecting whether or not someone is being deceptive than the scrutiny of either channel on its own. Skilled performance has been likened to an orchestra.
All of the instruments (behaviour) must be synchronised, and if any one is out of synch, the entire performance is adversely affected. Skill therefore involves a coordinated meshing of behaviour, and ‘is said to have been acquired when the behavior is highly integrated’. The car driver needs simultaneously to operate the clutch, accelerator, gear lever, brakes, steering wheel, and light switches.
Similarly, someone wishing to provide reward to another concurrently uses head nods, eye contact, smiles, attentive facial expressions, and statements such as ‘That’s very interesting.’ This latter behaviour is all interrelated in that this is indicative of the skill of rewardingness. Conversely, if someone does not look at us, yawns, uses no head nods, and yet says, ‘That’s very interesting’, this behaviour is contradictory rather than complementary, and the person would not be using the skill of rewardingness effectively.
An individual who adopted such a pattern of mixed response over a prolonged period would be judged to be low in interpersonal skills. People who always act in a socially incompetent fashion are deemed to be unskilled regardless of the depth of theoretical knowledge, they may possess about interpersonal behaviour. In skill, it is performance that counts. An important criterion for judging skill is accuracy. Highly skilled individuals make fewer performance errors than those less skilled. Just as a highly skilled golfer misses fewer putts than one less skilled, so, too, a skilled orator makes fewer speech dysfluencies than a less skilled public speaker. The errors are divided into:
• Errors of Omission
Here an action that should have been executed is omitted. For example, a driver forgets to put the gear in neutral before switching on the engine, or a salesperson fails to get the client’s commitment to buy before attempting to close a sale.
• Errors of Commission
In this instance, the person carries out a behaviour that detracts from performance. For example, a learner driver releases the clutch too quickly.
Situational Appropriateness of Skills The importance of contextual awareness for the effective operation of motor skill has long been recognised. Skills represent particular ways of using capacities in relation to environmental demands, with human beings and external situation together forming a functional “system” ’. There is firm evidence that certain behaviour is situationally determined. For example, Hargie, Morrow and Woodman (2000) carried out a study of effective communication skills in community pharmacy, in which they videotaped 350 pharmacist–patient consultations. They found that skills commonly employed when dealing with over-the-counter items were not utilized by the pharmacist when handling prescription-related consultations. For instance, the skill of suggesting/advising, which was defined as the offer of personal/professional opinion as to a particular course of action while simultaneously allowing the final decision to lie with the patient, fell into this category. When dealing with prescription items, suggestions or advice were not given, probably because these patients had already been advised by their doctor and the pharmacist did not wish to interfere. Individuals skilled in one context may not be skilled in another. For example, an excellent midfielder in soccer may be a terrible goalkeeper. Likewise, experienced teachers have been shown to have difficulties in becoming skilled school counsellors. In essence, the more similarity there is between the demand characteristics of situations, the higher the probability, that skills will transfer. Thus, a professional tennis player is usually good at other racquet sports. In the same way, a successful car salesperson is likely to be effective in other related selling contexts. One similarity between motor and social skill is that they are both sequential in nature.
Thus, the skill of driving involves a pre-set sequence of behavior that must be carried out in the correct order. In social interaction, there are also stages that tend to be followed sequentially. Checking into a hotel usually involves interacting in a set way with the receptionist, being shown to one’s room and giving a tip to the porter who delivers one’s cases. Likewise, going to the doctor, the dentist, or church involves sequences of behaviour that are expected and which are more or less formalized, depending upon the setting. In the case of the doctor’s surgery, the sequence would be:
• Patient enters the surgery.
• Doctor makes a greeting.
• Patient responds and sits down.
• Doctor seeks information about the patient’s health.
• Patient responds and gives information.
• Doctor makes a diagnosis.
• Doctor prescribes and explains treatment.
• Doctor makes closing comments.
• Patient responds, stands up, and leaves the surgery.
This sequence is expected by the patient, who would be most unhappy if the doctor moved straight from (1) to (7) without going through the intervening steps. It can be disconcerting and embarrassing if one is in a situation where the sequence is not as expected or has not been learned (for example, attending a church service of a different religious denomination). In such situations, however, we usually cope and, unlike the sequence of behaviour in, for example, driving a car, this behaviour are expected rather than essential. It is only in certain rituals or ceremonies that a pre-set sequence is essential (for example, weddings in church) and responses are demanded in a fixed temporal order. Interpersonal skills are more fluid and individualised than most motor skills. Different people employ varying combinations of behaviour, often with equal success, in social contexts. This process, whereby the same goal can be achieved through the implementation of differing strategies, is referred to as equifinality. These strategies, in turn, have alternative yet equally effective behavioural approaches. While there are common stages in social episodes (e.g. opening, discussion, closing), the behaviour used within each stage vary from one person to another. However, ‘knowing’ the social situation is clearly an important aspect of social skill, in order to relate behaviour successfully to the context in which they are employed.
