Essentials of Organizational communication

Communication is the sharing or exchange of thought by oral, written, or nonverbal means.

Communication establishes relationships and makes organizing possible. Every message has a
purpose or objective.

The sender intends - whether consciously or unconsciously – to accomplish something by

communicating. In organizational contexts, messages typically have a definite objective: to
motivate, to inform, to teach, to persuade, to entertain, or to inspire. This definite purpose is, in
fact, one of the principal differences between casual conversation and managerial
communication. Everything that a manager does involves communicating. Ineffective
communication is the basis for many managerial problems. Effective communication in the
organization centers on well-defined objectives that support the organization's goals and mission
and it does not equal agreement. Supervisors strive to achieve understanding among parties to
their communications. Communication can be:

One way and two-way communication

Communication is one-way when the senders send the message without expecting a feedback.
For example, policy directives to subordinates do not require immediate feedback. On the other
hand two-way communication takes place where the receiver sends a feedback to the original
communication. Seeking a progress report or inviting a suggestion are examples of two-way
communication. Harold Levit and Renold Mueller conducted experiments on the effects of one-
way and two-way communications. We will state below their results without giving details of
their experiments:

(I) One-way communication is faster than the two-way communication as obviously the time of
feedback is saved.

(ii) Two-way communication is more accurate. The feedback allows the sender enough
opportunity to clarify the doubts of the receiver.

(iii) Receivers are sure of the contents of the communication when two-way communication is
used. They can clarify their doubts.

(iv) Senders can feel attached by the questions of the receivers in a two-way communication.

(v) Although less accurate, one –way communication is more orderly than two way
communication which appears to carry a lot of noise. These results can provide practical
guidelines for communication in organization:

(i) One-way communication can be used when:

(a) the speed of communication is important;

(b) the accuracy is either easy to achiever or not so important;

(c) orderliness is required - like in a public meeting.

An incidental advantage of one-way communication is that the sender’s mistakes are saved from
the embarrassment of a public discussion.

(ii) The two-way communication should be used when:

(a) the accuracy is the more important factor;

(b) speed is either easily achieved or is not so important.

In most cases, managers use a good mix of one-way and two way communications.

• Verbal - formal, such as speeches and presentations, or informal, such as conversations,

meeting discussions, etc.

• Non-Verbal - human elements such as facial expressions and body language or environmental
such as cultural, colors, office design, etc.

• Written - letters, memos, reports, manuals, forms, etc. Organizational communication can be:

• Formal Communication

• Informal Communication

Formal Communication and Informal Communication

Formal Communication

It is the communication that follows the official chain of command or is communication required
to do one’s job. It takes place within prescribed organizational work arrangements.
Organizational communication establishes a pattern of formal communication channels to carry
information vertically and horizontally.

Informal Communication

Informal messages are exchanges outside of official channels, in hallways, in coffee rooms, at
parties, at lunches, in parking lots, or in bars after work. Informal networks are often used
intentionally to bypass formal channels to insure that information gets to the place where it is
most needed. Informal networks are developed and sustained by special relationships that are
formed by its members.

Informal networks:

• Are generally face-to-face

• less constrained by organizational and political restraints

• Move messages rapidly

• tend to be more the result of the situation than the people or their roles

• Tend to develop more often within organizational workgroups, departments, or divisions than
between them and

• Generally transmit information that is accurate, though often somewhat incomplete, leading to
misinterpretation.

It is not defined by the organization’s structural hierarchy. It fulfills two purposes:

– permits employees to satisfy their needs for social interaction

• creates alternative, and frequently faster and more efficient, channels of communication
•

Grapevine

The grapevine refers to a regular system of communication among employees that occurs outside
the normal channels of communication. As an informal system of communication, the grapevine
often carries the first word of personnel (and personal) issues as well as leaked sensitive
information. Grapevines exist in almost all organizations and serve a very important carrying
function. Grapevines should be monitored to find out what kinds of messages are being
conveyed. Grapevine is a type of information communication which is not officially suctioned. It
is made of several informal communication networks that overlap and interact at a number of
points. It cuts across rank or authority lines and follows any path-horizontal, vertical, diagonal
and zig-zag. it is different from the legitimate information that the management wishes to
communicate by word of mouth.

