Within an organization, communication assumes a critical part. Because the organizational employees come from diverse ethnic, cultural and educational backdrops, communication among them could become unproductive and complex. Such a situation can result in organizational conflicts, a decline in productivity and employee dissatisfaction. Hence, it is vital for the organization to revamp its communication strategy by adopting a new communication structure. However, most of the organizational associates exhibit sufficient communication skills while communicating with leaders and co-workers, all the company participants are likely to profit from an enhanced communication structure. This essay will propose five key concepts of effective organizational communication. It will focus on the concepts of active listening, formal and informal communication, conflict management, organizational culture and leadership style. Theoretically, these five principles are the most preferred in influencing successful organizational communication. The proposal also outlines the costs, benefits and strategies for implementation of these concepts.
Culture must be understood and recognized when associates are communicating within the organization. An organizational culture entails the attitudes and norms of the organization (Clausen, 2006). To achieve an effective and clear communication within the organization, all staff members should pay maximum attention to the company culture. Through the socialization process, employees can easily adapt to the company culture. This process is described as where established individuals of a cultural category educate others and enforce compliance with the set cultural norms and rules for proper conduct. While understanding the norms established in the organization, communication would be smoother as there will be reduced chances for misunderstandings. For instance, the dressing code is one example of organizational culture. If the organizational culture dictates that employees come to work dressed in suits, then a worker who presents at work in t-shirts and pants would adversely affect the culture. This is because communicating with such workers could become distracted or uncomfortable. In the end, this leads to avoiding communication with the employee. Thus, the overall communication would break down.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The company will use culture training to implement the organizational culture. These sessions will furnish necessary information regarding the history and growth of the business, as well as the mission and goals of the organization. Workers who understand their organizational culture are not only able to share this culture amongst others but also with external stakeholders like investors and customers. Chaturvedi & Chaturvedi (2011), cite a study, which found that approximately 70% of company leaders agree that culture, offers the greatest source of competitive advantage. Indeed, roughly 80% of the leaders contend that a company lacking a high-performance culture is poised to mediocrity. Companies that emphasize strong culture are normally more prosperous and successful than the companies with weak cultures. While seeking to learn about the company’s culture, all the employees and managers will be expected to watch videos about the company’s vision, mission, traditions, values, and history.
Active listening is the second most rated concept for successful organizational communication. This concept is not only a crucial component of conflict resolution but also communication as a whole. By active listening, we imply maximum engagement in paying attention to the communication partner. This is not all about hearing skills; it entails paying attention to the partner’s non-verbal and verbal behaviors. Simply put, this is a way of demonstrating respect for the communication partner. Though it sounds simple, it takes an effort to make it a habit. By being fully engaged by what others are communicating, then we can obtain all the information being transferred. Additionally, it evokes the norm of reciprocity that will trigger the partner to offer full attention. The norm or reciprocity is defined as the urge to act in kind, often, encouraging the relational partner to offer information and treat you in a similar manner as you treated them. The significance of active listening to the organization is that employees receive all the information directed towards them. This implies that they obtain all they would require knowing to finish their tasks successfully and achieve organizational goals.
Some people assume that just listening to what others are saying is adequate; however, listening to others does not guarantee that the person’s message has been interpreted as initially intended. This means the audience must have an active role in the communication. Simply put, the recipient must receive and understand the content as originally intended for the communication to achieve its goal. The skill of active listening helps in building compassion, comprehension and understanding between persons. When employees are engaged in purposeful listening and discussions, they create opportunities that enhance collaborations, fix problems, improve relationships and build closeness. Monge and Contractor (2003) assert that a good audience “actively process information, makes permanent comments and asks relevant questions.”
While implementing active listening within the communication structure, the company will organize for interpersonal training sessions that cover all organizational members (Kohler, 2016). For instance, employees will be teamed up with smaller groups then a leader will initiate productive discussions. Each employee will be asked to tell a short story while the other team members will be requested to ask questions and paraphrase what a person has said. Other strategies to increase active listening among employees will be through computer-interactive coaching for the entire organizational members. However, this approach is more costly and time-consuming, unlike the previously suggested method.
