Communicating

Communication

Communication is one of the things we have discussed in our class. I’ve always felt that the study of communication was interesting because of how often it can change. It is much more complex that any of us think.

Communication Unfolded

In our book (Robbins and Judge), communication is the transfer of meaning among its members. They also stated that communication must include both the transfer and the understanding of meaning. According to Sanchez, effective communication is the most critical component of total quality management. There are eight key parts to the communication process; the sender, encoding, the message, the channel, decoding, receiver, noise, and feedback (Robbins and Judge.) According to the book the sender initiates a message and the message is the actual physical product of the sender’s encoding. The channel is how the message travels. The channel can either be formal or informal. The receiver is who the message is being directed toward. The decoding is when the receiver translates the message from the sender. The noise represents any barriers in the communication. Feedback is the check on how successful the communication was.

Communication can either flow vertically or laterally. Downward communication is the kind that goes from a higher level of a group or organization to a lower one. This is usually used by group leaders and managers that need to communicate with employees about certain things, such as job instructions, goals, policies, problems, or feedback. Downward communication does not have to be oral, it can also be written communication. Most of this kind of communication at my company is done via e-mail. While using this kind of communications managers must explain why the decision is being made. Employees are more likely to be committed to changes if they knew the reasons behind the change. I believe managers sometimes forget about this and then they wonder why employees have such a hard time committing themselves...