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MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS,
KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION
Lecturer: Donna O’Connor
Lesson 2
MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS,
KNOWLEDGE AND
INFORMATION
LO3: Be able to develop
communication processes
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The Basic Syllabus
• Understand how to assess information and
knowledge needs
• Be able to create strategies to increase personal
networking to widen involvement in the
decision-making process
• Be able to develop communication processes to
improve the gathering and dissemination of
information and organisational knowledge
• Be able to design and improve appropriate
systems for the collection, storage and
dissemination of and access to the information
and knowledge gathered
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Objectives
• Describe the functions of organizational
communication
• Explain the basic communication processes
of organizations
• Understand the effects of verbal and
nonverbal communication
• Distinguish between the functions and
dysfunctions of organizational
communication
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Objectives
• Discuss the features of listening, especially of
active listening
• Describe ways to make communication
processes more effective
• Understand the effects of new technology on
communication
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The Importance of Communication Skills
• Ninety-four percent of over 2,000 surveyed
executives ranked “communicating well” as the
most important skill for success.
--NFI Research
• Companies included in BusinessWeek’s list of best
places to work cited communication skills the most
important trait in a job candidate—more desirable
than any other trait besides college major.
--BusinessWeek
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Even More Evidence of Importance
• Employers surveyed for the Job Outlook 2009 cited
communication skills along with related traits such
as a strong work ethic, ability to work in a team, and
initiative as highly prized qualities in job applicants.
--National Association of Colleges and Employers
• Recruiters who assessed MBA programs gave
“communication and interpersonal skills” more ratings
of “very important” than any other attribute.
--The Wall Street Journal
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Functions of Communication
• Communication serves four major functions
within a group or organization:
– Control
– motivation
– emotional expression
– Information
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Functions of Communication
• Control
– Communication acts to control member behavior in several ways.
» Organizations have authority hierarchies and formal guidelines
that employees are required to follow.
» Informal communication also controls behavior.
• Motivation
– Communication fosters motivation by clarifying to employees what is
to be done, how well they are doing and what can be done to
improve performance if it’s subpar.
– The formation of specific goals, feedback on progress toward the
goals, and reinforcement of desired behavior all stimulate motivation
and require communication.
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Functions of Communication
• Emotional expression
– For many employees, their work group is a primary source for
social interaction. The communication that takes place within
the group is a fundamental mechanism by which members
show their frustration and feelings of satisfaction.
Communication therefore provides release for the emotional
expression of feelings and for fulfillment of social needs.
• Information
– The final function that communication perms relates to its role
in facilitating decision making. It provides the information that
individuals and groups need to make decisions by transmitting
the data to identify and evaluate alternative choices.
• No one of these four functions should be seen as being
more important than the others.
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Communication Networks
• Formal Network
– Well-established, usually along operational lines
– Depends on certain established forms or
“genres” in the company
– Planned and managed
• Informal Network
– Complex
– Ever changing
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Framework for Understanding
Communications
•
Communication is defined as the transmission of mutual understanding through the
use of symbols
•
If mutual understanding does not result from the transmission of symbols, there is no
communication
•
The elements in the process of communication are:
–
Sender
–
Encoding
–
Message
–
Medium
–
Decoding
–
Receiver
–
Noise
–
Feedback
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The Communication Process Model
Communication Process
The steps between a source and a receiver that result in the
transference and understanding of meaning
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Direction of Communication
Upward
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Downward
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Lateral
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Formal Channels
• The three formal channels of communication
are downward, upward, and horizontal
– Downward
• Flows from higher to lower levels
• Key aspect—subordinates react most effectively to
those matters judged to be of the greatest interest to
the boss
• Selective screening is a problem
• Example forms: job instructions, memos, policies,
procedures, manuals, etc.
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Formal Channels
– Upward
• Flows from lower to higher levels
• Most ineffective of the three channels
• Employees need opportunities to be:
– Heard
– Anonymous
• Example devices: suggestion boxes, group meetings, participative
decision making, grievance procedures, etc.
– Horizontal
• Flows from one level to an equal level
• Necessary for coordination of diverse organizational functions
• Most effective of the three channels
• Example devices: Internet, corporate intranets
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Informal Channels
• Communications within organizations do not
necessarily follow the formal pathways
• Many organizations have extensive networks of
informal communications
• Since they are ingrained into organizational life,
managers should heed and use them to benefit
programs, policies, or plans
• Elements of informal channels are:
– Grapevine—75% accurate
– Rumor—unverified belief in general circulation
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Interpersonal Communication
• Interpersonal communication travels from
person to person in face-to-face and group
settings
• It is the primary means (75%) of managerial
communication
• Communication problems can be traced to
perceptual and interpersonal style
differences
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Interpersonal Communication
• Interpersonal styles—the way in which an
individual prefers to relate to others—differ
among individuals
• Good communicators learn to recognize their
style and others’ styles as well as how to
modify their style for effective
communication
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Interpersonal Communication
• Since interpersonal communications is largely
focused on transmitting information from one
person to another, the different combinations of
knowing and not knowing the necessary facts
affects communication. The four combinations
of information known and unknown by self and
others are:
– The arena
• The area most conducive to effective interpersonal
relationships and communications
• All information is known to both the sender and receiver
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Interpersonal Communication
– The blind spot
• Information is known to receiver but not to sender
• Selective perception is related to blind-spot problems
– The façade
• Information is known to sender but unknown to receiver
– The unknown
• Information is unknown by everyone
• Interpersonal communications can be
improved by using:
– Exposure—be open and honest in sharing
information
– Feedback—sender must listen and receiver must
respond
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Types of Interpersonal Communication
• Two types of interpersonal communication:
– Verbal
• Oral communication
– Conversations in person, telephone, etc.