Leadership is a concept that relates to each organization, regardless of its industry or magnitude. Leaders adopt strategies depending on how they see employees. The autocratic model is one of the most helpful leadership approaches. This approach is based on McGregor’s Theory X where the leader makes most decisions without consulting the others. The person tells the employees what to do and how to do it (Monge & Contractor, 2003). This leadership strategy would have no success for upward communication from subordinates. As such, it would be difficult for a leader who adopts Theory X because, employees can express their ideas and concerns, offer and request for feedback, and pursue clarification from their leaders through upward communications. The autocratic approach is properly fitted not for driving employees but for emergency scenarios where there is no time for collaboration. On the reverse side of autocratic approach is the Democratic strategy.
Under Democratic leadership approach, the leader shares responsibility and involves others in decision-making. However, the leader gives the final say. It is believed that followers respond positively to this leadership style. Besides, it bolsters the leader’s position as the subordinates feel a “buy-in” to the process. McGregor’s Theory Y reflects this; the leader’s ability to help subordinates feel that their work and efforts are valued (Monge & Contractor, 2003). However, this approach could be time-consuming and might spur conflicts if not applied in the correct situation.
An open leadership strategy, which inspires free circulation of ideas and information, tends to improve the overall organizational communication. The participating leadership is rated the best design in encouraging organizational communication. Participative leaders encourage sharing of ideas, information and all inputs from subordinates before decision-making (Persily, 2014). In a similar manner, the democratic approach motivates subordinates to engage in open talks before the leader gives the final say. Transformation approach also serves to encourage group communication. This style seeks to create a common vision for employees and the company via an efficient communication of the company vision and strategy. Such communication appeal to the employees thus motivates and makes the leader earn their enthusiasm.
The connection between leadership style and organizational communication extends to the company’s communication structure. Participative, transformational and democratic designs motivate a decentralized communication structure whereby each employee interacts with leaders frequently. The leadership designs foster open conversations within work teams. Moreover, such centralized communication styles where the associates communicate more with the leader rather than among associates enhance one-to-one meetings
To implement leadership skills within the organization, the manager must undertake short leadership courses. These courses must be geared towards teaching them how to establish and uphold credibility. Here, Kresp (2011) suggests that this could be created and maintained through qualities such as trustworthiness, expertise, and charisma. By establishing credibility, the leaders would enhance the organization’s interpersonal relationships and boost their overall interpersonal communication skills. Besides, through these courses, the leaders can learn how to use both formal and informal types of communication to circulate vital information to organizational members. The goal of the training programs would be to allow the company leader to become better communicators within the intercompany domain.
The organization relies on two forms of communication: formal, and informal. Formal communication is manifested as staff meetings, emails, manuals, newsletters and memos. Informal communication spreads through the grapevine that is normally word-of-mouth communication. Organizational communication, which circulates via the grapevine, is spread across the company in a random, undocumented manner. As such, it is predisposed to constant modifications with personal interpretation.
In most cases, the organization records all formal communications as evidence. The sender and receiver retain copies of the communications. Sometimes the formal communication occurs in a horizontal pattern, along the parallel routes of power (Persily, 2014). The formal communication network within an organization serves various purposes. It determines the channel, which will be adopted to convey vital messages. It indicates that direction towards the individual who needs the information and the results. The organization creates the formal communication network out of the formal channels by establishing a formal structure of responsibilities based on the hierarchical structure of the company. The perfect model entails communication channels from downwards; bottom-up, and horizontally. Normally, the direction of horizontal communication is lacking or is inefficient thus reducing the accuracy of the information. This situation occurs when there is a lack of permanent circulation of information between organizational divisions.
