Strategies of communication - Essay Example

Abstract This essay reviews the basic concepts and strategies of communication. The author has narrated communication situations based on personal experience to depict as to how the theoretical concepts can be applied in real situations. It is also emphasized in the essay that a communication strategy will work or not depends upon how the message is decoded at the receiver’s end. What is communication? Communication is a key factor in the life of organizations and their growth is dependent on the patterns of communication that organizations employ and encourage. Assessing results of the Hawthorne experiments, to some extent, confirm that only formalization does not increase productivity but other factors play a vital role (Schein 1988) and one of them is communication. Communication is not just ‘telling’ to other person(s) but a complex process in which sender encodes and transmit the message to the receiver and the receiver’s feedback depends upon how the message is decoded (Bovee and Thill 1998). Therefore, Davis and Newstrom (1989) argue, “communication is what the receiver understands, not what the sender says” (P.71). This statement is valid for the written and oral communication as both modes of communication are used in organizations. The written communication refers to all those documents which are available in black and white and could be communicated through using various traditional and modern means of communication such as postal or courier service, electronic mail, facsimile or/and electronic boards etc. However the research shows that business people spend only 25% of their time in reading and writing and rest of the time is spent in speaking and listening (Bovee and Thill 1998). Without denying the importance of written communication, it should be appreciated that written communication does not resolve all organizational problems because most of the issues require oral and face-to-face communication in formal and informal meetings, which involves verbal and non-verbal communication. Choice of words is as important in oral communication as in written. Another factor that becomes significant in oral communication is non-verbal communication that includes pitch and tone of the voice, cues form the body, facial expressions and physical proximity (Mckenna 2001). While communicating verbally, one must be aware of that improper and inappropriate non-verbal cues can spoil the whole process of communication and could lead to the undesired consequences. Misinterpretation The aforementioned points are important in all communicating situations whether one is transmitting persuasive, positive or negative messages. However, it must be noted that communication can be misinterpreted even if there is nothing wrong in the message due to number of reasons. The research shows that implicit personality, logical error, the halo effect, stereotyping (McKenne 2001 P.158), differences in perception, incorrect filtering, language problems, poor listening, differing emotional states, differing backgrounds, information overload, message complexity, lack of trust, differing status, and closed communication climate (Bovee and Thill 1998) can influence the process of decoding. Communication in Action I have been working, most of the time, in Marketing and Sales departments in different companies after completing my education. Marketing and Sales is generally considered a key department for all organizations as it generates revenues for the organization, which is vital for survival of the organizations. Working in this department means that a person should have high communication and analytic skills because not only he holds meetings with external clients but also spends considerable time in holding meetings with various departments of the company. Almost six months ago, I changed my company and joined the current firm as General Manager (Marketing and Sales) where I have a team of 30 people. Climate of the organization was antagonistic and morale of the employees of the department was not very high when I joined the company. Level of the productivity of the department was not at the optimum level; consequently, revenues were falling down and fear of redundancy was escalating. Being a marketer, it was important and challenging for me to find underlying reasons of the current situation. Hence I circulated a questionnaire and held individual and collective meetings that unraveled many reasons of antagonistic climate such as lack of two-ways communication, harshness in communicating negative messages, and lack of mutual discussion, which led to non-cooperative attitude and behavior. The problem of the department was identified as unplanned style of communication that declined the level of productivity. Planning communication is important therefore Thompson (undated) argues, “Whether you need to communicate general day-to-day information or “big news” about major changes in your organization, the best communications start with some good planning” (Para 3). Communication planning refers to the activity in which one defines purpose, analyze audience and establish main idea and selects channel and medium to communicate (Bovee and Thill 1998). However, good planning does not work alone unless one practices good communication skills, as well, which means “active listening” and “appropriate feedback.” Active listening refers to the activity where a listener pays intense attention on the content of the communication and shows keenness to understand what the speaker is trying to convey (Mckenna 2001). Feedback is a process of commenting what is already done in the past. However, Mckenna ignored two other skills that are required for good communication, namely, reading and writing skills (Bovee and Thill 1998) because these modes of communicating are extensively used in modern organizations. Even a positive written message could be decoded negatively by the receiver if appropriate planning is not done as it happened to me in the case, which is narrated here. I was working in a company where all employees had the opportunity to upload their personal web pages. No one from my department had a web page so I thought to develop individual web pages for my colleagues and sent an email message to them carrying the following message “I am developing my web page and would like that you send me information about yourself along with a photograph so that I will develop your web page and upload it with my web page. Thanks.” Surprisingly, the effect of this message was negative because my colleagues interpreted it as I was showing off my presence. They thought that visitors would go to their pages through my web page, though this was completely misinterpretation of my message because I had no such intentions when I sent the message. Coming back to the communication problem of the department of my current employer, I decided to improve it by adopting the following strategies. Arranging a 3 day Training Workshop on the topic of communication Having a department electronic discussion board Persuading my team members to minimize sending negative messages to each