No bond unites congenial hearts more firmly than that of a common great aim. Effectiveness requires commitment. Commitment is the conscious decision to invest time, energy, thought, and feeling to improve oneself or one’s relationships with other. Little worthwhile comes without commitment. Do you want to be a great reporter? They make big individual sacrifices, labored untold hours, and plan strategies carefully. You have to want it, work for it, have passion to achieve it, you must be committed. Sometimes, problems rest just below the surface and go unattended by groups, and that magnifies difficulties, unless members are sensitive to the nuances and subtleties of communication transactions between members. The predominant motivation of the competent communicator is the desire to avoid previous mistakes and to find better ways of communicating with group members. Someone who makes the same mistakes repeatedly and shows little interest in altering his or her behavior is a nuisance, or worse, a dead weight that can sink a group. Such anemic commitment is a frequent source of frustration in groups that can fester into group hate. Therefore, commitment to improving your communication effectiveness requires monitoring of self.

When you interact in groups, you have to be a participant observer. You assume a detached view of yourself, analyze your communication behavior, and look for areas to improve while noting successes. Ultimately, the competent communicator considers it a personal responsibility to interact with group members as effectively and productively as possible. All the rules of morality are but maxims of prudence. There   is no moral truth, the weight of which can be felt without experience. It turns out that 48 percent of people admitted they had engaged in one or more unethical communication behaviors on the past year. Workers covered up unethical or illegal incidents; called in sick when they were not ill; lied or deceived customers, coworkers, or supervisors; or took credit for a coworker’s idea. American culture cares about ethics, but we do not always communicate ethically. Imagine trying to keep a family together when everyone lies regularly, and no one can be trusted. Stealing someone’s idea and taking credit raises the issue of right and wrong because another person is adversely affected. The theft of an idea is inappropriate and self-centered. All ethical systems condemn lying.

Relationships fall apart, and groups cannot function effectively when members show disrespect for each other. Prejudice treats people unfairly. Bigotry should have no place in the communication arena. Bigots want different rules for themselves than those applied to disfavored people. Freedom to choose for oneself without threat of force or intimidation is a basic ethical value. It is why most nations have outlawed torture. Coercion prevents choice. If you fear reprisals for telling the truth, then your freedom to choose truthfulness instead of deceit is compromised. Ethical communication is We oriented. Every group member and the group as a whole have a responsibility, a duty, to be concerned about more than merely what works to achieve personal or even group goals. How goals are achieved is also a vital consideration. As the rash of corporate scandals showed, our ethical responsibility encompasses more than effectiveness. People were not born to live alone. We are linked to our brethren by a thousand times; and, when those ties are broken, we cease from all genuine existence. Honesty, respect, fairness, choice, and responsibility, however, are strong values in most culture, and they act as basic standards for our communication behavior.