Informal communication occurs because of personal needs of the organizational members. This form of communication is oral and even expressed through simple signs, glances or silence (Persily, 2014). Informal communication seems to be implicit, diverse and spontaneous multidimensional. Often, it works in groups; when an individual has some interesting information, he/she passes it on to his in-group members. This Grapevine serves as a supplement to the formal communication channels. Often, it travels faster than other communication mediums. Since it exists due to the natural desire to know things, it generates a sense of belonging to managerial staff and employees alike. Therefore, it could create teamwork and build a corporate identity. While the grapevine can cause destruction with misinformation, it has shown to be beneficial. Mostly, grapevine information contains some aspects of truth. Information from top management, which flows via grapevine to lower level workers, enables them to relate possibly to and see the struggles that management is confronting. When subordinates obtain a sense of these challenges, they might raise suggestions to enhance the situation of which they could otherwise be unaware (Persily, 2014).
When implementing formal and informal communications, the management must caution workers that unethical communication will not be tolerated. The employees will have the responsibility to report any occasions of unethical communication anonymously to the direct supervisor. Then, the direct supervisor will employ a disciplinary action against the staff member responsible for the unproductive grapevine. Such disciplinary move will include watching a view regarding the company’s ethical code.
Another vital concept for the new communication structure is conflict management. The core of an efficient communication strategy is in addressing interpersonal disputes. Normally, conflicts arise from the consistency between what individuals think, say, their body language, and the deeper principles within their hearts. It could be complicated for an organization to know such factors. Nevertheless, the proposed new communication structure can help the company understand and respond to interpersonal disputes via proper cultural dimensions. For instance, this structure details numerous things that communicators should adopt or avoid while involved in communication. First, communicators must be able to listen actively to their communication partners (Persily, 2014). This implies that a person should not assume that what he or she thinks is the absolute truth. In addition, a person should not assume that others would understand what he/she is saying the same way. Instead, it is advised that employees check out the views and concerns of their co-workers. Thus, the communication structure is argued to provide superb resources for addressing interpersonal conflicts, consequently promoting excellent organizational communication.
To institute conflict management within the organization, the leaders will organize for conflict management courses for both the managers and other employees as well. In these sessions, Clausen (2006) recommends that the participants must discuss and practice effective team conflict techniques, including how to maintain open minds towards other viewpoints. The focus would be on ideational disputes rather than personal issues and encouraging the employees to pursue productive areas of compromise between their positions and others’ positions. After each training session, employees must be asked to present a summary of what they learned and how they intend to apply the newly acquired knowledge.
Effective organizational communication is the major ingredient to business productivity and success. Indeed, effective communication is hailed as the cornerstone that glues the company together. Lucrative corporations rely on effective communication capabilities from leadership crew down to subordinates (Chaturvedi & Chaturvedi, 2011). Communication offers an open pathway towards successes and productive outcomes in organizational settings. As this proposal has observed, communication could affect work negatively if improperly addressed. These adverse impacts graduate from slight drags impeding the progress of the organization to the causing of misunderstanding or errors of the philosophical. Therefore, language is the one present cause of faulty communication, whether oral or written, is faulty when the meaning of sentences and words, as well as the emotional content is ambiguous.
The proposed communication strategy seeks to fulfill the company’s communication demands in domains of active listening, formal and informal communication, leadership style, organizational culture and conflict management. The organization can only achieve efficient communication through clear, correct and brief communication skills across the enterprise. After implementation, the proposed structure is predicted to accomplish successful communication via the discussed concepts and implementation strategies. The revamped communication framework has the potential to enable the company to become more efficient at achieving its objectives and projects, and to share its culture and mission successfully with the external organization’s environment.
References
Clausen, L. (2006). Intercultural Organizational Communication: Five Corporate Cases in Japan . Kopenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press.
Chaturvedi, P. D., & Chaturvedi, M. (2011). Business Communication: Concepts, Cases, and Applications . Delhi: Dorling Kindersley.
Kohler, R. (2016). Optimization of Leadership Style: New Approaches to Effective Multicultural Leadership in International Teams . New York: Springer Pub. Co.
Monge, P. R., & Contractor, N. S. (2003). Theories of Communication Networks . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Persily, C. A. (2014). Team Leadership and Partnering In Nursing and Health Care . New York, NY: Springer Pub. Co.