other. In order to implement my decision, I called a collective persuasive meeting so that all my team members had the opportunity to air their views, which is essential to have two-ways communication. Moreover, decisions and strategies do not work if they are not supported and accepted by the participants (French and Bell 1990). In the meeting, I put forward my suggestions and explained as to why I considered them significant to improve productivity of departments. While stressing the importance of workshop, it was made it clear that the workshop was not mandatory to attend but those who would attend get a certificate. Then, purpose of the electronic discussion board was highlighted where members can post their suggestions, initiatives and problems to get comments and support from each other. It was also suggested that people should be sincere and honest while discussing the issues and avoid sending comments in a manner that hurt others. It was expected that taking interest in each others’ matter will enhance spirit of cooperation among them. Expectations fulfilled when members got the opportunity to use it. The last point regarding negative messaging was more sensitive, since it has been become norm of the department to be unnecessarily blunt. The team members developed a habit of pulling legs and pointing out even small mistakes of others. Managers were so blunt in pointing out problems of their subordinates to that extent where their ego gets hurt. So this was an opportunity for me to discuss consequences of unplanned negative messages without accusing anyone, directly. I clearly told my team members that I understand that communicating negative messages could not be completely avoided in organizations, as it is stated, “…business decisions should not be made solely to avoid hurting someone feelings…” (Bovee and Thill (1998) P.290). However what is more important that the receiver of the message must appreciate that negative message is based on business judgment than personal so that she/he would not lose goodwill for the person and the organization. I stressed in my presentation, whether it is an oral or a written negative message, one must plan before communicating a message and take into account the following points of planning a message as given by Boyee and Thill (1998) and Synder (2003): Developing a buffer of the message: Start a message by making a neutral and non-controversial statement. For example, a starting of the message could be, “thank you for your application that we received on 8.11.2007 and evaluated on 8.12.2007. Working on Reasons: Explain why you have reached your decision before telling what the decision is. For example, mentioning the company recruitment policy one can write, “according to our company policy, all applications are reviewed by a panel that selects a person who has more relevant educational background and work experience”. Delivering a Bad News: This is the core message that one wants to communicate without hurting and spoiling goodwill. For example, one can write that following the company policy, we have offered the position to the candidate who has more relevant educational background and work experience to the advertised position. Positive Close: End your message at the positive close but do not develop unnecessary hopes that the matter is still open. Since one has communicated negative news so it is important to take into account what Synder (2003) has suggested on the issue of closing note, “the tone of the message will drop to its lowest point when the bad news is delivered” (Point 3, Para 1). For example, if the job application is declined, one may write, “all vacant position are advertised in major local newspapers and on our official website, please feel free to apply in future for any other vacant position that interests you.” One must appreciate that it is easier to make presentations but delivering a negative message in real life is not as easy as it appears on the paper. What is mostly not considered by the researchers, whatever the form one may use, the fact is that negative message is inherently unhelpful and does not bring the expected outcome for the receiver; consequently, sometimes, we do fail in achieving the desired results while delivering a negative or bad news message. Especially, it becomes more difficult when a person sitting other side of the table is well prepared in terms of communications skills. For example, once a customer came to me and requested for cancellation of the order. Following the guidelines of communication skills, he started with buffer statements in which he appreciated efficiency of our company. After that he came to the point and asked for cancellation of the order that he placed with the company. I listened to him carefully while maintaining my eye contact and told him that I appreciated what he said and explained the company policy about canceling the order. He was told that the order was almost ready for delivery as per the agreement and it was not possible to violate company’s policy. At the end note, I thanked him for placing his order with the company and suggested that he must inform the company within 30 days in future if he would like to cancel the order. Although he left the office after having a coffee but I could clearly observe that he was not very pleased with the answer. It should be noted here, whether a negative message will be taken in right spirit depends upon receiver’s perception. According to McKenna (2001), “person perception is concerned with the manner in which we perceive the personal characteristics of others, in particular their current mood and their total personality” (P.157-158). Conclusion It can be concluded from this essay that communication is a complex process and it needs appropriate planning before communicating a message whether it is a persuasive, a positive or a negative message. It is also argued in the essay that following the guidelines of good communication does not guarantee that the transmitted message will be 100% decoded as per aspiration of the encoder due to personality and other differences. However, planning a message before sending can reduce percentage of misinterpretations and misunderstandings. Reference Bovee, C.L and Thill, J.V (1998): Business communication today (ed.5th). Prentice-Hall, New Jersey. Davis, K. and Newstrom, I.W. (1989): Human behavior and work: organizational behavior (8th ed.); McGraw-Hill. French, W.L., and Bell C.H. (1990): Organization Development: Behavioral science interventions for organization improvement (4th ed.) Prentice Hall, New Jersy. McKenna E, (2001): Business psychology and organizational behaviour: A student’s handbook (3rd ed.) Psychology Press, New York. Thompson R (undated): Communication planning: Getting the right messages across in the right way Retrieved on 07/12/2007. http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/CommunicationsPlanning.htm Schein, E.H. (1988): Organizational psychology (3rd ed.), Prentice-Hall, New Jersy. Snyder H. (2003): How To Write The Negative (Or “No”) Message Retrieved on 08/12/2007 http://core.ecu.edu/engl/snyderh/3880/negltr.html Read More