– Major benefits—ideas can be interchanged,
prompt feedback can be provided, allows use of
gestures, facial expressions, and other emotions
such as tone or voice
– Can result in poor communication—immediacy,
not well thought out, not clearly encoded, noise in
the process
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Types of Interpersonal Communication
– Written communication
• Major benefits—allows sender to think about message,
reread it, have others review it, provides a record of the
communication
• Major drawbacks—takes more time to prepare, no
interaction, no immediate feedback, discourages open
communication
• Non-verbal
– Sending and receiving messages by some medium other than verbal or
written
– 93% of message is via non-verbal content
– Examples: voice, face, body, proxemics
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Why Communications Break Down
• Problems occur both in formal organizational
communications and in interpersonal
communications
• Breakdown can occur whenever any one of
the elements of communication is defective
(sender, encoding, medium, decoding,
receiver, feedback)
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Why Communications Break Down
• Conflicting frames of reference
– People interpret the same communication
differently depending on their previous
experiences
• Selective perception
– People block out information if it conflicts with
what they believe
• Value judgments
– People assign an overall worth to a message prior
to receiving the entire communication
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Why Communications Break Down
• Status differences
– Status in the organization is determined by
position, title, pay, office size, etc.
• Security
– Security of the channel is an increasingly
important consideration for employees
• Source credibility
– The amount of trust, confidence, and/or faith the
receiver has in the words and actions of the
communicator
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Why Communications Break Down
• Time pressures
– Managers don’t have the time to communicate frequently with every
subordinate
• Information overload
– Managers often are deluged by information and data
• Semantic problems
– The same words may mean entirely different things to different
people
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Why Communications Break Down
• Poor listening skills
– Most individuals listen at only a 25% level of
efficiency
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How Communications Can Be
Improved
• To become better communicators, managers
must:
– Improve their messages
– Improve their own understanding of what other
people are trying to communicate
• Effective listening
– Managers must listen with understanding
• Following up
– Managers should attempt to determine whether
their intended meaning was actually received
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How Communications Can Be
Improved
• Regulating information flow
– Only significant deviations from policies and
procedures should be brought to the managers
• Utilizing feedback
– Managers should determine whether their messages
have been received and if they have produced the
intended responses
• Empathy
– Managers should put themselves into the other
person’s role and assume the viewpoints and
emotions of that person
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How Communications Can Be
Improved
• Simplifying language
– Managers must encode messages in words,
appeals, and symbols that are meaningful to the
receiver
• Organizational stories
– Using narrative allows managers to forge
relationships with diverse audiences well beyond
those afforded by a technical argument
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Listening
• Different from hearing
• Hearing is a physiological process of
detecting and processing sounds
• Listening: mental process of assigning
meaning to sounds
• Communication professionals view it as a
primary skill for success
• People spend about 50 percent of their time
listening
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Listening
• Intrapersonal and interpersonal activities
– Person receives message from another person
(interpersonal)
– Tries to interpret it (intrapersonal)
– Responds to other person to show meaning given
to message (interpersonal)
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Active Listening
• Listener is responsible for the completeness
of a speaker's message
• Listener's role is not passive
– Absorbing spoken message
– Deriving meaning from it
• Accurately hear facts in message
• Understand speaker's feelings about message
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Active Listening
• Deliberate effort to understand a message
from speaker's viewpoint
• Meaning of message includes both content
and speaker’s feelings
• Listener attends to all verbal and nonverbal
cues
• Listener may ask questions for clarification
• Listener may rephrase speaker’s message
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Technology and Communication
• Major changes from fiber optics and new
satellites
• Digital cellular telephone: easy
communication around the world
• Wireless facsimile devices and modems
• Laptop or notepad computers with digital
cellular facsimile devices and modems
• Unprecedented flexibility and mobility of
communication
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Technology and Communication
• Distributed computing
• Digital technology and data on a network
– Text
– Images
– Audio
– Video
– Numeric
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Technology and Communication
• Satellites, fiber optics, Internet, personal
computers
– High-speed connections among networks
– Global operations: move all forms of information
quickly to distant places
– Internet commerce
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Technology and Communication
• Satellites, fiber optics, Internet, Personal
computers (cont.)
– Students in different countries interact to
complete course work
– Transmit almost any media
– Lessen effects of time zone differences
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Technology and Communication
• Videoconferencing
– Face-to-face communication over almost any
distance
• See each other
• Speak to each other
• Show graphic images
• Send documents
– Substitutes for traveling to distant sites for
meetings
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Technology and Communication
• Desktop videoconferencing
– Two-way video and audio interaction
– Window on each person's computer screen lets
them see each other
– Text or graphics show on screen
– Interact to revise material for an upcoming joint
business presentation
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Technology and Communication
• Multimedia personal computers
– Manage information media of any form
– Computer features
•
•
•
•
Scanners
Sound boards
Presentation software
CD-ROMs
– Animation software
– Make large audience communication more
dramatic than in past
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Review Questions
• Business communication has four main goals.
Discuss each goal briefly. Which is the most
important goal and why?
• What is a communication barrier? List at least
five (5) communication barriers and briefly
discuss them.
• Discuss how e-mail and the use of electronic
communication has affected the workplace and
the practice of organizational communication.
State the pros and cons.
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