ORGANISATIONAL COMMUNICATION

Effective communication in the workplace is essential to the delivery of successful organisational strategy and change, employee commitment, and ultimately competitive advantage. While effective communication brings success, the lack of it makes matters worse for organisations. It does not matter which important person heads the organisation, if he is not able to show leadership through communication, we will eventually see a sick or disintegrating institution.

We need to understand the cardinal principle in communication and that is, communication is what is understood, not what is delivered. Many often, we dwell on the fact that we have communicated enough but the end result shows otherwise. It is here one has to understand the flaws in the delivery of the communication, resulting in the receiver not grasping the essence of it. Be ready to course-correct and innovate the way communication is delivered.
An organisation's ability to engage stakeholders through excellent communication strategy and action is an essential skill. Without it the chances of organisations ever achieving their strategic objectives are reduced.

Organisational Communication offers practical tools, techniques and a model for developing a communications strategy People depend on organisations for their living. Thus ours is an organised society. The lifeblood of organisations is communication. Without communication there can be no organisation. The importance of communication in organisations is well established by the researchers taking into consideration the amount of time spent by members in organisations. According to them, members in organisations spend 50 to 80 per cent of their time engaged in communicate behaviour.

Corporate spend a lot on communicating to its stakeholders. Within companies, we see the evolution of definite communication systems, be it oral or written, through the combination of the available media via: text, graphics, image, animation, audio or video.

Let us understand, effective communication is the key to success as it leads to good relationship, trust and confidence, all of which are positive traits required for better living

The communication process involves seven key elements as illustrated in the diagram below.

Barriers to effective Communication (leaky bucket)

At each stage in the process encoding, transference, and decoding there is the possibility of interference which may hinder the communication process. This interference is known as noise. Often a comparison is made between communication and a leaky bucket. If you use a leaky bucket to carry water, water will be lost at various points in your journey from the water tap to your destination. It is not possible to stop losing water because the bucket contains holes. The amount of water you will lose will be determined by the number of holes in the bucket, the size of the holes, the route you take to your final destination and length of time it takes you to get to your destination. There may also be other events that occur during your journey which increase the amount of water lost.Similarly when information is transferred from the transmitter to the receiver not all of the information may be received by the receiver because of holes called noise. Each of the noise may be affect the amount of information transferred. Just as in a leaky bucket, more holes decrease the amount of water, more noise decreases the amount of correct information received. Noise can take a variety of forms including

Language issues and Cultural Differences : the receiver(s) may not (fully) understand the language used by the transmitter. This may occur if the transmitter’s language is foreign to the receiver. There may also be language problems (that the communication process) if the message contains technical information and the receiver’s is not familiar with the technical terms used. Cultural differences created by an individual’s background and experience affect their perception of the world. Such cultural differences may affect the interpretation (decoding) of the message sent.

Environmental issues: If the environment that the transmitter or receiver are in, is noisy and full of sound, the sounds may prevent the message being fully understood. Background noise is often created by colleagues or machinery.

Channel issues: If the channel used to transfer the information is poor it may prevent all or some of the information being transferred. Examples include a faulty fax machine, a crackling phone, handwriting that cannot be read or in the case of oral messages incorrect facial gestures.

Receivers Attitude and behaviour: If the receiver(s) is not interested in the message (or unable to give their full attention to decoding) this may reduce the amount of information received or the accuracy of the information transmitted to them. Similarly the receiver(s) may misinterpret the message by "jumping to conclusions" or reading the message in a manner that suits their own interests/objectives and distort the true meaning of the message.

Transmission journey :i.e. steps in the message, If the message is complicated or there are lots of steps taken to transfer the message it may affect the accuracy or interpretation. Comparing with the leaky bucket if the leaky bucket has to carry water over a longer distance more water will probably lost than if the journey was shorter.

PERSONNEL EXPERIENCE:IN MY TEXTILE FACTORY, WE GOT A ORDER FOR MAKING OF 2000 T-SHIRT FROM an overseas agent. But he did not mention anything regarding size. generally when get such orders, we assume that it is the largest size that we have to make.and that was quite fine. But this time,after the delivery of the stock we got to know that all the packages of T-shirts are canceled.Reason? the T-shirts were over sized.The fault was on the part of both of us, since we performed our duty on assumption.

Reference:
www.ceca.com.au/programs/resource_manager/

Changing Business Environment

Todays business are seems to be completely different than they used to be in the last century and early this century. let us look at a history of public attitude towards American business and their reflection in popular culture.

attitudes towards American business through the years: Capitalism is a cornerstone of American society. For better or worse, it has shaped the cultural, economic, political, and social milieu of American life for nearly 500 years. But what is the attitude of the "average American" toward this cornerstone as we enter the final decade of the century? Is this attitude stable or changing? If changing, is it becoming more positive or negative?

At the end of 1980 the American public was looking forward to a Reagan revolution--less government regulation of business, lower income taxes, and a higher standard of living for everyone through the magic of supply--side economics. But the decade was tumultuous, both economically and politically. Indeed, the 1980s witnessed the virtual restructuring of American industry and unprecedented global competition. The use of so-called junk bonds to finance highly leveraged mergers and acquisitions--both friendly and hostile--became rampant. Japanese and Korean firms made major competitive inroads into American industrial domains previously considered sacrosanct. Simultaneously, scandals in the financial and commodities markets, the exploits of Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken, the savings and loan debacle, and the behaviors of well-known firms such as E.F. Hutton (financial transactions), Union Carbide (Bhopal tragedy), and Manville (asbestos) led to public questioning of both the ethical standards and the ethical conduct of business.

By the end of the decade the political infrastructures of several communist nations literally imploded. Pressures for democratic principles and capitalism-based economies resounded throughout the USSR, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. Established governments were replaced, with the new governments embracing capitalism, often without thought of the consequences.

REFERENCE.
www.1000ventures.com/business_

www.ncmahq.org/presentations/wc05/Federal_Contract_Law/1009