In addition to the social and informal communicational functions the grapevine has work related
functions also. It is much faster than the formal communication channel. Managers sometimes
use it to spread information through “Planned leaks”. Kelth Davis has studied the phenomenon
of grapevines in the organizations and has identified four types of grapevine chains.

Grapevines Cluster

(i) In a single strand grapevine one person –

(a) passes on information to another person

(b) who in turn passes on to another person

(c) and so on. It is quite inaccurate in passing information.

Single Strand

Gossip
Probability

Cluster

(ii) In a gossip grapevine – One person gets some information and tells it to everyone he meets or
talks to. This chain comes into play when some interesting but non-job related information is
being circulated.

(iii) In the probability chain an individual passes information to some others a random who in
turn pass it on to some others. This is used when information is widely interesting but
insignificant.

(iv) In cluster chain – A person gives information to a select few who convey it to some other
selected few.

Davis has said that cluster chain is the most important variety of grapevines prevalent in the
organizations. Only a few individuals, known as liaison individuals, pass on information to few
other individuals whom they trust. This information is often interesting, job related and timely.

Formal versus Informal Communication

In the past, the concern of managers of large bureaucratic organizations and, consequently the
major focus of the organizational communication literature, was formal, top-down
communication. Informal communication, generally associated with interpersonal, horizontal
communication, was primarily seen as a potential hindrance to effective organizational
performance. This is no longer the case. On-going, dynamic, and non-formal, if not informal,
communication has become more important to ensuring the effective conduct of work in modern
organizations. Most discussions of informal communication emphasize how to manage
organizational culture and climate (the context of informal communications) to prevent informal
and formal communications from being in opposition.
There are seven essential elements to successful Organizational communication:

Structure

How you structure your communication is fundamental to how easily it is absorbed and
understood by your audience.
Every good communication should have these three structural elements:
1. an opening
2. a body
3. a close
This structural rule holds true no matter what your communication is -- a memo, a phone call, a
voice mail message, a personal presentation, a speech, an email, a webpage, or a multi-media
presentation.
Remember - your communication's audience can be just one person, a small team, an auditorium
full of people or a national, even global, group of millions.
In this instance size doesn't matter -- the rules remain the same.

Opening

An opening allows your communication's audience to quickly understand what the

communication is about.
Short, sharp and to the point, a good opening lets your audience quickly reach a decision of
whether or not to pay attention to your message.
Time is a precious resource, after all, and the quicker you can 'get to the point' and the faster your
audience can make that 'disregard/pay attention' decision the more positively they will view you
--- which can be VERY important if you need or want to communicate with them in the future.
Body
Here's where you get to the 'heart' of your message.
It is in the body of the message that you communicate all of your facts and figures relative to the
action you want your communication's audience to take after attending to your message.
Keep your facts, figures and any graphs or charts you might present to the point. Don't bog down
your audience with irrelevant material, or charts with confusing, illegible numbers and colours.

Close

The Close is where you sum up your communication, remind your audience of your key points,
and leave them with a clear understanding of what you want them to do next.
The more powerfully you can end your communication, the more easily remembered it will be
by your audience.
Clarity
Be clear about the messaqe you want to deliver, as giving a confused message to your audience
only ends up with them being confused and your message being ignored.
If you are giving a message about, say, overtime payments don't then add in messages about
detailed budget issues or the upcoming staff picnic -- UNLESS they ABSOLUTELY fit in with
your original message.
It's far better and clearer for your audience if you create a separate communication about these
ancilliary issues.

Consistency

Nothing more upsets a regular reader of, say, your newsletter than inconsistency of your
message.
Taking a position on an issue one week, only to overturn it the next, then overturn THAT
position the following week, only breeds distrust in your message.
And distrust in you!
People who distrust you are exceedingly unlikely to take the action you wish them to take. They
are also highly unlikely to pay any attention to your future messages.
As well as consistency amongst multiple messages, be aware that inconsistency within your
message can be just as deadly to audience comprehension.