Learning of Skilled Behaviour
Some theorists purport that not all skilled behaviour is learned. There are species of behavior for which persons can produce desired results “naturally” because the skills are acquired in the course of bodily or mental development. As an example, he cites ‘speaking and understanding one’s native language’. However, most skills analysts would find the view that language just occurs ‘naturally’ (whatever that means) to be a rather unusual perspective. Does it mean, for example, that children reared in isolation acquire their ‘native’ language ‘naturally’? Of course, the answer is no, they do not. While most humans are hard-wired to learn language (an exception being those suffering from cognitive impairments), all social behaviour (including non-verbal as well as verbal) still has to be learned. We know that if children are reared in isolation, they do not develop ‘normal’ interactive repertoires and certainly will not acquire their ‘native’ language. In addition, it has been shown that the interactive skills of parents are key components in the development of social competence in children.
Thus, mothers who encourage their children to talk, and make elaborations on the child’s responses, produce enhanced language development in the child. Indeed, there is evidence that the degree of deprivation of appropriate learning experiences from other people differentially affects the social behaviour of individuals. In this way, children from socially deprived home backgrounds are more likely to develop less appropriate social behaviours, whereas children from culturally richer home environments tend to be more socially adept.
The social learning theory posited that all repertoires of behaviour, with the exception of elementary reflexes (eye blinks, coughing, etc.), are learned. This social learning process involves the modelling and imitation of significant others, such as parents, peers, media stars, siblings, and teachers. The individual observes how others behave and then follows a similar behavioural routine. By this process, from an early age, children may walk, talk, and act like their same-sex parent. At a later stage, however, they may begin to copy and adopt the behaviour of people whom they see as being more significant in their lives by, for example, following the dress and accents of peers regardless of those of parents. A second major element in social learning theory is the reinforcement of behaviour. As a general rule, people tend to employ more frequently responses that are positively reinforced or rewarded, and to display less often those that are punished or ignored.
This is not to say that there are not innate differences in individual potential, since some people may be more talented than others in specific areas. While mostly behaviour is learned, it is also true that people have different aptitudes for certain types of performance. Thus, although it is necessary to learn how to play musical instruments or how to paint, some may have a better ‘ear’ for music or ‘eye’ for art and so will excel in these fields. Likewise, certain individuals have a ‘flair’ for social interchange and find interpersonal skills easier to learn and perfect. However, as discussed earlier, practice is also essential for improvement. Comparisons of highly skilled people with those less skilled, across a wide variety of contexts, show that the former engage in significantly more practice.
Cognitive Control of Social Skills
The final element of social skills is the degree of cognitive control that the individual has over behaviour. Thus, a socially inadequate person may have learned the basic behavioural elements of interpersonal skills but may not have developed the appropriate thought processes necessary to control their utilisation. If skill is to have its desired effect, timing is a crucial consideration. Behaviour is said to be skilled only if it is employed at the opportune moment.
For example, smiling and saying ‘How funny’ when someone is relating details of a personal bereavement would certainly not be a socially skilled response. Indeed, saying the right thing at the wrong time is a characteristic of some social inadequates. Learning when to employ socially skilled behaviour is every bit as important as learning what this behaviour is, where to use, and how to evaluate this. In his discussion of the notion of interpersonal competence, Parks (2011) highlighted the importance of hierarchical control theory, which conceives of personal action as a process controlled by nine linked and hierarchical levels. From lower to higher, these levels are as follows :
1) Intensity Control
This is the level just inside the skin involving sensory receptors, muscle movements, and spinal responses. Damage at this basic level has serious consequences for communication. For example, impairments to vision, hearing or to the vocal chords can dramatically impede interpersonal ability.
2) Sensation Control
Here, the sensory nuclei collected at level 1 are collated and organised into meaningful packages. The ability to portray a certain facial expression would be dependent upon activity at this level.
3) Configuration Control The basic packages developed at level 2 are in turn further organised into larger configurations, which then control movements of the limbs, perception of visual forms, and speech patterns. The ability to decode verbal and non-verbal cues occurs at this level.
4) Transition Contro This level further directs the more basic configurations into fine-grained responses, such as changing the tone of voice, pronouncing a word, or using head nods at appropriate moments. Transition control also allows us to recognize the meaning of such behaviour in others.
5) Sequence Control
At this level, we control the sequence, flow, intensity, and content of our communications. The ability to synchronise and relate our responses appropriately to those with whom we are interacting, and to the situational context, is handled at this level. Thus, judgements of the extent to which someone is socially skilled can begin at the sequence control level.
6) Relationship Control
Here the individual judges and makes decisions about larger sets of relationships (cause–effect, chronological, etc.), so that appropriate strategies can be implemented to attain higher-order goals. For example, the ability to encode and decode deceptive messages is controlled at this level. Likewise, negotiating a successful business deal, or securing promotion at work all involve relational control.
7) Programme Control
At this level, programmes are developed to predict, direct, and interpret communication in a variety of contexts. Skill acquisition involves a process of knowledge compilation. Two types of knowledge are important here :
• Knowing what is important in social encounters. This type of content or declarative knowledge includes an awareness of the rules of social encounters, the behaviour associated with the roles that people play, and so on. In the early stages of skill learning, this knowledge predominates.
