Communication-A brief overview

By: Nadia Rahman

Importance of Communication
The five most important skills recruiters look
for when hiring college and university
students.

#5
#4
#3
#2
#1

Teamwork
Critical thinking & leadership
Interpersonal/social
Computer literacy
Oral and written communication

Communication Defined
Communication stems from the Latin root
word communicare, which means to make
common.
A process in which one person or group evokes
an identical meaning in a second person or
group.
Defining communication is relatively simple,
but achieving high-quality communication is
both complicated and difficult.

Importance of Oral
Communication

Harvard Business Review rated the ability to

communicate the most important factor in
making an executive promotable.
20 years research proved at Stanford University
that the most successful graduates shared
personality traits that distinguish good
communicators: a desire to persuade, an interest
in taking and working with people.

 William Schaffer (international business

development manager of Sun Micro Systems)
stated If theres one skill thats required for
success in the industry, its communication
skills.

Ch.
16

Communication Skills
Why do you need good communication skills?

Why is business communication important to individuals and organizations?

Business Communication is Important to

Enhance your self-esteem

Become an effective employee
Advance in your career
Positively affect an organizations success

Goals of Business Communication

Receiver understanding as the sender
meant it to be understood
Receiver response receiver responds to
the message
Favorable relationship establishes a
strong business relationship
Organizational goodwill the receiver feels
a good feeling toward the organization

Ch.
19

The Process of Communication

Feedback
travels to
sender

NOISE
Sender
Sender
has
has

Sender
Sender
encodes
encodes

idea
idea

message
message

Channel carries message

Possible
Possible additional
additional
feedback
feedback to
to
receiver
receiver

Receiver
Receiver
decodes
decodes

Receiver
Receiver
understands
understands

message
message

message
message

NOISE

COMMUNICATION IS REPRESENTED BY:

10% WORDS WHAT WE SAY
30% SOUNDS TONE
60% BODY LANGUAGE HOW WE SAY IT

KEY TO SUCCESS
WHAT YOU SAY
HOW YOU SAY

NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

Body language
POSTURE

FACIAL
EXPRESSIONS

KINESIS

Personal Appearance

YAWNING

VOICE
QUALITY

LAUGHING
PARALANGUAGE

SPEECH
RATE

PITCH
VOLUME

Non-Verbal Communication
Why dont you do it?
Why dont you do it?
Why dont you do it?
Why dont you do it?

SILENCE

TIME

PERSONAL DISTANCE

Channels of communication
Internal communication
External communication

Internal communication
The importance of internal communications
Internal communication is indeed necessary in
every
business. The ability to identify important
information, respond accordingly and share the
information with the relevant individual or
group in an organization is a skill all staff
members in a company must possess.

 Internal Communication Toolkit by Jessica

Hume (2010),
Internal communication is significant in any
organization because it is the building block of
the organizational culture.

Internal Organizational Communication

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION
Downward communication
information that flows from higher to lower levels in the
organizations hierarchy
problems:
information overload
lack of openness - withhold information even if sharing is
important
filtering - some information is left out of a message can be
distorted by adding personal interpretation
the fewer the number of authority levels through which
communication must pass, the less information will be lost or
distorted

UPWARD COMMUNICATION
Upward communication: process of
systematically encouraging lower-level
employees to share with management their
feelings and ideas.

UPWARD COMMUNICATION
(continued)

Types of Upward Communications

Formal grievance procedures

Employee attitude and opinion surveys
Suggestion systems
Open-door policy
Informal meetings
Internet chat rooms
Exit interviews

Internal Organizational Communication (cont.)

Horizontal communication
information sharing among people on the same
hierarchical level has several important functions

allows sharing of information among units

helps solve conflicts
provides social and emotional support to people
creates a culture of openness, honesty, trust, and
mutual obligation

Channel Factors

Formal and Informal

Channels of
Communication

11/18/2003

Formal Communication
Information

Vice
President

Manager

Vice
President

Manager

Manager

Efforts at coordination
Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc.

Manager

Instructions and directives

President

Organizational Charts

Centralized Networks
One central person
Unequal access to information
Central person is at the crossroads of the
information flow

Formal and Informal

Channels of
Communication

Communication Structures
Centralized

11/18/2003

Formal and Informal

Channels of
Communication

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Communication Structures
Centralized

Wheel

Formal and Informal

Channels of
Communication

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Decentralized Networks
Information can flow freely
No central person
All members play an equal role in the transmittal
of information

Formal and Informal

Channels of
Communication

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Communication Structures
Decentralized

Circle

Formal and Informal

Channels of
Communication

Communication Structures
De centralized

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Formal and Informal

Channels of
Communication

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(Internal)Informal Communication Structures

Deviation from the planned communication
structure
Direction of the flow of information is less
organized

Iin

Informal Networks

11/18/2003

E
K

G
F

D
C

E
D

I
B

Chain

McGraw-Hill

Probability
D

Gossip
A

J
J

J
A

B
B

C
Cluster

F
A

Informal Organization

Formal and Informal

Channels of
Communication

Formal and Informal

Channels of
Communication

Formal Structure vs Informal Networks

???

Formal and Informal

Channels of
Communication

11/18/2003

Grapevine
1. a secret means of spreading or receiving
information.
2. the informal transmission of (unofficial)
information, gossip or rumor from personto-person.
3. a rumor: unfounded report.
4. while the grapevine generally carries the
truth it seldom carries the whole truth

Formal and Informal

Channels of
Communication

Grapevine Characteristics

oral mostly undocumented

open to change
fast (hours instead of days)
crossing organizational boundaries

11/18/2003

How to manage grapevine

managers need to work with the grapevine
talk to the key people
prevent rumors from starting
neutralize rumors once they have started

Grapevine Patterns

EXTERNAL COMMUNICATION
Government
Investors

Customers

Stakeholders
COMMUNICATIONS

Channels

Shareholders
Internal
Analysts

Media

Public

Stock markets

Crisis Communication
To anticipate problems and solve them.
How likely to happen?
How bad if it happens?

E.g.
Lays
Iodine
Dominoes

Risk Communication Stages

Watch out!!
Calm down!!
Well get through this together.
(crisis communication)

Southwest airline

Barriers to effective
communication

Noise
Incorrect Filtering
Selective perception
Poor listening
Differing Emotional states
Language

Differing background
Information overload
Message complexity
Lack of interest
Inadequate communication structure
Closed communication climate
Unethical communication

How to overcome barriers to

communication
Apply KISS principle:

K
I
S
S

Keep
it
short
simple

How to overcome barriers to

communication.(cont.)
Be an active & attentive listener: Apply HURIER
model i.e. Hearing, Understanding,
Remembering, Interpreting, Evaluating and
Responding.
Obtain feedback

Perspectives in Communication
World, person and situation

 Visual perception

 Language: A woman without her man is

nothing.

A woman: Without her, man is

nothing
Words have no meaning, people
have meaning

 Prejudice: (culture+past experience)

Past experiences what influences you to do
something depends on your past experiences
Feelings
Environment