Medium

If the only tool you have in your toolbag is a hammer, pretty soon everything starts to look like a
nail.
Similarly, if all you believe you have as a communications tool is PowerPoint™ then pretty soon
all you'll do is reduce evry communications opportunity to a PowerPoint™ presentation. And as
any of us who have sat through one too many boring slideshows will attest, "seen one, seen 'em
all"
There are a myriad of ways you can deliver your message—the trick is to use the right one.
Which is the right one?
The one that communicates your message:
• with the greatest accuracy
• with the largest likelihood of audience comprehension
• at the lowest fiscal cost
• at the lowest time cost
Note: it must meet all of these criteria. There's absolutely no value in spending the least amount
of money if the medium you choose doesn't deliver on any of the other criteria.
So what media are available? You have a choice from any one or combination of the following:
paper-based memo letter
 one-to-one face-to-face presentation seminar

one-to-one phone presentation meeting

one-to-many personal presentation plain text email

one-to-many phone presentation text + graphics email

voice email webpage

webcast/webvideo radio broadcast

television broadcast press release

tv/film commercial cd-rom/dvd

Choosing the right medium or media is obviously critical, as the fiscal costs of some in the above
list are higher than others. Get the media mix wrong and you could end up spending a whole lot
of time and money on a very visually attractive business communication that delivers next-to-
zero ROI (return on investment).

Relevancy

It never ceases to amaze me that business managers still believe that everyone would be
interested in their message—and then proceed to subject any and everyone they can find to a
horrendous PowerPoint slideshow put together by a well-meaning but aesthetically-challenged
subordinate.
Screen-after-screen of lengthy text, in a small barely legible font size (because a small font size
is the only way to fit all of the words onto the slide), which the manager duly and dully reads
verbatim.
Save your in-depth budget and performance analysis Excel-generated charts for those
whogenuinely care and need to know about such things.
If your business communication needs to touch on several areas that might not be of interest to
your entire audience, let them know of alternative resources that more fully address each of these
additional areas.
You can do this by, for example, providing them with an easily-remembered and written link to a
webpage where a greater depth of information can be stored.

Primacy/Recency

It is essential to know that, one week later, a business communication is remembered by one or
both of two things:
• the power and memorability of its opening
• the power and memorability of its close
Psychologists call the effect of remembering the first few items presented as a 'Primacy Effect'.
Similarly, they call the effect of remembering the last few items presented to you as a 'Recency
Effect'.
Since individuals differ in which Effect is the most dominant for them, it is best to 'cover your
bases' and make an effort to have both a powerful and memorable opening and a powerful close.
A powerful opening can be anything that captures the audience's attention:
• a quote,
• a joke,
• a loud noise,
• a preposterous statement.
Just make sure that your opening remains consistent with and relates to the subject of the
communication.
For example, whilst the opening line, "Free Sex is available in the foyer" would no doubt get
your audience's attention, if the theme of your communication thereafter is about some process
re-engineering going on in your department, your audience would be annoyed (some would
be veryannoyed at your duplicity). They'd feel duped!
Equally, a powerful close that bears no resemblance to the main body of the communication
would just confuse and disappoint an audience brought up to expect something more.
And don't think that humour will save you.
Business communication is a serious business and very few people have the skill to be able to
deliver a humourous message that the audience will retain and act upon.
The opening and closing of your business communication are the two most easily remembered
and therefore essential elements. Make sure you give your audience something to remember.

The Psychological Rule of 7±2 (seven plus or minus two)

Psychologists have long known that the human brain has a finite capacity to hold information in
short-term or 'working' memory.
Equally, the brain is also structured to retain information in 'clusters' or groups of items.
These clusters or groups average, across the whole of mankind, at seven items, plus or minus
two.
Which means that your audience is only able to hold on to between five and nine pieces of
information at any one time.
Similarly, your audience will group your business communication's message with between four
and eight other messages in their long-term memory.
Now do you see the importance of clarity of message and of having a distinctive and memorable
opening and close?
If you want your key points to be remembered even five minutes later, it is essential that you
limit your business communication to between just five and nine key points.
Equally, if you want your key action points to be remembered five weeks later, ensure that your
communication is amongst the five to nine most memorable messages your audience has
attended to in the last five weeks.
The human brain 'chunks' information together, so if you have a long document or
communication that you want to deliver, especially on paper, then structure your document so
that you have:
• 7±2 'chapters' or sections
• 7±2 sub-sections in each section
If you find that you end up with 10 or 11 sub-headings in a chapter, or sub-sections in a section,
see if you are able to either consolidate two or three sub-sections in to, or create a new main
section out of them.