Chapter 1 Communication in the Workplace

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Chapter 1Communication in the Workplace
Md. Mustafizur Rahman, Faculty, CBA IUBAT
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Business Communication

• Communication is important to business.
• Business needs good communicators but most people
  do not communicate well.
• By improving your communication ability, you can
  improve your chances for success.
• Communication is vital to every part of business.
  
• Communication takes many forms oral, written,
  and computer.

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Major Communication Activities

• Speaking
• Reading
• Listening
• Writing

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Why Communication Skills Needed in Business

• Speaking well
• Writing well
• Displaying proper etiquette (manners)
• Listening attentively

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Why Business Needs to Communicate

• Communication is vital to every part of business.
  
• For example, employees process information with
  computers, write messages, fill out forms, give
  and receive orders, and talk over the telephone.
• Executives use written and oral messages to
  initiate business with customers and other
  companies and respond to incoming messages.
• Oral communication is a major part of this
  information flow. written communication are -
  letters, email messages, reports, and internet
  documents.
• Communication enables human beings to work
  together.

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Main Forms of Communication in Business

• Internal-Operational Communication
• External-Operational Communication
• Personal Communication

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Internal-Operational Communication

• All the communication that occurs in conducting
  work within a business is classified as internal
  operational.
• This is the communication among the businesss
  workers that is done to implement the businesss
  operating plan (e.g. provide a service,
  manufacture a product, sell goods, etc.)

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Cont.

• Internal-operational communication takes many
  forms. It includes
• the orders and instructions that supervisors
  give workers
• reports that workers prepare concerning sales,
  productions, inventories, etc.
• the email messages that workers write in
  carrying out their assignments.

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External-Operational Communication

• This is the work-related communicating that a
  business does with people and groups outside the
  business.
• Example when business executives communicate
  with suppliers, service companies, customers, and
  the general public.

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Cont.

• External-operational communication includes all
  of the businesss efforts at direct selling
  descriptive brochures, telephone callbacks,
  follow-up service calls, etc.
• It also includes the advertising the business
  does, example radio and television messages,
  newspaper and magazine advertising, website
  advertising, etc.
• Also in this category is all that a business does
  to improve its public relations, including its
  planned publicity, the community service of its
  employees, the courtesy of its employees, and the
  environmental friendliness of its products and
  facilities.

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Personal Communication

• Personal communication is the exchange of
  information and feelings in which we human beings
  engage whenever we come together.
• We will communicate even when we have little or
  nothing to say.
• The employees attitudes toward the business,
  each other, and their assignments directly affect
  their productivity. And the nature of
  conversation in a work situation affects
  attitudes.

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Cont.

• In a work situation where heated words and
  flaming tempers are often present, the employees
  are not likely to make their usual productive
  efforts.
• However, a cheerful work situation is likely to
  have an equally bad effect on productivity.
• Somewhere between these extremes lies the ideal
  productive attitude.

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Communication Network of the Organization

• In a workday we see an organization feeding on a
  continuous supply of information.
• Most of the information flow of operational
  communication is downward and follows the formal
  lines of organization (from the top executives
  down to the workers).
• This is so because most of the information,
  instructions, orders, and such needed to achieve
  the businesss objectives originate at the top
  and must be communicated downward.

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Cont.

• However, most good companies recognize the value
  of open upward communication.
• Their executives use open channels of
  communication to be better informed of the status
  of things on the front line.
• They also have found that information from the
  lower levels can be important in achieving
  company work goals.

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Communication Network of the Organization

• Two forms of network in an organization
• The Formal Network
• The Informal Network

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Formal and Informal Communication
Straight lines Formal Network Curved lines
Informal Network Fig 1 Formal and Informal
communication Networks in a Division of a Small
Business.
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Formal Network

• The business has major, well-established channels
  of information flow. These are the formal
  channels the main lines of operational
  communication (both internal and external).
• Specifically, the flow includes the upward,
  lateral, and downward movements of information by
  report, email, records, and such within the
  organization.

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Cont.

• It also includes orders, instructions, and
  messages down the authority structure of working
  information through the organizations email or
  intranet and of extremely directed messages,
  sales presentations, advertising, and publicity.
• These main channels should not just happen they
  should be carefully thought out and changed as
  the needs of the business change.

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Informal Network

• The informal network is a secondary network
  consisting primarily of personal communication.
• It comprises the thousands upon thousands of
  personal communications that support the formal
  communication network of a business.
• Such communications follow no set pattern they
  form an ever-changing and infinitely complex
  structure liking all the members of the
  organization.
• Informal network is not a single network but a
  complex relationship of smaller networks
  consisting of groups of people.

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Cont.

• The relationship is made even more complex by the
  fact that these people may belong to more than
  one group and that group memberships and the
  links between and among groups are continually
  changing.
• Known as the grapevine in management literature,
  this communication network is extremely
  effective.

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Cont.

• Certainly, it carries much gossip and rumor, for
  this is the nature of human conversation. And it
  is as fickle (inconsistent) and inaccurate as the
  human beings who are a part of it.
• Even so, the grapevine usually carries far more
  information than the formal communication system
  and on many matters it is more effective in
  determining the course of an organization.
• Wise managers recognize the presence of the
  grapevine. That is, they keep in touch with the
  grapevine and turn it into a constructive tool.

