Improving Organizational Communication - Essay Example

Improving Organizational Communication Communication is basically the transmission of messages between a sender and a receiver. Modern organisational environments are characterised by the creation, processing and distribution of information to the same degree as products are produced. It follows, therefore, that effective communication is crucial for organisational excellence and survival. All members of an organisation require excellent skills and competency in communicating such as speaking, listening and gathering information. Effective information should engage the communicating parties in social interaction and elicit useful responses, an objective that can be achieved by motivating employees, managing conflict, sound leadership, encouraging group work and establishing clear communications channels and networks. When an organisation has good communication, performance and personal effectiveness improves, and the resultant collaboration promotes positive workplace cultures. However, effective communication has always presented special challenges to organisations, and this paper will identify the communications strategies used by Supreme Engineering Company and propose suggestions for improvement. By virtue of their nature of being social units that are consciously coordinated, organisations need to function on continuous basis to realise their goals (Shockley-Zalabak 15). Effective communication is one of the factors that hold organisations together towards their common objectives even in rapidly changing business environments and stiff competition. However, at Supreme Engineering, lack of teamwork, poor planning, insufficient support and resources, information overload and lateness were identified as the causes of communication problems. More importantly, employees are not keen on communication channels and networks, which effectively mean they do not know their external and internal customers, or who has the resources and information they need and who they are supposed to work with. Under such circumstances, organisational conflict is difficult to avoid. It is suggested that managers at Supreme Engineering should shift from their traditional ways of spending most of their time on one-way communications through reports, email, letters, memos and meetings. Instead, they should allow employees to communicate, via encouraging feedback, especially since in the present environment production employees are outnumbered by service employees. Group work, especially in focus groups that are centered on issues, is essential to promote collaboration among employees in various functional teams. To avoid the negative effects of one-way communication, there should be constant feedback between managerial staff and employees, which will improve the quality of information, the way it is passed on and reduce costly delays. In the absence of feedback, some teams may keep repeating mistakes unknowingly, which makes the work of others in their networks more difficult. The leaders need to cultivate a supportive climate that is conducive for effective communication. Training senior-level and midlevel managers as well as supervisors, team leaders, employees and associates is an effective intervention that will improve organisational communication at Supreme Engineering. The communication strategy needs to be descriptive, implying that questions are asked without being judgmental or forcing change. Problem-oriented communication will define mutual problems and seek solutions. When equality is promoted, there will be mutual trust as everyone is involved in participative decision making, and employees should be encouraged to be part of cross-functional discussion groups. New employees must receive comprehensive orientation and introduction as to the proper communication ways and channels. At Supreme Engineering, new employees are usually forced to learn the organisations communication procedures by struggling through them while working. The ideal situation would be developing communication competency that is composed of values, skills and knowledge (Shockley-Zalabak 5). Communication competency can be developed at different levels which include the micro system, the mesosystem, the macro system and the exosystem. The micro system is made up of organisational members such as supervisors and colleagues and people in the work environment such as clients. The mesosystem is a representation of the interrelations of different Microsystems while the exosystem is the general organisational culture that that forms social ideologies knowledge. From the way these different elements relate to each other, the actions of each one and the way they are communicated to the others affects their performance. It is imperative for the leadership at Supreme Engineering to approach organisational communication via a competency-based model. The entire organisational hierarchy must be knowledgeable and understand the communication environment with the sensitivity to perceive feelings and meanings accurately (Shockley-Zalabak 7). Employees must develop their knowledge competencies by exploring interactive communications while sensitivity competency will be developed by examining personal theories relating to communication with organisations. Communication competency can thus be viewed as an individual’s motivation and ability to responsibly take part in transactions that with the intention of maximising the results of shared meanings (Shockley-Zalabak 6). Employee motivation towards appropriate behavior will encourage them to engage in communication aimed at promoting mutual understanding. Such motivation is applicable at both macro-organisational and group levels. The leadership at Supreme Engineering should acknowledge that competency in organisational communication, irrespective of differences in perspective, is in relation to abilities in encoding and decoding messages. Essentially, it is the cycle of initiating and consuming communication, which is a function of skills competency and values competency. While skills competency aligns with conflict management and solving problems, values competency relate to ethical dilemmas facing communication in an organization. The management at Supreme Engineering needs to initiate new goals in a bid to getting better with anticipating new possibilities for the future. It is its role to initiate and encourage changes that facilitate seamless communications, not changes that attract rebellion. More employees or team members need to be engaged with ongoing programs and projects. Teamwork will be the best avenue towards understanding roles and responsibilities at different levels. When team members manage and are responsible for their own communication, they are usually at more liberty to ask for support in terms of guidance and resources, which eventually goes towards improved performance. When communication flows efficiently at the group level, members will be more efficient and productive without necessarily being reliant on authority to accomplish tasks, which translates into more promises for results. Employees at Supreme Engineering are both receivers and sources of communication as they engage in encoding and decoding messages, which is the basic process of human communication. In that sense, the management must encourage individual competence because it influences an individual’s sensitivity of the competence of others within the organization (Shockley-Zalabak 12). The aspect of diversity from every individual brings the four elements of values, skills, sensitivity and knowledge to interactions that arise from communication. When the organization is characterised by diversity, there are business benefits such as the variety of solutions to challenges, which also offer an insight into global markets in the event of expansion. In conclusion, effective organisational communication is founded on professional correspondence that is calculated to facilitate the business’ daily operations for continued growth. From its definition of being the exchange of information among interrelated individuals and groups in the organisational setup to accomplish individual and group objectives, organisational communication is evidently not a secluded phenomenon. Rather, it is culturally dependent and highly contextual, which means Supreme Engineering must enhance communication strategies that focus on building relationships. When interpersonal interactions are repeated and occur in complex, open system, they influence external business environments which, in turn, also influence the interactions. Effective organisational communication does not only involve the media and the messages, but the management must ensure that the communication channels and networks through which information flows have direction and purpose. Motivation of employees is imperative, because their skills, relationships, feelings and attitudes will impact of the effectiveness and success of communication. It is only through effective and competent organisational communication that Supreme Engineering will accomplish tasks that relate to specific responsibilities and roles and also acclimate to dynamisms through organisational and individual adaptation and creativity. Works Cited Shockley-Zalabak, Pamela. Fundamentals of Organizational Communication: Knowledge, Sensitivity, Skills, Values (8th ed). New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2012. Print Read More