COMMUNICATION

1
COMMUNICATION

• Needed to
• establish and disseminate goals
• develop plans to achieve the goals
• organise resources effectively
• select, develop and appraise staff
• lead, direct and motivate
• control
• ie is central to all aspects of management is
  the essence of organisational life
• Can be
• horizontal, vertical or diagonal
• formal or informal

2

• NOISE
• sender is unclear what message he / she wants to
  transmit
• use of inappropriate encoding
• inappropriate transmission channel
• ineffective reception
• semantic distortion by sender (eg sending
  messages with double meanings)
• unclear messages / use of relative terms
• communications overload
• poor presentation
• loss by transmission
• premature evaluation
• distrust / threat / fear

3

• STEPS TO MAKE COMMUNICATION MORE EFFECTIVE
• establish message in exact terms before
  attempting to communicate
• careful selection of transmission channel
• communicate information positively and in a way
  that will help the receiver
• the sender should behave consistently with the
  message
• the receiver should give feedback sender should
  follow up
• understand the communication environment
• short on length, long on importance

4

• CONTINGENCY FACTORS TO BE CONSIDERED
• nature of the message
• importance of the message
• communication environment
• time considerations
• confidentiality
• organisation structure
• type of information
• formal reporting requirements

5

• COMMUNICATION RICHNESS
• Daft and Lengel (1986)
• the ability of information to change
  understanding within a time interval
• Communication transactions that can overcome
  different frames of reference or clarify
  ambiguous issues to change understanding in a
  timely manner are considered rich
• Rich media facilitate
• personal delivery
• immediate feedback
• concurrent multiple signals

6

• Daft and Lengel classify the following in order
  of decreasing richness
• face to face (richest)
• telephone
• personal written documents
• impersonal written documents
• numeric documents (least rich)

7
COMMUNICATING CHANGE

• Davy (1988) and Stallworthy (1988) - both
  identify communication as the most important
  variable in ensuring continued employee
  commitment in the face of major change
• failure to communicate what is happening
  demotivates staff
• successful change requires communication which
  is
• frank, open, timely, comprehensive, credible and
  rationale based

8

• Dasenbrock (1987)
• the type and amount of information communicated
  should vary with the perceived magnitude of the
  issues
• as perceived magnitude increases then so does the
  need for more elaborate and inductive
  explanations
• Salerno (1988)
• the type of message and the channels used should
  be related to whether the issue is emotional or
  rational
• emotional issues require a more sensitive message
  and style of delivery

9

• Effective listening
• make eye contact
• exhibit appropriate affirmative gestures and
  appropriate facial expressions
• avoid distracting actions and gestures
• ask questions
• paraphrase
• avoid interrupting the speaker
• dont over talk
• avoid premature judgements