The Effects and Importance of Communication in Business
Communication is a means of influencing or motivating people. It is a medium through which understanding is reached or opinions and ideas are expressed between persons. Ejiofor (1989) a good information system can be described as the veins, entries, and nerve centre of an organization. Good communication is necessary to co-ordinate human and physical resources of an enterprise into an efficient and effective working unit (Kootz et al, 1980).
It is through the exchange of information that the organization becomes ware of the governments regulations, customers needs, and the social concern of the community or if the environment of their operation. Finally, it has been observed that a positive relationship exist between good communication and productivity in the organizations. (Huse, 1982), this is because as people interact effectively with others to work and solve problems, they communicate ideas, attitude and feelings. In the process, work is performed more efficiently and problems are solved more quickly.
Barriers to Effective Communication in a Business
Barriers to effect communication are factors that impede, distort or cause a breakdown in the exchange of idea and feelings. Many of these man made barriers can be identified with the organization. Some of the more common barriers include:
i Language use of words with different meaning use of Jargon by the sender.
ii Use of skill in listening
iii Use of influence or authority to stop feedback
iv Negative feelings, prejudices and other barriers resulting form divergence between senders and listeners’ interests like status and position.
v Filtering that is faulty transmission of messages along the line, addition and subtraction form original message to suit one’s convenient.
- Lack of unity of command, too great a span of control and unclear levels of authority linked with inconsistent corporate objectives and policy results in poor management and leadership, in lines of communication that are too long or unclear.
vii Stereo typing: This refers as when an individual has perceived idea about other people and refused to discriminate between individual behavior and his relationship with other people, he tends to be stereotyping.
Onwuchekwe (1996) refers to this as a halo effect. Megginson, Mosley and Pacton (1992:405) stereotyping is the perception tendency to structure and the world into a predicted patter.
Communication Channels in a Business
Communication flows in various directions in organization. I can be downward, upward, horizontal or diagonal.
- Downward communication: This deal with communication from the top of organization hierarchy down to the subordinates at the lower levels. It is through this cannel that policies, objectives and procedure are transmitted from superiors to subordinate for implementation.
- Upward communication: this is the system through which employees report and inform their superiors of their progress performance, managing whether massages have been properly transmitted and received, and whether the organization is performing efficiently.
- Horizontal communication: This is a crosswise type of communication involving people on the same level in the managerial hierarchy or across departments in the organization. This literal communication flow complements down wards and upward channels as it allows exchange of information by organization members on the same level. It is required to make a co-ordinated effort in achieving the overall organizational goal. As organization become larger, more complex and more subject to dramatic change, the horizontal requirement becomes more apparent.
- Diagonal communication: This is another type of crosswise communication. It involves information flow among persons at different levels who have no direct relationship with one another. like the lateral type of communication flow, this kind of communication is used to speed information flow, to improve understanding and to co-ordinate efforts for the achievement of organizational objectives (Weihrich Knootz, 1994).
Form of Management / Employee Communication in Public Sector Organization
In organization, information must be communicated. The channels through which these information is communicated are left to the individual concerned what he / she can effectively and efficiently. The forms of communication in organization are though verbal, non verbal and written channel.
Achieving Effect Communication between Management and Employees
It will be seen from preceding section that communication in public sector business is complex and difficult. Every manager and potential manager today needs to give extremely serious thoughts to how he can improve his efficiently as a communicator.
So far, as the language is concerned, you can study to improve your abilities as s communication in some ways. To Akinnyyemi (1981) effect communication is the translation of ideas and directive or commend or guide into oral or written words or action on the part of the communicator in such a manner that will transfer the ideas from the mind of the communicator to the mind of the receiver with the aim that the receiver will react in the manner envisaged by the communicator. Business plan does the exact the same thing. In other words, here must be oneness of thought between the communicator and the receiver for communication to be effective. In order to ensure that the objective policies strategies PF the enterprises are carried out as planned, there must be effective flow of communication between management and subordinates.
Factors Influencing Organizational Communication
Raymond (1977:336) has described four factors that influence the effectiveness of organizational communication, these are such as;
i The formal channel of communication
ii The organization authority structure
iii Job specialization
iv Information ownership
Formal channel of communication: Is a means of communication that is endorsed and probably controlled by managers. Example includes newsletters, regular memos reports and staff meeting.
Formal channel of communication influence communication effectiveness in tow ways, ever widening distance as organization develop and grow and second, the formal channels of communication is a mechanism that can affect the free flow of information between organizational levels.
But then, effect communication is usually for more difficult to achieve in a large retail organization or industry with widely dispersed branches than in departmental store and it can still inhibit the free flow of information between organizational levels, example are as the manager avoids being bogged down by irrelevant information the higher level manager may in his process miss important information.
The organization authority structure: The organization of authority structure had a similar influence on communication effectiveness, status and power differences in the organizations help determine who will communicate effectively and accuracy of the communication will also be affected by authority differences. For example, conservation between a company president CEO and a chemical worker may well be characterized by some what strained politeness and formally.
Job specialization: Usually facilities communications with differentiated group members of the same work group are likely to share the same jargon time horizons goals tasks and personal styles. Communication between highly differentiated groups however is likely to be inhibited.
Essentials of Communication
There are five fundamental rules of communication which can help get across information and communication more successful in management / employee communication.
They include and are known as the
- Concreteness forcefulness
- Correctness (Koontz and Weihrich, 1988)
Clarity: This means that words should be chosen carefully not to include words that are capable of having different meaning.
Completeness: This means that all necessary facts have to be include. The messages may not produce any or the designed effect or result if it is incomplete or inaccurate, an incomplete message sometimes dangerous then no information at all as it had the tendency to mislead the receivers.
Consciousness: Implies that no communication should be overloaded with understanding of the briefness allows for better understanding of the message.
Concreteness: Writing a departmental memo is hardly the time to bent around the bush, weak meaningless language is mot often used when the communication does not know what to communicate.
Correctness: Means to gather all the necessary facts before sending the information, if the information is false, it creates false impression on the receivers and probably weakness the public image of the organization.
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