“In no other area have intelligent men and women worked harder or with greater dedication than…on improving communications in our organizations. Yet communications has proved as elusive as the Unicorn.” These words are as true today as they were in 1973 when Peter Drucker first wrote them. Communication is an area in which many organizations struggle and even more fall …
All of us listen. From morning to night we listen to spouses, kids, clients, friends, coworkers, and employees. But the very fact that we do it so much fools us into believing that we do it well. The reality, of course, is that our superficial and often scattered attention is no more listening than communication is simply telling people stuff. …
As organizations grow, they become increasingly reliant on one-directional forms of communication such as memos, newsletters, and speeches. These can be quite efficient in some respects, but the complexity, nuance, and detail they are able to convey is inherently limited. To clarify finer levels of understanding, then, conversation is needed. The ask-listen-discuss cycle of two-way communication creates a self-correcting loop …
Content communication — the whats, whens and whys of day-to-day interaction — is extremely seductive in its tangibility. But leaders cannot afford to underestimate the impact of relational communication in the functioning of any human system. To understand the enormity of this influence, put yourself in the shoes of a woman working in an office full of men who …
Communication can be divided into two broad categories: content and relational. Content is the what of any message. It is the facts and figures, the ideas and opinions that we transmit through e-mails, conversations, memos, or notes on the bulletin board. It is anything that can be expressed in words. Relational communication pertains to the who of any interaction. Though …
Of the many content areas workplace communication can be divided into, few are more prone to difficulties than organizational choices and decisions. The who’s, what’s, and where’s of decisions are typically conveyed with acceptable clarity and consistency. The rationale behind them, however, is not. In practical terms, this means that while employees typically receive the operational outlines of upcoming changes—this …
Many factors can inhibit the establishment of conditions that tend to characterize superior-functioning organizations .Leaders’ own below-the-line beliefs, values, and assumptions, however, can be particularly problematic. Consider, for example, the following: Unexamined assumptions that one is already communicating sufficiently with employees A failure to establish formal mechanisms to assess the quality of organizational communication systems Need-to-know approaches to communication and …
When leaders assess organizational communication, they often use generalizations such as “good communication” or “communication problems.” Such expressions seem natural, but in fact obscure a great variety of context and circumstance. To better understand the variety of workplace communication, it can be helpful to think in terms of topic-specific categories of communication. One organization, for example, might excel at communicating …
Any time two or more people work in tandem, they create a human system. And that system will be only as effective as the patterns of communication that support it. For communication is the means by which diverse talents can be directed toward a shared goal, the way a collection of individual I’s can be transformed into a cohesive and …
Sufficiently recognizing and appreciating the efforts of employees poses challenges at all levels of the organizational chart. Everyone from vice presidents to fry cooks say that they hear about every small mistake they make, but only rarely are told when they have done a good job. This is due, in large part, to distortions of perception. We human beings are …