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Variation in Communication Activity by Business

• Just how much communicating a business does
  depend on several factors
• The Nature of the Business e.g. insurance
  companies have a great need to communicate with
  their customers, especially through letters and
  mailing pieces, whereas housecleaning service
  companies have little such need.
• Geographic dispersion of the operations of a
  business Obviously, internal communication in a
  business with multiple locations differs from
  that of a one-location business.
• People who make up a business Every human being
  is unique. Each has unique communication needs
  and abilities. Thus, varying combination of
  people will produce varying needs for
  communication.

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The Process of Human Communication
A Model of the Communication Process.
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The Process of Human Communication

• Kelly sends a message to Justin through a
  carefully selected medium or channel.
• Justins senses pick up the message, but also
  pick up competing information from his sensory
  world.
• Kellys message is filtered through Justins
  unique mind and is given meaning.
• The meaning given may trigger a response
  (feedback), which Justins unique mind forms.
• 5 -8. Justin sends the message to Kelly. It
  enters her sensory world, and a second cycle
  begins that is the same as the first cycle.

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Cont.

• The Beginning A Message Sent
• Although the steps described may suggest that
  Justin and Kelly are communicating in separate
  actions, the actions occur simultaneously. As one
  is sending, the other is receiving.
• Our description begins with Kelly, the sender,
  communicating (or encoding) a message through a
  carefully selected medium to Justin, the
  receiver.
• Her message could be in any of a number of forms
  --- gestures, facial expressions, drawings, or,
  more likely, written or spoken words. Whatever
  the medium, Kelly sends the message to Justin.

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Cont.

• The Filtering Process
• When Kellys message gets to Justins brain, it
  goes through a sort of filtering (or decoding)
  process. Through that process Justins brain
  gives meaning to Kellys message.
• Those contents are made up of all Justin knows
  and all he thinks. It includes his entire
  emotional makeup and all his opinions, attitudes,
  and beliefs. It includes al the cultural
  influences of his family, his organization
  memberships, his social groups, and such.

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Cont.

• Obviously, no two people have precisely identical
  filters, for no two people have minds with
  precisely the same contents.
• Thus, the meaning Justin gives Kellys message
  may not be precisely the same as the one that
  someone else would give it. And it may not be the
  meaning Kelly intended.
• For example, assume that Kelly used the word
  liberal in her message. Now assume that Kelly and
  Justin have had sharply differing experiences
  with the word. To Kelly the word is negative, for
  her experience has made her dislike things
  liberal. To Justin the word is positive.

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Cont.

• Formation and Sending of the Response
• After his mind has given meaning to Kellys
  message, Justin may react to the message. If the
  meaning he received is sufficiently strong, he
  may react by communicating some form of response
  (called feedback). This response may be through
  words, gestures, physical actions, or some other
  means.
• Justin ends this stage of the communication
  process by forming a message and sends to Kelly.
  He may send them in a number of ways as spoken
  words, written words, gestures, movements, facial
  expressions, diagrams on paper, and so on.

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Cont.

• The Cycle Repeated
• When Justin sends his message to Kelly, one cycle
  of the communication process ends. Now a second
  cycle begins.
• This one involves Kelly rather than Justin, but
  the process is the same.
• The process may continue, cycle after cycle, as
  long as Kelly and Justin want to communicate.

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Written Vs Oral Communication

• Written communication is more likely to involve
  creative effort. It is more likely to be thought
  out.
• Written communication involves a limited number
  of cycles, and oral communication usually
  involves many. In fact, some written
  communication is one-cycle communication. That
  is, a message is sent and received, but none is
  returned.

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Cont.

• The time between cycles In face-to-face
  communication, cycles occur fast, often in rapid
  succession. In written communication, some delay
  occurs. While instant and text messaging may be
  read within a few seconds of sending, fax or
  email messages may be read a few minutes after
  they are transmitted, letters in a few days,
  reports perhaps in days, weeks, or months.
  Because they provide a record, written messages
  may communicate over extremely long time periods.
  

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Some Basic Truths about Communication (Errors in
Communication)

• Meanings Sent are Not Always Received No two
  minds have identical filters. No two minds have
  identical storehouses of words, gestures, facial
  expressions, or any of the other symbol forms.
  Because of these differences in mind, errors in
  communication are bound to occur. Skilled
  communicators work hard to minimize these errors.

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Cont.

• Meaning is in the Mind Meaning is in the mind -
  not in the words or other symbols used. How
  accurately a sender conveys meaning in symbols
  depends on how skillful one is in choosing
  symbols with the receiver in mind and on how
  skillful the receiver is in interpreting the
  meaning intended.
• The Symbols of Communication Are Imperfect One
  reason for this is that the symbols we use,
  especially words, are at best crude substitutes
  for the real thing. For example, the word man can
  refer to billions of human beings of whom no two
  are precisely alike. The verb run conveys only
  the most general part of an action it ignores
  the countless variations in speed, grace and
  style.

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Cont.

• Communication across cultures is especially
  imperfect, for often there are no equivalent
  words in the cultures. For example, usually there
  is no precise translation for our jargon in other
  cultures. Words such as computer virus, and geek
  (nerd, bore) are not likely to have equivalents
  in every culture. Similarly, other cultures have
  specialized words unique and necessary to them
  that we do not have. For instance, the Eskimo
  have many words for snow, each describing a
  unique type. Obviously, such distinctions are
  vital o their existence. We can get along very
  well with the one word.

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Cont.

• Communication is also imperfect because
  communicators vary in their ability to convey
  thoughts. Some find it very difficult to select
  symbols that express their simplest thoughts.

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