• Knowing how to perform in a skilled fashion. When the individual becomes skilled, declarative knowledge is ‘compiled’ into procedural knowledge. Here, the person has developed a large repertoire of procedures directly related to the implementation of interpersonal skills.
There has been increasing interest in the role of ‘mental representations’ in social behaviour. Highly skilled people have a huge store of such representations relating to a wide range of situations. These representations allow existing circumstances to be compared with previous knowledge and experience, and so facilitate the process of decision making. For the development of skill, knowledge must be acquired in such a way that it is highly connected and articulated, so that inference and reasoning are enabled as is access to procedural action. The resulting organization of knowledge provides a schema for thinking and cognitive activity. A schema is a cognitive structure that is developed after repeated exposure to the same situation. It provides the person with a store of knowledge and information about how to behave in a particular context. Schemas contain learned ‘scripts’ that are readily available for enactment as required. By adulthood, we have developed thousands of schemas to deal with a wide variety of people across a range of situations, such as checking-in at an airport, shopping at the supermarket, or giving directions to a stranger on the street.
New situations can be difficult to navigate, since we have not developed relevant schemas to enable us to operate smoothly and effectively therein. In any profession, learning the relevant schemas and scripts is an important part of professional development. In their analysis of skill acquisition, it was demonstrated how when skill is acquired, cognitive demands are reduced (the person no longer has to think so much about how to handle the situation), and this in turn frees up cognitive resources for other activities.
An experienced teacher has a number of classroom-specific schemas, such as ‘class getting bored’ and ‘noise level too high’, each with accompanying action plans – ‘introduce a new activity’ or ‘call for order’. These schemas are used both to evaluate situations and to enable appropriate and immediate responses to be made. Experienced teachers build up a large store of such schemas, and so are able to cope more successfully than novices. The same is true in other professions. Veteran doctors, nurses, social workers, and salespeople develop a range of work-specific schemas to enable them to respond quickly and confidently in the professional context. This ability to respond rapidly and appropriately is, in turn, a feature of skilled performance. In fact, speed of response is a notable aspect of skilled interaction. Thus, in free-flowing interpersonal encounters, less than 200 milliseconds typically elapses between the responses of speakers. This flexibility to change plans, so as to adapt to the needs of the situation, is another feature of skill.
8) Principle Control
Programmes must be related directly to our guiding principles or goals, and these, in turn, control their implementation. In this sense, we have to create programmes that are compatible with our goals.
9) System Concept Control
At the very top of this hierarchy is our system of idealised self-concepts. These drive and control our principles, which in turn determine programmes, and so on. Someone whose idealized self-concept included being a ‘trustworthy person’ would then develop principles such as ‘always tell the truth’ and ‘fulfill one’s obligations’. Further down the hierarchy, at the programme-control level, schemas would be formulated to enable these principles to be operationalised across various contexts.
Social and Motor Skills
From the above analysis, it is obvious that there are similarities and differences between social and motor skills. The parallels between the two sets of skill are not perfect. However, the analogy between motor and social performance has stimulated considerable debate, and there certainly are considerable areas of overlap. The main similarities are that both sets of skill:
• Are goal-directed and intentional.
• Involve high levels of cognitive control.
• Encompass behaviour that is synchronised and situation-specific.
Are learned and improved through practice and feedback.
Rapidity is a feature of all skilled action. An ability to respond rapidly means that skilled individuals appear to have more time to perform their actions and as a result their behaviour seems less rushed. The skilled person can ‘sum up’ situations and respond swiftly, so that performance becomes smoother and more fluid. In one study of chess players, Chase and Simon (1973) showed novices and grandmasters chessboards on which were placed pieces from the middle of an actual game. After viewing the board for 5 seconds, they were asked to reconstruct the game on a blank board.
On average, novices correctly replaced 4 out of 20, whereas masters replaced 18 out of 20, pieces. Interestingly, in a second part of this study when the subjects were shown a board on which the pieces were placed in a way that could not have resulted from an actual chess game, masters performed no better than novices. Thus, rapidity was related to actual chess playing. Socially skilled individuals develop a similar ability in relation to specific contexts – for example, interviewers will know how to deal with a vast array of interviewee responses.
Again, this is context- related, so that an experienced detective may be highly skilled during an interrogative interview but less skilled in a counseling interview. Automaticity refers to the fact that skilled actions are performed ‘without thinking’. We do not think about how to walk or how to talk – we just do it. Yet, in infancy, both skills took considerable time and effort to acquire, and in cases of brain injury in adulthood both may have to be relearned. Conclusion
It can be concluded that communication, social and interpersonal skills are of everyday use. These are beneficial personally, mutually and to others. Skilled employees will be regarded as highly competent in many separate facets of the process in which they are engaged. Highly skilled people have a huge store of such representations relating to a wide range of situations. These representations allow existing circumstances to be compared with previous knowledge and experience, and so facilitate the process of decision making. When skill is acquired, cognitive demands are reduced (the person no longer has to think so much about how to handle the situation), and this in turn frees up cognitive resources for other activities.
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